METEORS AND COMETS

We may conclude our survey of the solar system with a word about "shooting stars," or meteors, and comets. There are few now who do not know that the streak of fire which suddenly lights the sky overhead at night means that a piece of stone or iron has entered our atmosphere from outer space, and has been burned up by friction. It was travelling at, perhaps, twenty or thirty miles a second. At seventy or eighty miles above our heads it began to glow, as at that height the air is thick enough to offer serious friction and raise it to a white heat. By the time the meteor reached about twenty miles or so from the earth's surface it was entirely dissipated, as a rule in fiery vapour.

Millions of Meteorites

It is estimated that between ten and a hundred million meteorites enter our atmosphere and are cremated, every day. Most of them weigh only an ounce or two, and are invisible. Some of them weigh a ton or more, but even against these large masses the air acts as a kind of "torpedo-net." They generally burst into fragments and fall without doing damage.

It is clear that "empty space" is, at least within the limits of our solar system, full of these things. They swarm like fishes in the seas. Like the fishes, moreover, they may be either solitary or gregarious. The solitary bit of cosmic rubbish is the meteorite, which we have just examined. A "social" group of meteorites is the essential part of a comet. The nucleus, or bright central part, of the head of a comet (Fig. 19) consists of a swarm, sometimes thousands of miles wide, of these pieces of iron or stone. This swarm has come under the sun's gravitational influence, and is forced to travel round it. From some dark region of space it has moved slowly into our system. It is not then a comet, for it has no tail. But as the crowded meteors approach the sun, the speed increases. They give off fine vapour-like matter and the fierce flood of light from the sun sweeps this vapour out in an ever-lengthening tail. Whatever way the comet is travelling, the tail always points away from the sun.

A Great Comet

The vapoury tail often grows to an enormous length as the comet approaches the sun. The great comet of 1843 had a tail two hundred million miles long. It is, however, composed of the thinnest vapours imaginable. Twice during the nineteenth century the earth passed through the tail of a comet, and nothing was felt. The vapours of the tail are, in fact, so attenuated that we can hardly imagine them to be white-hot. They may be lit by some electrical force. However that may be, the comet dashes round the sun, often at three or four hundred miles a second, then may pass gradually out of our system once more. It may be a thousand years, or it may be fifty years, before the monarch of the system will summon it again to make its fiery journey round his throne.

Photo: Harvard College Observatory.

FIG. 21.—TYPICAL SPECTRA

Six main types of stellar spectra. Notice the lines they have in common, showing what elements are met with in different types of stars. Each of these spectra corresponds to a different set of physical and chemical conditions.

Photo: Mount Wilson Observatory.

FIG. 22.—A NEBULAR REGION SOUTH OF ZETA ORIONIS

Showing a great projection of "dark matter" cutting off the light from behind.

Photo: Astrophysical Observatory, Victoria, British Columbia.

FIG. 23.—STAR CLUSTER IN HERCULES

A wonderful cluster of stars. It has been estimated that the distance of this cluster is such that it would take light more than 100,000 years to reach us.