| Show SHOOTING STARS london public opinion I 1 the shooting star i fre f re ro small bodies weighing at mst in st a few pounds and consisting mainly of iron aud carbon they traverse in swarms and also revolve around the sun in long elliptical elip courses like the comets when these little bodies enter the earths earth is orbit they are deflected toward the earth and great numbers are seen in a single night their brightness is due to ane heat engendered gendered eu ou by the energy of their motion moti freir speed is enormous viz kilometers a second while the speed of the earth on its I 1 to orbit Is ie only 25 kilometers a second forward tor ward consequently when a shower of them approaches the earth in the direction opposite to its course the initial speed is in 72 kilometers a second when they follow on its course they gain 16 kilometer aa second on it their mean rate of approach being 80 lo eo 40 kilometers a second the friction engenders a temperature of degrees celsius subject to which they burst into flame it if under these conditions their substance stance is in not vapor iced they pass through and beyond the upper strata of our atmosphere and aad pursue their proper course around the sun but t a as a rule the they y are vaporized vaporizer i I 1 4 w which h th 0 c case a se the va vapor p r m mingles ingles alt with the a atmosphere om phere to fall later 1 as I meteoric dust in this manner we come in contact annually with milliards billiards milli ards of shooting stars which add considerably to the earths substance every year shooting stars stare present the most interesting spectacle on the night of august and frequently also on the two following nights if the night is in clear and the observation la Is not disturbed by the moonlight one may count hundreds hundred and sad even thousands of falling stars atara during these theme three night all coming from apparently the same quarter ol of the heavens the tion of perseus the fact that the earth takes taken three pass through the shower of shooting stars affords a measure of the enormous space the occupy the more so that they cross our orbit at right argles angles to the earths course their orbit is a long one and corresponds with that of the great comet of 1862 which reaches a distance of kilometers from the sun approaching it at intervals of years this ini immense mense orbit appears to be full of shooting stars Ab another nother date equally interesting for the observation of shooting stars stare to is nove aber i ber on oa this date they are even more numerous than on august at intervals of thirty three years they fall on this date as thick as snowflakes two hundred anti and forty thousand are estimated to have fallen on november the phenomenon repeated itself in ii 1866 and we look forward to its re currence cur renoe in 1899 the november shooting stars appear to come out of the constellation stel lation leo the course of this group corresponds to that of the comet of 1866 usar near the orbit of uranus at a distance of 2840 kilometers from the sun which it approaches every thirty three years in the year A D this comet under the influence of the attraction of uranus was wag defected from its original course and made it a member of the solar system the two dates above mentioned mentioned are not however the only ones on which shooting stars in considerable numbers may be observed among others november may be mentioned for on this day in 1872 and again in least a hundred thousand shooting stars were observed in rome where I 1 was on the latter date the phenomena excited great interest and even the pope was evidently not wholly unmoved for some days later when I 1 had the honor of being rece received ived lj by Holin holiness esq his hia firt pr t words were bat ou see the 1 gulden adeta shower of danneil danae Dana eil the rho blower ower 0 or fixed stare of 1872 was entirely unexpected by the astronomers they had been much disturbed at the lose of belays belas comet which after its ita discovery steadily att adaly wade made its appearance at intervals of six and a half years until 1846 in accordance with its computed com course on OB this occasion while pursuing its course on the night of january it split into two pieces diverging from each other as they pur pura sued their several courses both coin ets eta were visible on their return la in 1852 but they were pals pale and faded and more moret anan nan kilometers kilometer it was the last sight night from that date the bela comet has never been seen again it to is vanished annihilated burst bunt un into shooting stars were this not io so have bisected the earths orbit on november and actually have come bome in contact with IL it in its stead there appeared unexpected ly the abovementioned above mentioned shower of stare and the conclusion was that these small amali bodies were the remains of the bela rel comet a conclusion unquestionably confirmed by the observations of df 27 1885 this thie then iv ia one of the latest con science shooting stars stare are the fragments of shivered cornets cognets cor nets comets cometa in fact are comparatively short abort lived bo hes few of them persisting ing beyond a few thousand years and the smaller onee onea for a much less jesa period only while the duration ou ration of a planet like our earth extends to millions of years the great comets which frightened our ancestors would doubt doubtless be found to have lost much of their brilliancy if we could see and identify them for during their course around the sun they continually throw off vapor and fragments and are thus con scantly subject to diminution |
