Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1881 — Marvels of the Universe Grouped Together. [ARTICLE]

Marvels of the Universe Grouped Together.

Boston Advertiser. Professor Young, the mathematician and astronomer, give us some concrete illustrations of the marvels of the universe that are fascinating in their way. The traveler who would make the circuit of the world in eight days would require nearly twenty-four years to circumnavigate the The sun’s surface is nearly 12,000 tithes, and its volume or bulk more than 1,300,000'' times greater than that of the earth. If the earth is represented by a threeinch globe, the sun, on the same scale, will be more tbsn twent seven feet in diameter, and its distance 3,000 feet. If the sun were hollow, and the earth at its center, there would be room for the moon 240,000 miles away, and for another satellite 190,000 miles beyond her. The mass of the sun, that is, the quanity of matter contained in it, is nearly 330,000 times as great as that of the earth. This mass is about 750 times as great as the combined masses of all the planets and satellites of the solar system; it is two octillions of tons. The attractive pull of this tremendous mass upon the earth, at a distance of nearly 98,000,000 miles, again transcends" all conception. It is thirty-six quadrillions of tons; in figures, 36 followed by 17 ciphers. If gravitation were to cease, and steel wires were used to hold the earth in her orbit, each wire being as large as the heaviest telegraph wire (No. 4), it would require nine to each square inch of the earth’s surface, and me whole sunward hemisphere of our globe would have to be covered as thickly as blades of grass upon a lawn. A man who oh earth would weigh 250 pounds, would at the sun weigh nearly two tons, and be unable to stir. A planet as far away as the nearest fixed star, which is more than 200,000 times more remote than the sun from if not disturbed by any other attractions, would still be governed in its motion by the sun, though, if moving iii a circle, nearly 90,000,000 years would be required for a single revolution. If the motion s<-ems slow, it is because the distance is so vast; but the planet would still be so powerfully held in its orbit that it could only free itself from solar attraction by darting away with a velocity of more than 300 feet per second.