Show weekly guide to science by perm permission Slon ot 0 SCIENCE MONTHLY H WHAT ARE AKE PALLING FALLING STARS most mort ot of the falling stars which actually reach the i earth are rocks oc acks a good deal earth A few ot of them like the rocks on ot of their origin is are iron all we know about in space that they are flying think that they are many as astronomers t r monomers fragments x aich which were pulled out of the sun run when the earth was formed DO WE NEED TO BE AFRAID OF FALLING I G STARS STABS l I 1 1 no there is no recorded case ol of anyone having be been n lilt bit most ot of the failing ailing stars are so SEMI small that they do not reach earths surface at all hut but bura up the by friction in the upper part of the air making the streaks ot of light that we call shooting hootin stats stars HOW DO WE KNOW THAT THE SU R ROTATES OT A djs 0 OX T ITS AXIS many ot of the sun spots remain tor for weeks in about the same place on the sun suns s surface we can see these spots as t the he sun turns around on its axis HOW WAS THE PLANET NEPTUNE NElT CNE LOCATED IN ili ills ILIA becore IT WAS discovered TW there were some unexplained irregularities in the motion ot of the planet uranus which c h Is the next pla planet nl t inside ot of neptune and was then the outermost planet known these irregularities led a french astronomer leverrier to suspect that an another 0 ther unknown planet existed out side of uranus he calculated mathematically where the missing planet ought to be in the sky another astronomer galle ol of th the e berlin observatory looked tor for it and t there h re it was WHY DOES THE EARTH REVOLVE because when it was formed the metter matter which gathered together was revolving probably because the attraction of the passing star started it ott off the earth has simply kept on spinning as a top would spin it if there were no friction ot of any kind to make it stop WILL THE EARTH EVER STOP SPINNING probably but not for or a very long time there Is no in empty space RS as there would be if the earth were revolving in air the only known thing that 1 Is tending to stop the earth Is the friction or of the tides in the ocean probably this really does up the earth a very little but the slowing Is so small email that science has not cot so far been abi able to detect it at all II IF trw THE EARTH IS 15 REVOLVING WHY DONT WE FLY OFF IT AS DROPS OF WATER kly ILY orf OFF A 1111 WHEEL EEL because its attraction of 0 gravity holds us on the drops or of water are fairly largo 1 90 in relation to the wheel we are very tiny in relation to the earth i that Is why tile the drops fly off the wheel while wo stick on earth it if the earth had a big lump 1 ap stuck on one side of it and tt if it re revolved J ved fast enough the lump jump would fly by off just as the drops of 0 water do WHY CANNOT AVIATORS AT A GREAT HEIGHT SEE THE EARTH TURNING because they keep on going around with it its as does the air clr and everything else to avoid this they would have to go up several hundred miles more likely several thousand this would be beyond tho the air and ot of course no kind ot of airship can rise beyond the air HOW ARE STARS USED TO SET CLOCKS the standard 0 of time Is the revolution ol of the earth this determines the leath ler ath ot of the day As the earth revolves the stars appear to move across tho the sky it if you jjck qu out one ol of them which la Is eg X overhead at a t miu J we use that tha star to set your watch by every following bof lowing night but you must make allowances of course tor for the slow changes in the position ot of the star caused by the earths yearly motion around the sun WHY IS THU TIME IN LONDON NOT KOT TILE THE SAME AS IN NEW YORK the scientific time the time used b by 0 astronomers Is the same all over the earth ordinary time must be adjusted to daylight that Is to the hours between sunrise and sunset As the earth turns from west to east and as london Is east of new york the sun rises in london ne byork is still dark HOW DID MEN TELL TIME BEFORE la 11 LOCKS WERE INVENTED by the stars stare at night arid and by the sun in the daytime A sundial sun gun dial helped to S make the daytime measurement more i exact arthy ARE THERE SIXTY MINUTES IN AN HOUR ou i the way of dividing time into hours 3 minutes and secona seconds was invented by s the ancient babylonian astronomers it happened that they used a system of counting by instead of in tens as we do now so it was conven convenient tent to count time in units of two 11 lor 11 the twenty lour loul hours hou five fl twel i ve ves for the sixty minutes ir IF THE EARTH HIT A COMET CO IET WOULD THERE BE ANY DAMAGE not any serious damage it if we hit the 3 head of the comet and there happened to be some fairly large solid lumps in 14 it there might be a little damage from tailing falling stars to pass through the tall would do no harm in tact fact the earth i has parsed several tunes times through the tails of comets and nothing was noticed notice ed a at t all |