Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1879 — Wonders of Venus. [ARTICLE]

Wonders of Venus.

Many who admire the beautiful star which now adorns the Western sky until more than three hours after the commencement of twilight may not be aware that its splendor is derived from the sun; that in it, like on the earth, night curtains the landscape, morning dawns, and seasons in quick succession come and go. Lofty mountains show that forces similar to those which upheaved the Alps and lifted the sum-

mits of the Andes above the regions of eternal snow have ridged its surface and covered it with hills and vales. Variable spots prove that clouds float n its atmosphere, and gleams of light, which dart across its sky, afford evidence that in it lightning seams the sky and the thunder’s roll reverberates through the valleys. But three hundred mills less in diameter than the earth and revolving on its axis in nearly the same time, Venus makes thirteen revolutions around the sun, while the former makes eight. As the inclination of the planet to the plane of its orbit is at lout fifty-four degrees, its torrid zone is double that extent, or 108 degrees, and its polar circles fifty-four degrees from the poles. It therefore has two frigid and a torrid, but no temperate zone. Since the sun must arrive at the equator and depart from it to the distance of fifty-four degrees twice in each of its years, there must be two summers land two winters annually in the torrid zones and a winter and a summer in each of the frigid.

Venus becomes the morning star after its superior conjunction, when it appears, through the telescope, cres-cent-shaped, like the new moon. The orbits of this planet and of Mercury are within the orbit of the earth, and consequently they are never seen in oppo-’ sition to the sun; that is, in the east when the sun is in the west, or in the west and the sun in the east. At its inferior conjunction Venus is nearer to the earth than any other planet except the moon, and sometimes when approaching the greatest distance, when it seems to recede from the sun, casts a shadow and is visible in the full light of day. If at the period when it is nearest to the earth, the enlightened part were fully turned toward the latter, this planet would appear twenty times as brilliant as it now does, and almost vie with the moon in dissipatng the darknes of night. Being situated at about one-third less distance from the sun than the earth, Venus receives more light from that luminary than is received by tiie former planet, and seems not to require the aid of a moon. Nevertheless, several astronomers have affirmed that they had noticed such a body, and have even gone so far as to calculate the orbit of the supposed satellite, but their observations have not been verified. The transits of Venus, or its passage between the earth and sun, when it appears as a round dark spot moving slowly across the solar disc, have been made to assist in determining the distance of the earth from thficentral luminary. The last transit occurred in December, 1874, and the next will take place in December, 1882. As this can be viewed in the United States, it will awaken a greater interest than the transit which Rittenhouse and others observed more than a century ago. But four transits of Venus have been observed, and after 1872 121 1/2 years will elapse before the alternately morning and evening star will pursue its seeming pathway across the Surface of the great orb of day.—[Philadelphia Times.