Part 7 (1/2)

The seasons of a planet are caused by the inclination of its axis to the plane of its...o...b..t. In Fig. 39 the rotating earth is seen at A, with its northern pole turning in constant sunlight, and its southern pole in constant darkness; everywhere south of the equator is more darkness than day, and hence winter. Pa.s.sing on to B, the world is seen illuminated equally on each side of the equator. Every place has its twelve hours' darkness and light at each revolution. But at C--the axis of the earth always preserving the same direction--the northern pole is shrouded in continual gloom. Every place [Page 105] north of the equator gets more darkness than light, and hence winter.

The varying inclination of the axes of the different planets gives a wonderful variety to their seasons. The sun is always nearly over the equator of Jupiter, and every place has nearly its five hours day and five hours night. The seasons of Earth, Mars, and Saturn are so much alike, except in length, that no comment is necessary. The ice-fields at either pole of Mars are observed to enlarge and contract, according as it is winter or summer there.

Saturn's seasons are each seven and a half years long. The alternate darkness and light at the poles is fifteen years long.

But the seasons of Venus present the greatest anomaly, if its a.s.signed inclination of axis (75) can be relied on as correct, which is doubtful. Its tropic zone extends nearly to the pole, and at the same time the winter at the other pole reaches the equator. The short period of this planet causes it to present the south pole to the sun only one hundred and twelve days after it has been scorching the one at the north. This gives two winters, springs, summers, and autumns to the equator in two hundred and twenty-five days.

If each whirling world should leave behind it a trail of light to mark its...o...b..t, and our perceptions of form were sufficiently acute, we should see that these curves of light are not exact circles, but a little flattened into an ellipse, with the sun always in one of the foci. Hence each planet is nearer to the sun at one part of its...o...b..t than another; that point is called the perihelion, and the farthest point aphelion. This eccentricity of orbit, or distance of the sun from the centre, is very small. [Page 106] In the case of Venus it is only .007 of the whole, and in no instance is it more than .2, viz., that of Mercury. This makes the sun appear twice as large, bright, and hot as seen and felt on Mercury at its perihelion than at its aphelion. The earth is 3,236,000 miles nearer to the sun in our winter than summer. Hence the summer in the southern hemisphere is more intolerable than in the northern. But this eccentricity is steadily diminis.h.i.+ng at a uniform rate, by reason of the perturbing influence of the other planets. In the case of some other planets it is steadily increasing, and, if it were to go on a sufficient time, might cause frightful extremes of temperature; but Lalande has shown that there are limits at which it is said, ”Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.” Then a compensative diminution will follow.

Conceive a large globe, to represent the sun, floating in a round pond. The axis will be inclined 7-1/2 to the surface of the water, one side of the equator be 7-1/2 below the surface, and the other side the same distance above. Let the half-submerged earth sail around the sun in an appropriate orbit. The surface of the water will be the plane of the orbit, and the water that reaches out to the sh.o.r.e, where the stars would be set, will be the plane of the ecliptic. It is the plane of the earth's...o...b..t extended to the stars.

The orbits of all the planets do not lie in the same plane, but are differently inclined to the plane of the ecliptic, or the plane of the earth's...o...b..t. Going out from the sun's equator, so as to see all the orbits of the planets on the edge, we should see them inclined to that of the earth, as in Fig. 40.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 40.--Inclination of the Planes of Orbits.]

If the earth, and Saturn, and Pallas were lying in [Page 107] the same direction from the sun, and the outer bodies were to start in a direct line for the sun, they would not collide with the earth on their way; but Saturn would pa.s.s 4,000,000 and Pallas 50,000,000 miles over our heads. From this same cause we do not see Venus and Mercury make a transit across the disk of the sun at every revolution.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 41.--Inclination of Orbits of Venus and Earth.

Nodal Line, D B.]

Fig. 41 shows a view of the orbits of the earth and Venus seen not from the edge but from a position somewhat above. The point E, where Venus crosses the plane of the earth's...o...b..t, is called the ascending node. If the earth were at B when Venus is at E, Venus would be seen on the disk of the sun, making a transit. The same would be true if the earth were at D, and Venus at the descending node F.

This general view of the flying spheres is full of interest. [Page 108] While quivering themselves with thunderous noises, all is silent about them; earthquakes may be struggling on their surfaces, but there is no hint of contention in the quiet of s.p.a.ce. They are too distant from one another to exchange signals, except, perhaps, the fleet of asteroids that sail the azure between Mars and Jupiter.

Some of these come near together, continuing to fill each other's sky for days with brightness, then one gradually draws ahead. They have all phases for each other--crescent, half, full, and gibbous.

These hundreds of bodies fill the realm where they are with inexhaustible variety. Beyond are vast s.p.a.ces--cold, dark, void of matter, but full of power. Occasionally a little spark of light looms up rapidly into a world so huge that a thousand of our earths could not occupy its vast bulk. It swings its four or eight moons with perfect skill and infinite strength; but they go by and leave the silence unbroken, the darkness unlighted for years.

Nevertheless, every part of s.p.a.ce is full of power. Nowhere in its wide orbit can a world find a place; at no time in its eons of flight can it find an instant when the sun does not hold it in safety and life.

_The Outlook from the Earth._

If we come in from our wanderings in s.p.a.ce and take an outlook from the earth, we shall observe certain movements, easily interpreted now that we know the system, but nearly inexplicable to men who naturally supposed that the earth was the largest, most stable, and central body in the universe.

We see, first of all, sun, moon, and stars rise in the east, mount the heavens, and set in the west. As I [Page 109] revolve in my pivoted study-chair, and see all sides of the room--library, maps, photographs, telescope, and windows--I have no suspicion that it is the room that whirls; but looking out of a car-window in a depot at another car, one cannot tell which is moving, whether it be his car or the other. In regard to the world, we have come to feel its whirl. We have noticed the pyramids of Egypt lifted to hide the sun; the mountains of Hymettus hurled down, so as to disclose the moon that was behind them to the watchers on the Acropolis; and the mighty mountains of Moab removed to reveal the stars of the east.

Train the telescope on any star; it must be moved frequently, or the world will roll the instrument away from the object. Suspend a cannon-ball by a fine wire at the equator; set it vibrating north and south, and it swings all day in precisely the same direction.

But suspend it directly over the north pole, and set it swinging toward Was.h.i.+ngton; in six hours after it is swinging toward Rome, in Italy; in twelve hours, toward Siam, in Asia; in nineteen hours, toward the Sandwich Islands; and in twenty-four, toward Was.h.i.+ngton again, not because it has changed the plane of its vibration, but because the earth has whirled beneath it, and the torsion of the wire has not been sufficient to compel the plane of the original direction to change with the turning of the earth. The law of inertia keeps it moving in the same direction. The same experimental proof of revolution is shown in a proportional degree at any point between the pole and the equator.

But the watchers on the Acropolis do not get turned over so as to see the moon at the same time every night. [Page 110] We turn down our eastern horizon, but we do not find fair Luna at the same moment we did the night before. We are obliged to roll on for some thirty to fifty minutes longer before we find the moon. It must be going in the same direction, and it takes us longer to get round to it than if if it were always in the same spot; so we notice a star near the moon one night--it is 13 west of the moon the next night. The moon is going around the earth from west to east, and if it goes 13 in one day, it will take a little more than twenty-seven days to go the entire circle of 360.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 42.--Showing the Sun's Movement among the Stars.]

[Page 111]

In our outlook we soon observe that we do not by our revolution come to see the same stars rise at the same hour every night. Orion and the Pleiades, our familiar friends in the winter heavens, are gone from the summer sky. Have they fled, or are we turned from them? This is easily understood from Fig. 42.

When the observer on the earth at A looks into the midnight sky he sees the stars at E; but as the earth pa.s.ses on to B, he sees those stars at E three minutes sooner every night; and at midnight the stars at F are over his head. Thus in a year, by going around the sun, we have every star of the celestial dome in our midnight sky. We see also how the sun appears among the successive constellations. When we are at A, we see the sun among the stars at G; but as we move toward B, the sun appears to move toward H.

If we had observed the sun rise on the 20th of August, 1876, we should have seen it rise a little before Regulus, and a little south of it, in such a relation as circle 1 is to the star in Fig.

43. By sunset the earth had moved enough to make the sun appear to be at circle 2, and by the next morning at circle 3, at which time Regulus would rise before the sun. Thus the earth's motion seems to make the sun traverse a regular circle among the stars once a year: but it is not the sun that moves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 43.]