Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1886 — A Solar Cyclone. [ARTICLE]

A Solar Cyclone.

Those who have looked through a large telescope under favorable atmospheric conditions, at one of those immense cyclones which’'"—occasionally break out on the sun, have derived from what they saw a very good idea of the origin of sunlight. They have seen that JJje brightest portion of the. surface of the sun consists of columns of intensely hot metalic vapors, averaging about thrtie hundred miles in diameter, rising from its interior and gloAving with extreme brilliancy, from the the presence of clouds formed, probably, of shining particles of carbon precipitated from its vapors as the tops of tlie columns reach the surface and lose heat by expansion and radiation. (A good idea of such a precipitation is had by observing the particles of water condensed from transparent vapor, is unusually high thunderheads, Avhere the action is in some respects similar.) Between these ascending columns are seen descending masses of cooler vapors, rendered dark and smoky by relatively cool and opaque particles of excessively lrigh temperature in the condition of transparent vapor. In the immediate region, however, where the cyclone is raging, these bright ascending columns are drawn out horizontally by the inrushing metallic winds” (which often reach a velocity of a thousand miles per hour) into long filaments, pointing in general toward the center of the disturbance, which is alvvays occupied by a huge cloud of smoke (frequently 20,000 miles in diameter) rapidly settling back into the interior of the sun. Over and across this great central black cloud are often driven long arms of the shining carbonclouds, which, when the cyclonic action is very strong, bend round into slowly changing spiral forms, very suggestive of intense action. A striking illusion, invariably connected with this sight, is that the observer seems to be viewing it from a position quite near the scene of the disturbance, Avhose minute and complicated details are seen with exquisite distinctness.