Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1883 — Size of Sun Spots. [ARTICLE]

Size of Sun Spots.

Mr. H. A. Smith, in the Popular Science Monthly, gives some interesting data on astronomy, in the course of j which he says a single spot has measured from 40,000 to 50,000 miles in diameter, j ip-gwliich, aS will be readily seen, we i could put opr eartlj for a standing I point of observation, "Stld - hote how the I vast faeular waves roll and leapjdjout.! , 'the edge of the spotj how the | metallic rain is ferUied from the warmer | portion of the sun. In June, 1848, a | solar a week visible to 1 eye, having a diameter of pauout 77,000 miles; and in 1837 a cluster of spots covered an area of nearly j 4,000,000,000 square miles. When we j call to mind that the smallest spot • can be seen with the most poWeii ful telescope must have an area of about 50,000 miles, we can readily see how j large a spot must be in order to be j visible to the unaided eye. Pasteroff, | in 182% measured a spot whose umbra had an extent four times greater that •j the earth's surface. In August, 1858, a spot was measured by Newall, and it | bad a diameter of 58,000 miles—more, as will be seen, than seven tones the diameter of the earth. The largest I spot that has ever been known to as- | tronomy was.no less than 153,500 miles.