The Story of the Heavens Part 8

We are therefore compelled to adopt a different method of procedure, and the simplest, as well as the most natural, will be to follow as far as possible the order of distance of the different bodies. We have already spoken of the moon as the nearest neighbour to the earth; we shall next consider some of the other celestial bodies which are comparatively near to us; then, as the subject unfolds, we shall discuss the objects further and further away, until towards the close of the volume we shall be engaged in considering the most distant bodies in the universe which the telescope has yet revealed to us.

Even when we have decided on this principle, our course is still not free from ambiguity. Many of the bodies in the heavens are in motion, so that their relative distances from the earth are in continual change; this is, however, a difficulty which need not detain us. We shall make no attempt to adhere closely to the principle in all details. It will be sufficient if we first describe those great bodies--not a very numerous cla.s.s--which are, comparatively speaking, in our vicinity, though still at varied distances; and then we shall pa.s.s on to the uncounted bodies which are separated from us by distances so vast that the imagination is baffled in the attempt to realise them.

Let us, then, scan the heavens to discover those orbs which lie in our neighbourhood. The sun has set, the moon has not risen; a cloudless sky discloses a heaven glittering with countless gems of light. Some are grouped together into well-marked constellations; others seem scattered promiscuously, with every degree of l.u.s.tre, from the very brightest down to the faintest point that the eye can just glimpse. Amid all this host of objects, how are we to identify those which lie nearest to the earth?

Look to the west: and there, over the spot where the departing sunbeams still linger, we often see the lovely evening star shining forth. This is the planet Venus--a beauteous...o...b.. twin-sister to the earth. The brilliancy of this planet, its rapid changes both in position and in l.u.s.tre, would suggest at once that it was much nearer to the earth than other star-like objects. This presumption has been amply confirmed by careful measurements, and therefore Venus is to be included in the list of the orbs which const.i.tute our neighbours.

Another conspicuous planet--almost rivalling Venus in l.u.s.tre, and vastly surpa.s.sing Venus in the magnificence of its proportions and its retinue--has borne from antiquity the majestic name of Jupiter. No doubt Jupiter is much more distant from us than Venus. Indeed, he is always at least twice as far, and sometimes as much as ten times. But still we must include Jupiter among our neighbours. Compared with the host of stars which glitter on the heavens, Jupiter must be regarded as quite contiguous. The distance of the great planet requires, it is true, hundreds of millions of miles for its expression; yet, vast as is that distance, it would have to be multiplied by tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, before it would be long enough to span the abyss which intervenes between the earth and the nearest of the stars.

Venus and Jupiter have invited our attention by their exceptional brilliancy. We should, however, fall into error if we a.s.sumed generally that the brightest objects were those nearest to the earth. An observer unacquainted with astronomy might not improbably point to the Dog Star--or Sirius, as astronomers more generally know it--as an object whose exceptional l.u.s.tre showed it to be one of our neighbours. This, however, would be a mistake. We shall afterwards have occasion to refer more particularly to this gem of our southern skies, and then it will appear that Sirius is a mighty globe far transcending our own sun in size as well as in splendour, but plunged into the depths of s.p.a.ce to such an appalling distance that his enfeebled rays, when they reach the earth, give us the impression, not of a mighty sun, but only of a brilliant star.

The principle of selection, by which the earth's neighbours can be discriminated, will be explained presently; in the meantime, it will be sufficient to observe that our list is to be augmented first by the addition of the unique object known as Saturn, though its brightness is far surpa.s.sed by that of Sirius, as well as by a few other stars. Then we add Mars, an object which occasionally approaches so close to the earth that it shines with a fiery radiance which would hardly prepare us for the truth that this planet is intrinsically one of the smallest of the celestial bodies. Besides the objects we have mentioned, the ancient astronomers had detected a fifth, known as Mercury--a planet which is usually invisible amid the light surrounding the sun. Mercury, however, occasionally wanders far enough from our luminary to be seen before sunrise or after sunset. These five--Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn--comprised the planets known from remote antiquity.

We can, however, now extend the list somewhat further by adding to it the telescopic objects which have in modern times been found to be among our neighbours. Here we must no longer postpone the introduction of the criterion by which we can detect whether a body is near the earth or not. The brighter planets can be recognised by the steady radiance of their light as contrasted with the incessant twinkling of the stars. A little attention devoted to any of the bodies we have named will, however, point out a more definite contrast between the planets and the stars.

Observe, for instance, Jupiter, on any clear night when the heavens can be well seen, and note his position with regard to the constellations in his neighbourhood--how he is to the right of this star, or to the left of that; directly between this pair, or directly pointed to by that. We then mark down the place of Jupiter on a celestial map, or we make a sketch of the stars in the neighbourhood showing the position of the planet. After a month or two, when the observations are repeated, the place of Jupiter is to be compared again with those stars by which it was defined. It will be found that, while the stars have preserved their relative positions, the place of Jupiter has changed. Hence this body is with propriety called a _planet_, or a wanderer, because it is incessantly moving from one part of the starry heavens to another. By similar comparisons it can be shown that the other bodies we have mentioned--Venus and Mercury, Saturn and Mars--are also wanderers, and belong to that group of heavenly bodies known as planets. Here, then, we have the simple criterion by which the earth's neighbours are readily to be discriminated from the stars. Each of the bodies near the earth is a planet, or a wanderer, and the mere fact that a body is a wanderer is alone sufficient to prove it to be one of the cla.s.s which we are now studying.

Provided with this test, we can at once make an addition to our list of neighbours. Amid the myriad orbs which the telescope reveals, we occasionally find one which is a wanderer. Two other mighty planets, known as Ura.n.u.s and Neptune, must thus be added to the five already mentioned, making in all a group of seven great planets. A vastly greater number may also be reckoned when we admit to our view bodies which not only seem to be minute telescopic objects, but really are small globes when compared with the mighty bulk of our earth. These lesser planets, to the number of more than four hundred, are also among the earth's neighbours.

We should remark that another cla.s.s of heavenly bodies widely differing from the planets must also be included in our system. These are the comets, and, indeed, it may happen that one of these erratic bodies will sometimes draw nearer to the earth than even the closest approach ever made by a planet. These mysterious visitors will necessarily engage a good deal of our attention later on. For the present we confine our attention to those more substantial globes, whether large or small, which are always termed planets.

Imagine for a moment that some opaque covering could be clasped around our sun so that all his beams were extinguished. That our earth would be plunged into the darkness of midnight is of course an obvious consequence. A moment's consideration will show that the moon, shining as it does by the reflected rays of the sun, would become totally invisible. But would this extinction of the sunlight have any other effect? Would it influence the countless brilliant points that stud the heavens at midnight? Such an obscuration of the sun would indeed produce a remarkable effect on the sky at night, which a little attention would disclose. The stars, no doubt, would not exhibit the slightest change in brilliancy. Each star shines by its own light and is not indebted to the sun. The constellations would thus twinkle on as before, but a wonderful change would come over the planets. Were the sun to be obscured, the planets would also disappear from view. The midnight sky would thus experience the effacement of the planets one by one, while the stars would remain unaltered. It may seem difficult to realise how the brilliancy of Venus or the l.u.s.tre of Jupiter have their origin solely in the beams which fall upon these bodies from the distant sun.

The evidence is, however, conclusive on the question; and it will be placed before the reader more fully when we come to discuss the several planets in detail.

Suppose that we are looking at Jupiter high in mid-heavens on a winter's night, it might be contended that, as the earth lies between Jupiter and the sun, it must be impossible for the rays of the sun to fall upon the planet. This is, perhaps, not an unnatural view for an inhabitant of this earth to adopt until he has become acquainted with the relative sizes of the various bodies concerned, and with the distances by which those bodies are separated. But the question would appear in a widely different form to an inhabitant of the planet Jupiter. If such a being were asked whether he suffered much inconvenience by the intrusion of the earth between himself and the sun, his answer would be something of this kind:--"No doubt such an event as the pa.s.sage of the earth between me and the sun is possible, and has occurred on rare occasions separated by long intervals; but so far from the transit being the cause of any inconvenience, the whole earth, of which you think so much, is really so minute, that when it did come in front of the sun it was merely seen as a small telescopic point, and the amount of sunlight which it intercepted was quite inappreciable."

The fact that the planets shine by the sun's light points at once to the similarity between them and our earth. We are thus led to regard our sun as a central fervid globe a.s.sociated with a number of much smaller bodies, each of which, being dark itself, is indebted to the sun both for light and for heat.

That was, indeed, a grand step in astronomy which demonstrated the nature of the solar system. The discovery that our earth must be a globe isolated in s.p.a.ce was in itself a mighty exertion of human intellect; but when it came to be recognised that this globe was but one of a whole group of similar objects, some smaller, no doubt, but others very much larger, and when it was further ascertained that these bodies were subordinated to the supreme control of the sun, we have a chain of discoveries that wrought a fundamental transformation in human knowledge.

We thus see that the sun presides over a numerous family. The members of that family are dependent upon the sun, and their dimensions are suitably proportioned to their subordinate position. Even Jupiter, the largest member of that family, does not contain one-thousandth part of the material which forms the vast bulk of the sun. Yet the bulk of Jupiter alone would exceed that of the rest of the planets were they all rolled together.

Around the central luminary in Fig. 31 we have drawn four circles in dotted lines which sufficiently ill.u.s.trate the orbits in which the different bodies move. The innermost of these four paths represents the orbit of the planet Mercury. The planet moves around the sun in this path, and regains the place from which it started in eighty-eight days.

The next orbit, proceeding outwards from the sun, is that of the planet Venus, which we have already referred to as the well-known Evening Star.

Venus completes the circuit of its path in 225 days. One step further from the sun and we come to the orbit of another planet. This body is almost the same size as Venus, and is therefore much larger than Mercury. The planet now under consideration accomplishes each revolution in 365 days. This period sounds familiar to our ears. It is the length of the year; and the planet is the earth on which we stand. There is an impressive way in which to realise the length of the road along which the earth has to travel in each annual journey. The circ.u.mference of a circle is about three and one-seventh times the diameter of the same figure; so that taking the distance from the earth to the centre of the sun as 92,900,000 miles, the diameter of the circle which the earth describes around the sun will be 185,800,000 miles, and consequently the circ.u.mference of the mighty circle in which the earth moves round the sun is fully 583,000,000 miles. The earth has to travel this distance every year. It is merely a sum in division to find how far we have to move each second in order to accomplish this long journey in a twelvemonth. It will appear that the earth must actually complete eighteen miles every second, as otherwise it would not finish its journey within the allotted time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 31.--The Orbits of the Four Interior Planets.]

Pause for a moment to think what a velocity of eighteen miles a second really implies. Can we realise a speed so tremendous? Let us compare it with our ordinary types of rapid movement. Look at that express train how it crashes under the bridge, how, in another moment, it is lost to view! Can any velocity be greater than that? Let us try it by figures.

The train moves a mile a minute; multiply that velocity by eighteen and it becomes eighteen miles a _minute_, but we must further multiply it by sixty to make it eighteen miles a _second_. The velocity of the express train is not even the thousandth part of the velocity of the earth. Let us take another ill.u.s.tration. We stand at the rifle ranges to see a rifle fired at a target 1,000 feet away, and we find that a second or two is sufficient to carry the bullet over that distance. The earth moves nearly one hundred times as fast as the rifle bullet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 32.--The Earth's Movement.]

Viewed in another way, the stupendous speed of the earth does not seem immoderate. The earth is a mighty globe, so great indeed that even when moving at this speed it takes almost eight minutes to pa.s.s over its own diameter. If a steamer required eight minutes to traverse a distance equal to its own length, its pace would be less than a mile an hour. To ill.u.s.trate this method of considering the subject, we show here a view of the progress made by the earth (Fig. 32). The distance between the centres of these circles is about six times the diameter; and, accordingly, if they be taken to represent the earth, the time required to pa.s.s from one position to the other is about forty-eight minutes.

Outside the path of the earth, we come to the orbit of the fourth planet, Mars, which requires 687 days, or nearly two years, to complete its circuit round the sun. With our arrival at Mars we have gained the limit to the inner portion of the solar system.

The four planets we have mentioned form a group in themselves, distinguished by their comparative nearness to the sun. They are all bodies of moderate dimensions. Venus and the Earth are globes of about the same size. Mercury and Mars are both smaller objects which lie, so far as bulk is concerned, between the earth and the moon. The four planets which come nearest to the sun are vastly surpa.s.sed in bulk and weight by the giant bodies of our system--the stately group of Jupiter and Saturn, Ura.n.u.s and Neptune.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 33.--The Orbits of the Four Giant Planets.]

These giant planets enjoy the sun's guidance equally with their weaker brethren. In the diagram on this page (Fig. 33) parts of the orbits of the great outer planets are represented. The sun, as before, presides at the centre, but the inner planets would on this scale be so close to the sun that it is only possible to represent the orbit of Mars. After the orbit of Mars comes a considerable interval, not, however, devoid of planetary activity, and then follow the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn; further still, we have Ura.n.u.s, a great globe on the verge of una.s.sisted vision; and, lastly, the whole system is bounded by the grand orbit of Neptune--a planet of which we shall have a marvellous story to narrate.

The various circles in Fig. 34 show the apparent sizes of the sun as seen from the different planets. Taking the circle corresponding to the earth to represent the amount of heat and light which the earth derives from the sun then the other circles indicate the heat and the light enjoyed by the corresponding planets. The next outer planet to the earth is Mars, whose share of solar blessings is not so very inferior to that of the earth; but we fail to see how bodies so remote as Jupiter or Saturn can enjoy climates at all comparable with those of the planets which are more favourably situated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 34.--Comparative Apparent Size of the Sun as seen from the Various Planets.]

Fig. 35 shows a picture of the whole family of planets surrounding the sun--represented on the same scale, so as to exhibit their comparative sizes. Measured by bulk, Jupiter is more than 1,200 times as great as the earth, so that it would take at least 1,200 earths rolled into one to form a globe equal to the globe of Jupiter. Measured by weight, the disparity between the earth and Jupiter, though still enormous, is not quite so great; but this is a matter to be discussed more fully in a later chapter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 35.--Comparative Sizes of the Planets.]

Even in this preliminary survey of the solar system we must not omit to refer to the planets which attract our attention, not by their bulk, but by their mult.i.tude. In the ample zone bounded on the inside by the orbit of Mars and on the outside by the orbit of Jupiter it was thought at one time that no planet revolved. Modern research has shown that this region is tenanted, not by one planet, but by hundreds. The discovery of these planets is a charge which has been undertaken by various diligent astronomers of the present day, while the discussion of their movements affords labour to other men of science. We shall find something to learn from the study of these tiny bodies, and especially from another small planet called Eros, which lies nearer to the earth than the limit above indicated. A chapter will be devoted to these objects.

But we do not propose to enter deeply into the mere statistics of the planetary system at present. Were such our intention, the tables at the end of the volume would show that ample materials are available.

Astronomers have taken an inventory of each of the planets. They have measured their distances, the shapes of their orbits and the positions of those orbits, their times of revolution, and, in the case of all the larger planets, their sizes and their weights. Such results are of interest for many purposes. It is, however, the more general features of the science which at present claim our attention.

Let us, in conclusion, note one or two important truths with reference to our planetary system. We have seen that all the planets revolve in nearly circular paths around the sun. We have now to add another fact possessing much significance. Each of the planets pursues its path in the same direction. It thus happens that one such body may overtake another, but it can never happen that two planets pa.s.s by each other as do the trains on adjacent lines of railway. We shall subsequently find that the whole welfare of our system, nay, its continuous existence, is dependent upon this remarkable uniformity taken in conjunction with other features of the system.

Such is our solar system; a mighty organised group of planets circulating under the control of the sun, and completely isolated from all external interference. No star, no constellation, has any appreciable influence on our solar system. We const.i.tute a little island group, separated from the nearest stars by the most amazing distances.

It may be that as the other stars are suns, so they too may have systems of planets circulating around them; but of this we know nothing. Of the stars we can only say that they appear to us as points of light, and any planets they may possess must for ever remain invisible to us, even if they were many times larger than Jupiter.

We need not repine at this limitation to our possible knowledge, for just as we find in the solar system all that is necessary for our daily bodily wants, so shall we find ample occupation for whatever faculties we may possess in endeavouring to understand those mysteries of the heavens which lie within our reach.

CHAPTER V.

THE LAW OF GRAVITATION.

Gravitation--The Falling of a Stone to the Ground--All Bodies fall equally, Sixteen Feet in a Second--Is this true at Great Heights?--Fall of a Body at a Height of a Quarter of a Million Miles--How Newton obtained an Answer from the Moon--His Great Discovery--Statement of the Law of Gravitation--Ill.u.s.trations of the Law--How is it that all the Bodies in the Universe do not rush Together?--The Effect of Motion--How a Circular Path can be produced by Attraction--General Account of the Moon's Motion--Is Gravitation a Force of Great Intensity?--Two Weights of 50 lbs.--Two Iron Globes, 53 Yards in Diameter, and a Mile apart, attract with a Force of 1 lb.--Characteristics of Gravitation--Orbits of the Planets not strictly Circles--The Discoveries of Kepler--Construction of an Ellipse--Kepler's First Law--Does a Planet move Uniformly?--Law of the Changes of Velocity--Kepler's Second Law--The Relation between the Distances and the Periodic Times--Kepler's Third Law--Kepler's Laws and the Law of Gravitation--Movement in a Straight Line--A Body unacted on by Disturbing Forces would move in a Straight Line with Constant Velocity--Application to the Earth and the Planets--The Law of Gravitation deduced from Kepler's Laws--Universal Gravitation.

Our description of the heavenly bodies must undergo a slight interruption, while we ill.u.s.trate with appropriate detail an important principle, known as the law of gravitation, which underlies the whole of astronomy. By this law we can explain the movements of the moon around the earth, and of the planets around the sun. It is accordingly inc.u.mbent upon us to discuss this subject before we proceed to the more particular account of the separate planets. We shall find, too, that the law of gravitation sheds some much-needed light on the nature of the stars situated at the remotest distances in s.p.a.ce. It also enables us to cast a glance through the vistas of time past, and to trace with plausibility, if not with certainty, certain early phases in the history of our system. The sun and the moon, the planets and the comets, the stars and the nebulae, all alike are subject to this universal law, which is now to engage our attention.

What is more familiar than the fact that when a stone is dropped it will fall to the ground? No one at first thinks the matter even worthy of remark. People are often surprised at seeing a piece of iron drawn to a magnet. Yet the fall of a stone to the ground is the manifestation of a force quite as interesting as the force of magnetism. It is the earth which draws the stone, just as the magnet draws the iron. In each case the force is one of attraction; but while the magnetic attraction is confined to a few substances, and is of comparatively limited importance, the attraction of gravitation is significant throughout the universe.

Let us commence with a few very simple experiments upon the force of gravitation. Hold in the hand a small piece of lead, and then allow it to drop upon a cushion. The lead requires a certain time to move from the fingers to the cushion, but that time is always the same when the height is the same. Take now a larger piece of lead, and hold one piece in each hand at the same height. If both are released at the same moment, they will both reach the cushion simultaneously. It might have been thought that the heavy body would fall more quickly than the light body; but when the experiment is tried, it is seen that this is not the case. Repeat the experiment with various other substances. An ordinary marble will be found to fall in the same time as the piece of lead. With a piece of cork we again try the experiment, and again obtain the same result. At first it seems to fail when we compare a feather with the piece of lead; but that is solely on account of the air, which resists the feather more than it resists the lead. If, however, the feather be placed upon the top of a penny, and the penny be horizontal when dropped, it will clear the air out of the way of the feather in its descent, and then the feather will fall as quickly as the penny, as quickly as the marble, or as quickly as the lead.

If the observer were in a gallery when trying these experiments, and if the cushion were sixteen feet below his hands, then the time the marble would take to fall through the sixteen feet would be one second. The time occupied by the cork or by the lead would be the same; and even the feather itself would fall through sixteen feet in one second, if it could be screened from the interference of the air. Try this experiment where we like, in London, or in any other city, in any island or continent, on board a ship at sea, at the North Pole, or the South Pole, or the equator, it will always be found that any body, of any size or any material, will fall about sixteen feet in one second of time.

Lest any erroneous impression should arise, we may just mention that the distance traversed in one second does vary slightly at different parts of the earth, but from causes which need not at this moment detain us.

We shall for the present regard sixteen feet as the distance through which any body, free from interference, would fall in one second at any part of the earth's surface. But now let us extend our view above the earth's surface, and enquire how far this law of sixteen feet in a second may find obedience elsewhere. Let us, for instance, ascend to the top of a mountain and try the experiment there. It would be found that at the top of the mountain a marble would take a little longer to fall through sixteen feet than the same marble would if let fall at its base.

The difference would be very small; but yet it would be measurable, and would suffice to show that the power of the earth to pull the marble to the ground becomes somewhat weakened at a point high above the earth's surface. Whatever be the elevation to which we ascend, be it either the top of a high mountain, or the still greater alt.i.tudes that have been reached in balloon ascents, we shall never find that the tendency of bodies to fall to the ground ceases, though no doubt the higher we go the more is that tendency weakened. It would be of great interest to find how far this power of the earth to draw bodies towards it can really extend. We cannot attain more than about five or six miles above the earth's surface in a balloon; yet we want to know what would happen if we could ascend 500 miles, or 5,000 miles, or still further, into the regions of s.p.a.ce.

Conceive that a traveller were endowed with some means of soaring aloft for miles and thousands of miles, still up and up, until at length he had attained the awful height of nearly a quarter of a million of miles above the ground. Glancing down at the surface of that earth, which is at such a stupendous depth beneath, he would be able to see a wonderful bird's-eye view. He would lose, no doubt, the details of towns and villages; the features in such a landscape would be whole continents and whole oceans, in so far as the openings between the clouds would permit the earth's surface to be exposed.

At this stupendous elevation he could try one of the most interesting experiments that was ever in the power of a philosopher. He could test whether the earth's attraction was felt at such a height, and he could measure the amount of that attraction. Take for the experiment a cork, a marble, or any other object, large or small; hold it between the fingers, and let it go. Everyone knows what would happen in such a case down here; but it required Sir Isaac Newton to tell what would happen in such a case up there. Newton a.s.serts that the power of the earth to attract bodies extends even to this great height, and that the marble would fall. This is the doctrine that we can now test. We are ready for the experiment. The marble is released, and, lo! our first exclamation is one of wonder. Instead of dropping instantly, the little object appears to remain suspended. We are on the point of exclaiming that we must have gone beyond the earth's attraction, and that Newton is wrong, when our attention is arrested; the marble is beginning to move, so slowly that at first we have to watch it carefully. But the pace gradually improves, so that the attraction is beyond all doubt, until, gradually acquiring more and more velocity, the marble speeds on its long journey of a quarter of a million of miles to the earth.