Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men Part 24

In one of the earliest of Herschel's memoirs, we find, that the apparent sidereal diameters are proved to be for the greater part fact.i.tious, even when the best made telescopes are used. Diameters estimated by seconds, that is to say, reduced according to the magnifying power, diminish as the magnifying power is increased. These results are of the greatest importance.

In the course of his investigation of sidereal parallax, though without finding it, Herschel made an important discovery; that of the proper motion of our system. To show distinctly the direction of the motion of the solar system, not only was a displacement of the sidereal perspective required, but profound mathematical knowledge, and a peculiar tact. This peculiar tact Herschel possessed in an eminent degree. Moreover, the result deduced from the very small number of proper motions known at the beginning of 1783, has been found almost to agree with that found recently by clever astronomers, by the application of subtile a.n.a.lytical formulae, to a considerable number of exact observations.

The proper motions of the stars have been known and proved for more than a century, and already Fontenelle used to say in 1738, that the sun probably also moved in a similar way. The idea of partly attributing the displacement of the stars to a motion of the sun, had suggested itself to Bradley and to Mayer. And Lambert especially had been very explicit on the subject. Until then, however, there were only conjectures and mere probabilities. Herschel pa.s.sed those limits. He himself proved that the sun positively moves; and that, in this respect also, that immense and dazzling body must be ranged among the stars; that the apparently inextricable irregularities of numerous sidereal proper motions arise in great measure from the displacement of the solar system; that, in short, the point of s.p.a.ce towards which we are annually advancing, is situated in the constellation of Hercules.

These are magnificent results. The discovery of the proper motion of our system will always be accounted among Herschel's highest claims to glory, even after the mention that my duty as historian has obliged me to make of the anterior conjectures by Fontenelle, by Bradley, by Mayer, and by Lambert.

By the side of this great discovery we should place another, that seems likely to expand in future. The results which it allows us to hope for will be of extreme importance. The discovery here alluded to was announced to the learned world in 1803; it is that of the reciprocal dependence of several stars, connected the one with the other, as the several planets and their satellites of our system are with the sun.

Let us to these immortal labours add the ingenious ideas that we owe to Herschel on the nebulae, on the const.i.tution of the Milky-way, on the universe as a whole; ideas which almost by themselves const.i.tute the actual history of the formation of the worlds, and we cannot but have a deep reverence for that powerful genius that has scarcely ever erred, notwithstanding an ardent imagination.

LABOURS RELATIVE TO THE SOLAR SYSTEM.

Herschel occupied himself very much with the sun, but only relative to its physical const.i.tution. The observations that the ill.u.s.trious astronomer made on this subject, the consequences that he deduced from them, equal the most ingenious discoveries for which the sciences are indebted to him.

In his important memoir in 1795, the great astronomer declares himself convinced that the substance by the intermediation of which the sun shines, cannot be either a liquid, or an elastic fluid. It must be a.n.a.logous to our clouds, and float in the transparent atmosphere of that body. The sun has, according to him, two atmospheres, endowed with motions quite independent of each other. An elastic fluid of an unknown nature is being constantly formed on the dark surface of the sun, and rising up on account of its specific lightness, it forms the _pores_ in the stratum of reflecting clouds; then, combining with other gases, it produces the wrinkles in the region of luminous clouds. When the ascending currents are powerful, they give rise to the _nuclei_, to the _penumbrae_, to the _faculae_. If this explanation of the formation of solar spots is well founded, we must expect to find that the sun does not constantly emit similar quant.i.ties of light and heat. Recent observations have verified this conclusion. But large nuclei, large penumbrae, wrinkles, faculae, do they indicate an abundant luminous and calorific emission, as Herschel thought; that would be the result of his hypothesis on the existence of very active ascending currents, but direct experience seems to contradict it.

The following is the way in which a learned man, Sir David Brewster, appreciates this view of Herschel's: "It is not conceivable that luminous clouds, ceding to the lightest impulses and in a state of constant change, can be the source of the sun's devouring flame and of the dazzling light which it emits; nor can we admit besides, that the feeble barrier formed by planetary clouds would shelter the objects that it might cover, from the destructive effects of the superior elements."

Sir D. Brewster imagines that the non-luminous rays of caloric, which form a const.i.tuent part of the solar light, are emitted by the dark nucleus of the sun; whilst the visible coloured rays proceed from the luminous matter by which the nucleus is surrounded. "From thence," he says, "proceeds the reason of light and heat always appearing in a state of combination: the one emanation cannot be obtained without the other.

With this hypothesis we should explain naturally why it is hottest when there are most spots, because the heat of the nucleus would then reach us without having been weakened by the atmosphere that it usually has to traverse." But it is far from being an ascertained fact, that we experience increased heat during the apparition of solar spots; the inverse phenomenon is more probably true.

Herschel occupied himself also with the physical const.i.tution of the moon. In 1780, he sought to measure the height of our satellite's mountains. The conclusion that he drew from his observations was, that few of the lunar mountains exceed 800 metres (or 2600 feet). More recent selenographic studies differ from this conclusion. There is reason to observe on this occasion how much the result surmised by Herschel differs from any tendency to the extraordinary or the gigantic, that has been so unjustly a.s.signed as the characteristic of the ill.u.s.trious astronomer.

At the close of 1787, Herschel presented a memoir to the Royal Society, the t.i.tle of which must have made a strong impression on people's imaginations. The author therein relates that on the 19th of April, 1787, he had observed in the non-illuminated part of the moon, that is, in the then dark portion, three volcanoes in a state of ignition. Two of these volcanoes appeared to be on the decline, the other appeared to be active. Such was then Herschel's conviction of the reality of the phenomenon, that the next morning he wrote thus of his first observation: "The volcano burns with more violence than last night." The real diameter of the volcanic light was 5000 metres (16,400 English feet). Its intensity appeared very superior to that of the nucleus of a comet then in apparition. The observer added: "The objects situated near the crater are feebly illuminated by the light that emanates from it."

Herschel concludes thus: "In short, this eruption very much resembles the one I witnessed on the 4th of May, 1783."

How happens it, after such exact observations, that few astronomers now admit the existence of active volcanoes in the moon? I will explain this singularity in a few words.

The various parts of our satellite are not all equally reflecting. Here, it may depend on the form, elsewhere, on the nature of the materials.

Those persons who have examined the moon with telescopes, know how very considerable the difference arising from these two causes may be, how much brighter one point of the moon sometimes is than those around it.

Now, it is quite evident that the relations of intensity between the faint parts and the brilliant parts must continue to exist, whatever be the origin of the illuminating light. In the portion of the lunar globe that is illuminated by the sun, there are, everybody knows, some points, the brightness of which is extraordinary compared to those around them; those same points, when they are seen in that portion of the moon that is only lighted by the earth, or in the ash-coloured part, will still predominate over the neighbouring regions by their comparative intensity. Thus we may explain the observations of the Slough astronomer, without recurring to volcanoes. Whilst the great observer was studying in the non-illuminated portion of the moon, the supposed volcano of the 20th of April, 1787, his nine-foot telescope showed him in truth, by the aid of the secondary rays proceeding from the earth, even the darkest spots.

Herschel did not recur to the discussion of the supposed actually burning lunar volcanoes, until 1791. In the volume of the _Philosophical Transactions_ for 1792, he relates that, in directing a twenty-foot telescope, magnifying 360 times, to the entirely eclipsed moon on the 22d of October, 1790, there were visible, over the whole face of the satellite, about a hundred and fifty very luminous red points. The author declares that he will observe the greatest reserve relative to the similarity of all these points, their great brightness, and their remarkable colour.

Yet is not red the usual colour of the moon when eclipsed, and when it has not entirely disappeared? Could the solar rays reaching our satellite by the effect of refraction, and after an absorption experienced in the lowest strata of the terrestrial atmosphere, receive another tint? Are there not in the moon, when freely illuminated, and opposite to the sun, from one to two hundred little points, remarkable by the brightness of their light? Would it be possible for those little points not to be also distinguishable in the moon, when it receives only the portion of solar light which is refracted and coloured by our atmosphere?

Herschel was more successful in his remarks on the absence of a lunar atmosphere. During the solar eclipse of the 5th September, 1793, the ill.u.s.trious astronomer particularly directed his attention to the shape of the acute horn resulting from the intersection of the limbs of the moon and of the sun. He deduced from his observation that if towards the point of the horn there had been a deviation of only one second, occasioned by the refraction of the solar light in the lunar atmosphere, it would not have escaped him.

Herschel made the planets the object of numerous researches. Mercury was the one with which he least occupied himself; he found its disk perfectly round on observing it during its projection, that is to say, in astronomical language, during its transit over the sun on the 9th of November, 1802. He sought to determine the time of the rotation of Venus since the year 1777. He published two memoirs relative to Mars, the one in 1781, the other in 1784, and the discovery of its being flattened at the poles we owe to him. After the discovery of the small planets, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, by Piazzi, Olbers, and Harding, Herschel applied himself to measuring their angular diameter. He concluded from his researches that those four new bodies did not deserve the name of planets, and he proposed to call them asterods. This epithet was subsequently adopted; though bitterly criticized by a historian of the Royal Society of London, Dr. Thomson, who went so far as to suppose that the learned astronomer "had wished to deprive the first observers of those bodies, of all idea of rating themselves as high as him (Herschel) in the scale of astronomical discoverers." I should require nothing farther to annihilate such an imputation, than to put it by the side of the following pa.s.sage, extracted from a memoir by this celebrated astronomer, published in the _Philosophical Transactions_, for the year 1805: "The specific difference existing between planets and asterods appears now, by the addition of a third individual of the latter species, to be more completely established, and that circ.u.mstance, in my opinion, has added more to the _ornament_ of our system than the discovery of a new planet could have done."

Although much has not resulted from Herschel's having occupied himself with the physical const.i.tution of Jupiter, astronomy is indebted to him for several important results relative to the duration of that planet's rotation. He also made numerous observations on the intensities and comparative magnitudes of its satellites.

The compression of Saturn, the duration of its rotation, the physical const.i.tution of this planet and that of its ring, were, on the part of Herschel, the object of numerous researches which have much contributed to the progress of planetary astronomy. But on this subject two important discoveries especially added new glory to the great astronomer.

Of the five known satellites of Saturn at the close of the 17th century, Huygens had discovered the fourth; Ca.s.sini the others.

The subject seemed to be exhausted, when news from Slough showed what a mistake this was.

On the 28th of August, 1789, the great forty-foot telescope revealed to Herschel a satellite still nearer to the ring than the other five already observed. According to the principles of the nomenclature previously adopted, the small body of the 28th August ought to have been called the first satellite of Saturn, the numbers indicating the places of the other five would then have been each increased by a unity. But the fear of introducing confusion into science by these continual changes of denomination, induced a preference for calling the new satellite the sixth.

Thanks to the prodigious powers of the forty-foot telescope, a last satellite, the seventh, showed itself on the 17th of September, 1789, between the sixth and the ring.

This seventh satellite is extremely faint. Herschel, however, succeeding in seeing it whenever circ.u.mstances were very favourable, even by the aid of the twenty-foot telescope.

The discovery of the planet Ura.n.u.s, the detection of its satellites, will always occupy one of the highest places among those by which modern astronomy is honoured.

On the 13th of March, 1781, between ten and eleven o'clock at night, Herschel was examining the small stars near H Geminorum with a seven-foot telescope, bearing a magnifying power of 227 times. One of these stars seemed to him to have an unusual diameter. The celebrated astronomer, therefore, thought it was a comet. It was under this denomination that it was then discussed at the Royal Society of London.

But the researches of Herschel and of Laplace showed later that the orbit of the new body was nearly circular, and Ura.n.u.s was elevated to the rank of a planet.

The immense distance of Ura.n.u.s, its small angular diameter, the feebleness of its light, did not allow the hope, that if that body had satellites, the magnitudes of which were, relatively to its own size, what the satellites of Jupiter, of Saturn are, compared to those two large planets, any observer could perceive them, from the earth.

Herschel was not a man to be deterred by such discouraging conjectures.

Therefore, since powerful telescopes of the ordinary construction, that is to say, with two mirrors conjugated, had not enabled him to discover any thing, he subst.i.tuted, in the beginning of January, 1787, _front view_ telescopes, that is, telescopes throwing much more light on the objects, the small mirror being then suppressed, and with it one of the causes of loss of light is got rid of.

By patient labour, by observations requiring a rare perseverance, Herschel attained (from the 11th of January, 1787, to the 28th of February, 1794,) to the discovery of the six satellites of his planet, and thus to complete the _world_ of a system that belongs entirely to himself.

There are several of Herschel's memoirs on comets. In a.n.a.lyzing them, we shall see that this great observer could not touch any thing without making further discoveries in the subject.

Herschel applied some of his fine instruments to the study of the physical const.i.tution of a comet discovered by Mr. Pigott, on the 28th September, 1807.

The nucleus was round and well determined. Some measures taken on the day when the nucleus subtended only an angle of a single second, gave as its real angle 6/100 of the diameter of the earth.

Herschel saw no phase at an epoch when only 7/10 of the nucleus could be illuminated by the sun. The nucleus then must shine by its own light.

This is a legitimate inference in the opinion of every one who will allow, on one hand, that the nucleus is a solid body, and on the other, that it would have been possible to observe a phase of 8/10 on a disk whose apparent total diameter did not exceed one or two seconds of a degree.

Very small stars seemed to grow much paler when they were seen through the coma or through the tail of the comet.

This faintness may have only been apparent, and might arise from the circ.u.mstance of the stars being then projected on a luminous background.

Such is, indeed, the explanation adopted by Herschel. A gaseous medium, capable of reflecting sufficient solar light to efface that of some stars, would appear to him to possess in each stratum a sensible quant.i.ty of matter, and to be, for that reason, a cause of real diminution of the light transmitted, though nothing reveals the existence of such a cause.

This argument, offered by Herschel in favour of the system which transforms comets into self-luminous bodies, has not, as we may perceive, much force. I might venture to say as much of many other remarks by this great observer. He tells us that the comet was very visible in the telescope on the 21st of February, 1808; now, on that day, its distance from the sun amounted to 2.7 times the mean radius of the terrestrial orbit; its distance from the observer was 2.9: "What probability would there be that rays going to such distances, from the sun to the comet, could, after their reflection, be seen by an eye nearly three times more distant from the comet than from the sun?"

It is only numerical determinations that could give value to such an argument. By satisfying himself with vague reasoning, Herschel did not even perceive that he was committing a great mistake by making the comet's distance from the observer appear to be an element of visibility. If the comet be self-luminous, its intrinsic splendour (its brightness for unity of surface) will remain constant at any distance, as long as the subtended angle remains sensible. If the body shines by borrowed light, its brightness will vary only according to its change of distance from the sun; nor will the distance of the observer occasion any change in the visibility; always, let it be understood, with the restriction that the apparent diameter shall not be diminished below certain limits.

Herschel finished his observations of a comet that was visible in January, 1807, with the following remark:--

"Of the sixteen telescopic comets that I have examined, fourteen had no solid body visible at their centre; the other two exhibited a central light, very ill defined, that might be termed a nucleus, but a light that certainly could not deserve the name of a disk."

The beautiful comet of 1811 became the object of that celebrated astronomer's conscientious labour. Large telescopes showed him, in the midst of the gazeous head, a rather reddish body of planetary appearance, which bore strong magnifying powers, and showed no sign of phase. Hence Herschel concluded that it was self-luminous. Yet if we reflect that the planetary body under consideration was not a second in diameter, the absence of a phase does not appear a demonstrative argument.

The light of the head had a blueish-green tint. Was this a real tint, or did the central reddish body, only through contrast, make the surrounding vapour appear to be coloured? Herschel did not examine the question in this point of view.

The head of the comet appeared to be enveloped at a certain distance, on the side towards the sun, by a brilliant narrow zone, embracing about a semicircle, and of a yellowish colour. From the two extremities of the semicircle there arose, towards the region away from the sun, two long luminous streaks which limited the tail. Between the brilliant circular semi-ring and the head, the cometary substance seemed dark, very rare, and very diaphanous.

The luminous semi-ring always presented similar appearances in all the positions of the comet; it was not then possible to attribute to it really the annular form, the shape of Saturn's ring, for example.