OCR Text |
Show THE HEAT OF THE SUN. Since astronomers have computed with scientific accuracy the vast amount of heat radiated into space by the sun, they have been puzzled to account for its unfailing supply. Whatever be the nature of the heat, or however boundless the capacity of the sun to furnish it, exhaustion is inevitable, unless sources of supply exist outside of the sun. As there has been no perceptible diminution of heat since the time of the Babylonian and Greek astronomers, it is evident that such sources of supply must exist, and it is the task of science to find them out. Prof. Pierce, of Harvard University, who stands at the head of American mathematicians, has no doubt that meteorites are an unfailing fountain of supply. He thinks our system is crowded with them; that they are perpetually falling upon the sun's surface, and the arrested motion is converted into heat. The theory is plausible, and in harmony with what we know of the vast number of meteorites that have their orbits within our system, as shown by the meteoric showers of August and November. But it would seem that there must be a slow accretion in the mass of the sun in the course of centuries, disturbing the order of the system by the inevitable laws of gravity. If there is substance enough in the meteorites to develop heat, there must be substance enough to increase weight. |