Curiosities of the Sky by Garrett Serviss (best ereader for academics .txt) 📖

be found. Among the many that have been proposed the most elaborate is the 'Planetesimal Hypothesis' of Professors Chamberlin and Moulton. It is to be remarked that it applies to the spiral nebulæ distinctively, and not to an apparently chaotic mass of gas like the vast luminous cloud in Orion. The gist of the theory is that these curious objects are probably the result of close approaches to each other of two independent suns, reminding us of what was said on this subject when we were dealing with temporary stars. Of the previous history of these appulsing suns the theory gives us no account; they are simply supposed to arrive within what may be called an effective tide-producing distance, and then the drama begins. Some of the probable consequences of such an approach have been noticed in Chapter 5; let us now consider them a little more in detail.

Tides always go in couples; if there is a tide on one side of a globe there will be a corresponding tide on the other side. The cause is to be found in the law that the force of gravitation varies inversely as the square of the distance; the attraction on the nearest surface of the body exercised by another body is greater than on its center, and greater yet than on its opposite surface. If two great globes attract each other, each tends to draw the other out into an ellipsoidal figure; they must be more rigid than steel to resist this - and even then they cannot altogether resist. If they are liquid or gaseous they will yield readily to the force of distortion, the amount of which will depend upon their distance apart, for the nearer they are the greater becomes the tidal strain. If they are encrusted without and liquid or gaseous in the interior, the internal mass will strive to assume the figure demanded by the tidal force, and will, if it can, burst the restraining envelope. Now this is virtually the predicament of the body we call a sun when in the immediate presence of another body of similarly great mass. Such a body is presumably gaseous throughout, the component gases being held in a state of rigidity by the compression produced by the tremendous gravitational force of their own aggregate mass. At the surface such a body is enveloped in a shell of relatively cool matter. Now suppose a great attracting body, such as another sun, to approach near enough for the difference in its attraction on the two opposite sides of the body and on its center to become very great; the consequence will be a tidal deformation of the whole body, and it will lengthen out along the line of the gravitational pull and draw in at the sides, and if its shell offers considerable resistance, but not enough to exercise a complete restraint, it will be violently burst apart, or blown to atoms, and the internal mass will leap out on the two opposite sides in great fiery spouts. In the case of a sun further advanced in cooling than ours the interior might be composed of molten matter while the exterior crust had become rigid like the shell of an egg; then the force of the 'tidal explosion' produced by the appulse of another sun would be more violent in consequence of the greater resistance overcome. Such, then, is the mechanism of the first phase in the history of a spiral nebula according to the Planetesimal Hypothesis. Two suns, perhaps extinguished ones, have drawn near together, and an explosive outburst has occured in one or both. The second phase calls for a more agile exercise of the imagination.

To simplify the case, let us suppose that only one of the tugging suns is seriously affected by the strain. Its vast wings produced by the outburst are twisted into spirals by their rotation and the contending attractions exercised upon them, as the two suns, like battleships in desperate conflict, curve round each other, concentrating their destructive energies. Then immense quantities of débris are scattered about in which eddies are created, and finally, as the sun that caused the damage goes on its way, leaving its victim to repair its injuries as it may, the dispersed matter cools, condenses, and turns into streams of solid particles circling in elliptical paths about their parent sun. These particles, or fragments, are the 'planetesimals' of the theory. In consequence of the inevitable intersection of the orbits of the planetesimals, nodes are formed where the flying particles meet, and at these nodes large masses are gradually accumulated. The larger the mass the greater its attraction, and at last the nodal points become the nuclei of great aggregations from which planets are shaped.

This, in very brief form, is the Planetesimal Hypothesis which we are asked to substitute for that based on Laplace's suggestion as an explanation of the mode of origin of the solar system; and the phenomena of the spiral nebulæ are appealed to as offering evident support to the new hypothesis. We are reminded that they are elliptical in outline, which accords with the hypothesis; that their spectra are not gaseous, which shows that they may be composed of solid particles like the planetesimals; and that their central masses present an oval form, which is what would result from the tidal effects, as just described. We also remember that some of them, like the Lord Rosse and the Andromeda nebulæ, are visually double, and in these cases we might suppose that the two masses represent the tide-burst suns that ventured into too close proximity. It may be added that the authors of the theory do not insist upon the appulse of two suns as the only way in which the planetesimals may have originated, but it is the only supposition that has been worked out.

But serious questions remain. It needs, for instance, but a glance at the Triangulum monster to convince the observer that it cannot be a solar system which is being evolved there, but rather a swarm of stars. Many of the detached masses are too vast to admit of the supposition that they are to be transformed into planets, in our sense of planets, and the distances of the stars which appear to have been originally ejected from the focal masses are too great to allow us to liken the assemblage that they form to a solar system. Then, too, no nodes such as the hypothesis calls for are visible. Moreover, in most of the spiral nebulæ the appearances favor the view that the supposititious encountering suns have not separated and gone each rejoicing on its way, after having inflicted the maximum possible damage on its opponent, but that, on the contrary, they remain in close association like two wrestlers who cannot escape from each other's grasp. And this is exactly what the law of gravitation demands; stars cannot approach one another with impunity, with regard either to their physical make-up or their future independence of movement. The theory undertakes to avoid this difficulty by assuming that in the case of our system the approach of the foreign body to the sun was not a close one - just close enough to produce the tidal extrusion of the relatively insignificant quantity of matter needed to form the planets. But even then the effect of the appulse would be to change the direction of flight, both of the sun and of its visitor, and there is no known star in the sky which can be selected as the sun's probable partner in their ancient pas deux. That there are unconquered difficulties in Laplace's hypothesis no one would deny, but in simplicity of conception it is incomparably more satisfactory, and with proper modifications could probably be made more consonant with existing facts in our solar system than that which is offered to replace it. Even as an explanation of the spiral nebulæ, not as solar systems in process of formation, but as the birthplaces of stellar clusters, the Planetesimal Hypothesis would be open to many objections. Granting its assumptions, it has undoubtedly a strong mathematical framework, but the trouble is not with the mathematics but with the assumptions. Laplace was one of the ablest mathematicians that ever lived, but he had never seen a spiral nebula; if he had, he might have invented a hypothesis to suit its phenomena. His actual hypothesis was intended only for our solar system, and he left it in the form of a 'note' for the consideration of his successors, with the hope that they might be able to discover the full truth, which he confessed was hidden from him. It cannot be said that that truth has yet been found, and when it is found the chances are that intuition and not logic will have led to it.

The spiral nebulæ, then, remain among the greatest riddles of the universe, while the gaseous nebulæ, like that of Orion, are no less mysterious, although it seems impossible to doubt that both forms give birth to stars. It is but natural to look to them for light on the question of the origin of our planetary system; but we should not forget that the scale of the phenomena in the two cases is vastly different, and the forces in operation may be equally different. A hill may have been built up by a glacier, while a mountain may be the product of volcanic forces or of the upheaval of the strata of the planet.

The Banners of the Sun

As all the world knows, the sun, a blinding globe pouring forth an inconceivable quantity of light and heat, whose daily passage through the sky is caused by the earth's rotation on its axis, constitutes the most important phenomenon of terrestial existence. Viewed with a dark glass to take off the glare, or with a telescope, its rim is seen to be a sharp and smooth circle, and nothing but dark sky is visible around it. Except for the interference of the moon, we should probably never have known that there is any more of the sun than our eyes ordinarily see.

But when an eclipse of the sun occurs, caused by the interposition of the opaque globe of the moon, we see its immediate surroundings, which in some respects are more wonderful than the glowing central orb. These surroundings, although not in the sense in which we apply the term to the gaseous envelope of the earth, may be called the sun's atmosphere. They consist of two very different parts - first, the red 'prominences,' which resemble tongues of flame ascending thousands of miles above the sun's surface; and, second, the 'corona,' which extends to distances of millions of miles from the sun, and shines with a soft, glowing light. The two combined, when well seen, make a spectacle without parallel among the marvels of the sky. Although many attempts have been made to render the corona visible when there is no eclipse, all have failed, and it is to the moon alone that we owe its revelation. To cover the sun's disk with a circular screen will not answer the purpose because of the illumination of the air all about the observer. When the moon hides the sun, on the other hand, the sunlight is withdrawn from a great cylinder of air extending to the top of the atmosphere and spreading many miles around the observer. There is then no glare to interfere with the spectacle, and the corona appears in all its surprising beauty. The prominences, however, although they were discovered during an eclipse, can now, with the aid of the spectroscope, be seen at any time. But the prominences are rarely large enough to be noticed by the naked eye, while the streamers of the corona, stretching far away in space,