Astronomy of To-day Part 11

It used to be thought that the earth was composed of a relatively thin crust, with a molten interior. Scientific men now believe, on the other hand, that such a condition cannot after all prevail, and that the earth must be more or less solid all through, except perhaps in certain isolated places where collections of molten matter may exist.

The _atmosphere_, or air which we breathe, is in the form of a layer of limited depth which closely envelops the earth. Actually, it is a mixture of several gases, the most important being nitrogen and oxygen, which between them practically make up the air, for the proportion of the other gases, the chief of which is carbonic acid gas, is exceedingly small.

It is hard to picture our earth, as we know it, without this atmosphere.

Deprived of it, men at once would die; but even if they could be made to go on living without it by any miraculous means, they would be like unto deaf beings, for they would never hear any sound. What we call _sounds_ are merely vibrations set up in the air, which travel along and strike upon the drum of the ear.

The atmosphere is densest near the surface of the earth, and becomes less and less dense away from it, as a result of diminis.h.i.+ng pressure of air from above. The greater portion of it is acc.u.mulated within four or five miles of the earth's surface.

It is impossible to determine exactly at what distance from the earth's surface the air ceases altogether, for it grows continually more and more rarefied. There are, however, two distinct methods of ascertaining the distance beyond which it can be said practically not to exist. One of these methods we get from twilight. Twilight is, in fact, merely light reflected to us from those upper regions of the air, which still continue to be illuminated by the sun after it has disappeared from our view below the horizon. The time during which twilight lasts, shows us that the atmosphere must be at least fifty miles high.

But the most satisfactory method of ascertaining the height to which the atmosphere extends is from the observation of meteors. It is found that these bodies become ignited, by the friction of pa.s.sing into the atmosphere, at a height of about 100 miles above the surface of the earth. We thus gather that the atmosphere has a certain degree of density even at this height. It may, indeed, extend as far as about 150 miles.

The layer of atmosphere surrounding our earth acts somewhat in the manner of the gla.s.s covering of a greenhouse, bottling in the sun's rays, and thus storing up their warmth for our benefit. Were this not so, the heat which we get from the sun would, after falling upon the earth, be quickly radiated again into s.p.a.ce.

It is owing to the unsteadiness of the air that stars are seen to twinkle. A night when this takes place, though it may please the average person, is worse than useless to the astronomer, for the unsteadiness is greatly magnified in the telescope. This twinkling is, no doubt, in a great measure responsible for the conventional "points" with which Art has elected to embellish stars, and which, of course, have no existence in fact.

The phenomena of _Refraction_,[13] namely, that bending which rays of light undergo, when pa.s.sing _slant-wise_ from a rare into a dense transparent medium, are very marked with regard to the atmosphere. The denser the medium into which such rays pa.s.s, the greater is this bending found to be. Since the layer of air around us becomes denser and denser towards the surface of the earth, it will readily be granted that the rays of light reaching our eyes from a celestial object, will suffer the greater bending the lower the object happens to be in the sky. Celestial objects, unless situated directly overhead, are thus not seen in their true places, and when nearest to the horizon are most out of place. The bending alluded to is upwards. Thus the sun and the moon, for instance, when we see them resting upon the horizon, are actually _entirely_ beneath it.

When the sun, too, is sinking towards the horizon, the lower edge of its disc will, for the above reason, look somewhat more raised than the upper. The result is a certain appearance of flattening; which may plainly be seen by any one who watches the orb at setting.

In observations to determine the exact positions of celestial objects correction has to be made for the effects of refraction, according to the apparent elevation of these objects in the sky. Such effects are least when the objects in question are directly overhead, for then the rays of light, coming from them to the eye, enter the atmosphere perpendicularly, and not at any slant.

A very curious effect, due to refraction, has occasionally been observed during a total eclipse of the moon. To produce an eclipse of this kind, _the earth must, of course, lie directly between the sun and the moon_.

Therefore, when we see the shadow creeping over the moon's surface, the sun should actually be well below the horizon. But when a lunar eclipse happens to come on just about sunset, the sun, although really sunk below the horizon, appears still above it through refraction, and the eclipsed moon, situated, of course, exactly opposite to it in the sky, is also lifted up above the horizon by the same cause. Pliny, writing in the first century of the Christian era, describes an eclipse of this kind, and refers to it as a "prodigy." The phenomenon is known as a "horizontal eclipse." It was, no doubt, partly owing to it that the ancients took so long to decide that an eclipse of the moon was really caused by the shadow cast by the earth. Plutarch, indeed, remarks that it was easy enough to understand that a solar eclipse was caused by the interposition of the moon, but that one could not imagine by the interposition _of what body_ the moon itself could be eclipsed.

In that apparent movement of the heavens about the earth, which men now know to be caused by the mere rotation of the earth itself, a slight change is observed to be continually taking place. The stars, indeed, are always found to be gradually drawing westward, _i.e._ towards the sun, and losing themselves one after the other in the blaze of his light, only to reappear, however, on the other side of him after a certain lapse of time. This is equivalent to saying that the sun itself seems always creeping slowly _eastward_ in the heaven. The rate at which this appears to take place is such that the sun finds itself back again to its original position, with regard to the starry background, at the end of a year's time. In other words, the sun seems to make a complete tour of the heavens in the course of a year. Here, however, we have another illusion, just as the daily movement of the sky around the earth was an illusion. The truth indeed is, that this apparent movement of the sun eastward among the stars during a year, arises merely from a _continuous displacement of his position_ caused by an actual motion of the earth itself around him in that very time. In a word, it is the earth which really moves around the sun, and not the sun around the earth.

The stress laid upon this fundamental point by Copernicus, marks the separation of the modern from the ancient view. Not that Copernicus, indeed, had obtained any real proof that the earth is merely a planet revolving around the sun; but it seemed to his profound intellect that a movement of this kind on the part of our globe was the more likely explanation of the celestial riddle. The idea was not new; for, as we have already seen, certain of the ancient Greeks (Aristarchus of Samos, for example) had held such a view; but their notions on the subject were very fanciful, and unsupported by any good argument.

What Copernicus, however, really seems to have done was to _insist_ upon the idea that the sun occupied the _centre_, as being more consonant with common sense. No doubt, he was led to take up this position by the fact that the sun appeared entirely of a different character from the other members of the system. The one body in the scheme, which performed the important function of dispenser of light and heat, would indeed be more likely to occupy a position apart from the rest; and what position more appropriate for its purposes than the centre!

But here Copernicus only partially solved the difficult question. He unfortunately still clung to an ancient belief, which as yet remained unquestioned; _i.e._ the great virtue, one might almost say, the _divineness_, of circular motion. The ancients had been hag-ridden, so to speak, by the circle; and it appeared to them that such a perfectly formed curve was alone fitted for the celestial motions. Ptolemy employed it throughout his system. According to him the "planets" (which included, under the ancient view, both the sun and the moon), moved around the earth in circles; but, as their changing positions in the sky could not be altogether accounted for in this way, it was further supposed that they performed additional circular movements, around peculiarly placed centres, during the course of their orbital revolutions. Thus the Ptolemaic system grew to be extremely complicated; for astronomers did not hesitate to add new circular movements whenever the celestial positions calculated for the planets were found not to tally with the positions observed. In this manner, indeed, they succeeded in doctoring the theory, so that it fairly satisfied the observations made with the rough instruments of pre-telescopic times.

Although Copernicus performed the immense service to astronomy of boldly directing general attention to the central position of the sun, he unfortunately took over for the new scheme the circular machinery of the Ptolemaic system. It therefore remained for the famous Kepler, who lived about a century after him, to find the complete solution. Just as Copernicus, for instance, had broken free from tradition with regard to the place of the sun; so did Kepler, in turn, break free from the spell of circular motion, and thus set the coping-stone to the new astronomical edifice. This astronomer showed, in fact, that if the paths of the planets around the sun, and of the moon around the earth, were not circles, but _ellipses_, the movements of these bodies about the sky could be correctly accounted for. The extreme simplicity of such an arrangement was far more acceptable than the bewildering intricacy of movement required by the Ptolemaic theory. The Copernican system, as amended by Kepler, therefore carried the day; and was further strengthened, as we have already seen, by the telescopic observations of Galileo and the researches of Newton into the effects of gravitation.

And here a word on the circle, now fallen from its high estate. The ancients were in error in supposing that it stood entirely apart--the curve of curves. As a matter of fact it is merely _a special kind of ellipse_. To put it paradoxically, it is an ellipse which has no ellipticity, an oval without any ovalness!

Notwithstanding all this, astronomy had to wait yet a long time for a definite proof of the revolution of the earth around the sun. The leading argument advanced by Aristotle, against the reality of any movement of the earth, still held good up to about seventy years ago.

That philosopher had pointed out that the earth could not move about in s.p.a.ce to any great extent, or the stars would be found to alter their apparent places in the sky, a thing which had never been observed to happen. Centuries ran on, and instruments became more and more perfect, yet no displacements of stars were noted. In accepting the Copernican theory men were therefore obliged to suppose these objects as immeasurably distant. At length, however, between the years 1835 and 1840, it was discovered by the Prussian astronomer, Bessel, that a star known as 61 Cygni--that is to say, the star marked in celestial atlases as No. 61 in the constellation of the Swan--appeared, during the course of a year, to perform a tiny circle in the heavens, such as would result from a movement on our own part around the sun. Since then about forty-three stars have been found to show minute displacements of a similar kind, which cannot be accounted for upon any other supposition than that of a continuous revolution of the earth around the sun. The triumph of the Copernican system is now at last supreme.

If the axis of the earth stood "straight up," so to speak, while the earth revolved in its...o...b..t, the sun would plainly keep always on a level with the equator. This is equivalent to stating that, in such circ.u.mstances, a person at the equator would see it rise each morning exactly in the east, pa.s.s through the _zenith_, that is, the point directly overhead of him, at midday, and set in the evening due in the west. As this would go on unchangingly at the equator every day throughout the year, it should be clear that, at any particular place upon the earth, the sun would in these conditions always be seen to move in an unvarying manner across the sky at a certain alt.i.tude depending upon the lat.i.tude of the place. Thus the more north one went upon the earth's surface, the more southerly in the sky would the sun's path lie; while at the north pole itself, the sun would always run round and round the horizon. Similarly, the more south one went from the equator the more northerly would the path of the sun lie, while at the south pole it would be seen to skirt the horizon in the same manner as at the north pole. The result of such an arrangement would be, that each place upon the earth would always have one unvarying climate; in which case there would not exist any of those beneficial changes of season to which we owe so much.

The changes of season, which we fortunately experience, are due, however, to the fact that the sun does not appear to move across the sky each day at one unvarying alt.i.tude, but is continually altering the position of its path; so that at one period of the year it pa.s.ses across the sky low down, and remains above the horizon for a short time only, while at another it moves high up across the heavens, and is above the horizon for a much longer time. Actually, the sun seems little by little to creep up the sky during one half of the year, namely, from mid-winter to mid-summer, and then, just as gradually, to slip down it again during the other half, namely, from mid-summer to mid-winter. It will therefore be clear that every region of the earth is much more thoroughly warmed during one portion of the year than during another, _i.e._ when the sun's path is high in the heavens than when it is low down.

Once more we find appearances exactly the contrary from the truth. The earth is in this case the real cause of the deception, just as it was in the other cases. The sun does not actually creep slowly up the sky, and then slowly dip down it again, but, owing to the earth's axis being set aslant, different regions of the earth's surface are presented to the sun at different times. Thus, in one portion of its...o...b..t, the northerly regions of the earth are presented to the sun, and in the other portion the southerly. It follows of course from this, that when it is summer in the northern hemisphere it is winter in the southern, and _vice versa_ (see Fig. 13, p. 176).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 13.--Summer and Winter.]

The fact that, in consequence of this slant of the earth's axis, the sun is for part of the year on the north side of the equator and part of the year on the south side, leads to a very peculiar result. The path of the moon around the earth is nearly on the same plane with the earth's path around the sun. The moon, therefore, always keeps to the same regions of the sky as the sun. The slant of the earth's axis thus regularly displaces the position of both the sun and the moon to the north and south sides of the equator respectively in the manner we have been describing. Were the earth, however, a perfect sphere, such change of position would not produce any effect. We have shown, however, that the earth is not a perfect sphere, but that it is bulged out all round the equator. The result is that this bulged-out portion swings slowly under the pulls of solar and lunar gravitation, in response to the displacements of the sun and moon to the north and to the south of it.

This slow swing of the equatorial regions results, of course, in a certain slow change of the direction of the earth's axis, so that the north pole does not go on pointing continually to the same region of the sky. The change in the direction of the axis is, however, so extremely slight, that it shows up only after the lapse of ages. The north pole of the heavens, that is, the region of the sky towards which the north pole of the earth's axis points, displaces therefore extremely slowly, tracing out a wide circle, and arriving back again to the same position in the sky only after a period of about 25,000 years. At present the north pole of the heavens is quite close to a bright star in the tail of the constellation of the Little Bear, which is consequently known as the Pole Star; but in early Greek times it was at least ten times as far away from this star as it is now. After some 12,000 years the pole will point to the constellation of Lyra, and Vega, the most brilliant star in that constellation, will then be considered as the pole star. This slow twisting of the earth's axis is technically known as _Precession_, or the _Precession of the Equinoxes_ (see Plate XIX., p. 292).

The slow displacement of the celestial pole appears to have attracted the attention of men in very early times, but it was not until the second century B.C. that precession was established as a fact by the celebrated Greek astronomer, Hipparchus. For the ancients this strange cyclical movement had a mystic significance; and they looked towards the end of the period as the end, so to speak, of a "dispensation," after which the life of the universe would begin anew:--

"Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.

Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna; . . . . . .

Alter erit tum Tiphys, et altera quae vehat Argo Delectos heroas; erunt etiam altera bella, Atque iterum ad Trojam magnus mittetur Achilles."

We have seen that the orbit of the earth is an ellipse, and that the sun is situated at what is called the _focus_, a point not in the middle of the ellipse, but rather towards one of its ends. Therefore, during the course of the year the distance of the earth from the sun varies. The sun, in consequence of this, is about 3,000,000 miles _nearer_ to us in our northern _winter_ than it is in our northern summer, a statement which sounds somewhat paradoxical. This variation in distance, large as it appears in figures, can, however, not be productive of much alteration in the amount of solar heat which we receive, for during the first week in January, when the distance is least, the sun only looks about _one-eighteenth_ broader than at the commencement of July, when the distance is greatest. The great disparity in temperature between winter and summer depends, as we have seen, upon causes of quite another kind, and varies between such wide limits that the effects of this slight alteration in the distance of the sun from the earth may be neglected for practical purposes.

The Tides are caused by the gravitational pull of the sun and moon upon the water of the earth's surface. Of the two, the moon, being so much the nearer, exerts the stronger pull, and therefore may be regarded as the chief cause of the tides. This pull always draws that portion of the water, which happens to be right underneath the moon at the time, into a heap; and there is also a _second_ heaping of water at the same moment _at the contrary side of the earth_, the reasons for which can be shown mathematically, but cannot be conveniently dealt with here.

As the earth rotates on its axis each portion of its surface pa.s.ses beneath the moon, and is swelled up by this pull; the watery portions being, however, the only ones to yield visibly. A similar swelling up, as we have seen, takes place at the point exactly away from the moon.

Thus each portion of our globe is borne by the rotation through two "tide-areas" every day, and this is the reason why there are two tides during every twenty-four hours.

The crest of the watery swelling is known as high tide. The journey of the moon around the earth takes about a month, and this brings her past each place in turn by about fifty minutes later each day, which is the reason why high tide is usually about twenty-five minutes later each time.

The moon is, however, not the sole cause of the tides, but the sun, as we have said, has a part in the matter also. When it is new moon the gravitational attractions of both sun and moon are clearly acting together from precisely the same direction, and, therefore, the tide will be pulled up higher than at other times. At full moon, too, the same thing happens; for, although the bodies are now acting from opposite directions, they do not neutralise each other's pulls as one might imagine, since the sun, in the same manner as the moon, produces a tide both under it and also at the opposite side of the earth. Thus both these tides are actually increased in height. The exceptionally high tides which we experience at new and full moons are known as _Spring Tides_, in contradistinction to the minimum high tides, which are known as _Neap Tides_.

The ancients appear to have had some idea of the cause of the tides. It is said that as early as 1000 B.C. the Chinese noticed that the moon exerted an influence upon the waters of the sea. The Greeks and Romans, too, had noticed the same thing; and Caesar tells us that when he was embarking his troops for Britain the tide was high _because_ the moon was full. Pliny went even further than this, in recognising a similar connection between the waters and the sun.

From casual observation one is inclined to suppose that the high tide always rises many feet. But that this is not the case is evidenced by the fact that the tides in the midst of the great oceans are only from three to four feet high. However, in the seas and straits around our Isles, for instance, the tides rise very many feet indeed, but this is merely owing to the extra heaping up which the large volumes of water undergo in forcing their pa.s.sage through narrow channels.

As the earth, in rotating, is continually pa.s.sing through these tide-areas, one might expect that the friction thus set up would tend to slow down the rotation itself. Such a slowing down, or "tidal drag," as it is called, is indeed continually going on; but the effects produced are so exceedingly minute that it will take many millions of years to make the rotation appreciably slower, and so to lengthen the day.

Recently it has been proved that the axis of the earth is subject to a very small displacement, or rather, "wobbling," in the course of a period of somewhat over a year. As a consequence of this, the pole s.h.i.+fts its place through a circle of, roughly, a few yards in width during the time in question. This movement is, perhaps, the combined result of two causes. One of these is the change of place during the year of large ma.s.ses of material upon our earth; such as occurs, for instance, when ice and snow melt, or when atmospheric and ocean currents transport from place to place great bodies of air and water.

The other cause is supposed to be the fact that the earth is not absolutely rigid, and so yields to certain strains upon it. In the course of investigation of this latter point the interesting conclusion has been reached by the famous American astronomer, Professor Simon Newcomb, that our globe as a whole is _a little more rigid than steel_.

We will bring this chapter to a close by alluding briefly to two strange appearances which are sometimes seen in our night skies. These are known respectively as the Zodiacal Light and the Gegenschein.

The _Zodiacal Light_ is a faint cone-shaped illumination which is seen to extend upwards from the western horizon after evening twilight has ended, and from the eastern horizon before morning twilight has begun.

It appears to rise into the sky from about the position where the sun would be at that time. The proper season of the year for observing it during the evening is in the spring, while in autumn it is best seen in the early morning. In our lat.i.tudes its light is not strong enough to render it visible when the moon is full, but in the tropics it is reported to be very bright, and easily seen in full moonlight. One theory regards it as the reflection of light from swarms of meteors revolving round the sun; another supposes it to be a very rarefied extension of the corona.

The _Gegenschein_ (German for "counter-glow") is a faint oval patch of light, seen in the sky exactly opposite to the place of the sun. It is usually treated of in connection with the zodiacal light, and one theory regards it similarly as of meteoric origin. Another theory, however--that of Mr. Evershed--considers it a sort of _tail_ to the earth (like a comet's tail) composed of hydrogen and helium--the two _lightest_ gases we know--driven off from our planet in the direction contrary to the sun.

[13] Every one knows the simple experiment in which a coin lying at the bottom of an empty basin, and hidden from the eye by its side, becomes visible when a certain quant.i.ty of water has been poured in. This is an example of refraction. The rays of light coming from the coin ought _not_ to reach the eye, on account of the basin's side being in the way; yet by the action of the water they are _refracted_, or bent over its edge, in such a manner that they do.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MOON

What we call the moon's "phases" are merely the various ways in which we see the sun s.h.i.+ning upon her surface during the course of her monthly revolutions around the earth (see Fig. 14, p. 184). When she pa.s.ses in the neighbourhood of the sun all his light falls upon that side which is turned away from us, and so the side which is turned towards us is unillumined, and therefore invisible. When in this position the moon is spoken of as _new_.

As she continues her motion around the earth, she draws gradually to the east of the sun's place in the sky. The sunlight then comes somewhat from the side; and so we see a small portion of the right side of the lunar disc illuminated. This is the phase known as the _crescent_ moon.