Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1877 — Solar Combustion—Will the Earth be Destroyed by Fire! . [ARTICLE]

Solar Combustion—Will the Earth be Destroyed by Fire! .

’ Prof. Bi chord A. proctor writes to the London EcAo as follows:- V.:. A« “ We have within the last fortnight-had new evidence in the star depths of a dan are some astronomical subjects of inquiry wh|ch, though . they relate to bodies inconceivably remote, concern us inhabitants of earth very nearly . It is, for instance, a question of Considerable interest to us whether the evidence we have about the sUn suggests or not the probability that that orb—the Are, light and life of our system—is gradually parting with its energies, in such sort that our descendants will be less thoroughly warmed and lighted than we are ourselves. It is *qu estidn of interest again whether there is any truth in such a theory as was once thrown out (to the amazement of astronomers be it remarked) by Sir W. Thomson, that the fragments of destroyed planets of Hfeare carrted to new worlds, and that a& our earth, visited in remote ages by such fragments, was thus supplied with the germs of that life which is now so abundant on her surface, so she is in her turn undergoing destruction, will be sent in fragments through space, scattering about the genus of life for the benefit of other worlds ttt yet unpeopled. Another question of very great interest was that started by Sir Isaac Newton, in the well-known suggestion that should a comet fall upon the sun there would be a tremendous outburst of solar heat, whereby this earth and all the other worlds which circle round the sun., coiflji be destroyed, or, at leasLaU life, caused to perish from then-' surface. This idea has not, indeed, of late received much favor, because astronomers, noting the small effects pro- . duced by comets even upon the inferior members of the solar system, such as the moons of'Jupiter, have come to regard comets as bodies of very little weight, whose material, therefore, falling upon the sun could produce but insignificant fires. Moreover, we have learned to consider the probability of the downfall Of a comet upon the sun as exceedingly small. We know that among those whose paths have been properly determined during the last few years, only two have made a very near approach to the sun—though, by a strange coincidence, one of these was the first ever dealt with upon the Newtonian principles; viz: Newton’sown comet of the year 1680. That one approached the sun within less than a sixth of his diameter, and its very nucleus must have swept the summits of the red flames which we now know to exist all around the sun we see. The other was the comet of 1843, which on tlie 27th of February in that year was within about 60,000 miles of the sun’s surface, so that the bulk of its coma or hair must have swept over the sun, and the outermost part of its nucleus must not only have met the solar flames, but even have reached the low-lying bed of flame seen during solar eclipses, and called the si : erra. Still, these two comets only, among all those of the last two hundred years, have made a very near approach to the sun, and, as no mischief baa followed, astronomers are encouraged in the belief that whatever danger we may have to fear from changes in our sun’s condition, Comets are scarcely to be regarded as the probable cause of such danger. “ But the news Just received from the star depths concerns us more nearly. It tells us of a sun, doubtless in general respects like our own, which has met with some great catastrophe, whose cause we cannot at present determine, but whose real nature is unmistakable. OurTOßTtr one among hundreds of milliops, each of which,is probably like it, the center of a scheme of circling worlds. Each son is rushing along through space, with its trains of worlds, each bearing, perhaps, like our earth, its living freight, or, more probably, each, at some time or other of its existence, becoming habitable for a longer or shelter period. Thus the suns may be compared to engines, each drawing along its well-freighted train. Accidentsamong these celestial engines seem fortunately to be rare. A few among the suns appear suddenly (that is in the course of a few hundred years, which in celestial chronometry amounts to a mere instant,) to have lost a large part of their energy, as though the supply of fuel had somehow festly it would be a serious matter if our own sun were suddenly to lose threefourths of his heat, as has happened-wdth the middle star of the Plow, or ninetynine hundredths, as has happened with the once blazing, but now scarcely visible orb, called Eta, in tire keel of the starship Argo. Hu When we hear of an accident of the d&ntrary kind—a sudl denly blazing out with more tlian a hundred times its usual splendor; a celestial engine whose energies have been overwrought, so that a sudden explosion has taken place, and the fires, meant to work steadily for the train, have blazed forth to its. uestruction—we areimpreased with thejhffigMtotirta one <lay happen with our own Mm. The errcui.;. stances are very curious, and though they do not show clearly whether we are or are not exposed to tire same kind of danger which has overtaken tne worlds circling around those remote suns, they are sufficiently suggestive. “On Nay. 24. quite earlv in the evening, Pref. Sehmidv the well-known Director of the Athens Observatory, observed a star of the third magnitude in a part of the constellation of the Swan, where no such star should be. At midnight the new star’s light was seen to be of markedly yellow- color. The news was, of eourse, spread about among the chiefs Of 'the principal observatories, and,' as soon as clear leather permitted, the newcomer was submitted to the searching scrutiny of the spectroscope. Unfortunately it had already d windleddowhto the fifth magnitude by Dec. 2, When first it was thus examined, and its light has become greenish, almost blue. It was not till Deg, 5 lluit realty satisfactory observation* Were maoA '** Then Jt. Cornu obtainedztbeloirdwing vary curious results: The light of the star showed the usual rainbow-tinted streak crossed by dark lines, which forms the spectrum of a star or sun, but on that rainbow-tinted streak, as on a dark background, there was seen ofhydrogen, a bright line belongwg-to magnesium- <fa a state of glowing vapor), and two, other bright lines, one of which seemed to be identical with a bright line shown by our sun’s corona i catastrophe, ILone. .my so speak, Which has beullisLueqßbinotA sun in the Swan exist in our own sun. At times' of marked disturbance parts of our sun's surface toe lines of,hivdwigan hright instesd of dprk, which means that the lines of hydrogen Over those parts of the sun are hotter than the glowing surface of the sun ——'■ ■—r-*: M

there. We have all heard, again, how Tacchini and Secchi, in Italy, attributed some exceptionally hot weather we had a few yearn ago to outbursts of glowing magnesium. And, lastly, the sun Is certainly well supplied with that element, whatever it is, which gives the bright line of his corona during eclipses; for we now know that the whole of the streaked and radiated corona occupying a region twenty times greater than the globe of the sun (which itself exceeds our earth 1,250,000 times in volume) belongs to the sun. Again, though the sun has shone steadily for thousands of years, yet so far as can be judged, tlie stars which, like this one in the Swan, have burst out suddenly, blossoming into flames of hydrogen, within which tlie star’s heart-core !;lows with many hundred times its ormer heat, have also been for ages shining steadily amid the star depths. We Irnow that the one which blazed out ten years ago in the Northern Crown was one of Argelander’s list, a star of flic tenth magnitude, and that, after glowing with 800 times its former brightness of a few days, it has resumed that feebler luster. We have every reason which analogy can furnish for believing that the new star, which was not in Argelander’s list, simply escaped record by him on account of its faintness. It is now fast losing its suddenly-acquired luster, and is already invisible to the naked eve. It appears, therefore, that there is nothing in the long-continued steadfastness of our sun as a source of light to assure us that he, tod, may not suddenly blaze forth with many hundred times his usual luster (the conflagration being originated, perchance, by some comet unfortunately traveling too directly toward him). Though he would probably cool down again to his present condition in the course of a few weeks, no terrestrial observers would be alive, at any rate, to note the fact, though the whole series of events might afford subject of interesting speculation to the inhabitants of worlds circling round Sirius or Acturus. Fortunately, 'we may legitimately reason that the risk is small, seeing that among the millions of suns which surround ours, within easy telescope distance, such catastrophes occur only ten or twelve times per century.’’