Planetary conjunction

“ The solution is—there are nine planets in this solar system! Neptune and Uranus are each far vaster than Earth; they are utterly impossible for life as we know it, but a small colony might be established there to refine metals for the distant Earth. We might be able to build domed and sealed cities. But first we could try the nearer planets—Mars, Venus, or some satellites such as our Moon. I certainly hope that this machine will make it possible. ”

“ When we bear in mind that, in addition to these various contrasts, the planets and satellites also differ in respect to their distances from each other and their primary; in respect to the inclinations of their orbits, the inclinations of their axes, their times of rotation on their axes, their specific gravities, and their physical constitutions; we see what a high degree of heterogeneity the solar system exhibits, when compared with the almost complete homogeneity of the nebulous mass out of which it is supposed to have originated. ”

“ The second concord of the planetary system, which is implied in the fact that all the planets go round in the same direction, need not therefore surprise us. It is a consequence, an inevitable consequence, of the evolution of that system from the great primæval nebula. We have seen that it would be excessively improbable that even nine or ten planets should revolve round the sun in the same direction, if the directions of their movements had been merely decided by chance. ”

“ But no matter what technique of world building obtains, gravity always produces the solar system type of creation; that is, a central sun or dark island with planets, satellites, subsatellites, and meteors.
The physical aspects of the individual worlds are largely determined by mode of origin, astronomical situation, and physical environment. Age, size, rate of revolution, and velocity through space are also determining factors. Both the gas-contraction and the solid-accretion worlds are characterized by mountains and, during their earlier life, when not too small, by water and air. ”

“ After ten more years the Sun would be unable to support its family. The planets they now inhabited—Earth, Venus and Mercury—were supported artificially. The atmospheres of all the planets had long since slowly dissipated into space, and with them had gone the water. These vital things were being replaced constantly by transmutation of the elements of the rocks of the planets. Long ages ago Earth had had a large satellite, which had been used through the ages to supply energy for the factories of man, and to supply the necessary atmosphere. ”

“ But if we admit that the substance of which the solar system consists once existed in a nebulous condition, and was in rotation, all the above peculiarities follow as necessary mechanical consequences. Nay, more, the formation of planets, the formation of satellites and of asteroids, is accounted for. We see why the outer planets and satellites are larger than the interior ones; why the larger planets rotate rapidly, and the small ones slowly; why of the satellites the outer planets have more, the inner fewer. ”

“ But till these binary stars were discovered we had no means of guessing that this law had any force beyond our own solar system. Now, however, we learn that the same law and order which reigns in our small group of planets is in action billions of miles away among distant suns, so that they are held together and move round each other as our earth moves round our sun. ”

“ Yes, we believe that the interplanetary space was well filled with these small bodies, circling around the sun, and when their multitudinous and eccentric orbits intercepted the orbits of the planets, they came within the attraction of these larger masses. ”

“ In view of the various cosmogonies which have been advanced for the genesis of the solar system it is interesting to note what these speeds imply as to the effect upon the satellites of the impact of particles circulating in the interplanetary spaces at the time the system evolved. To simplify the question we shall suppose—which is sufficiently near the truth—that the planets move in circles, the interplanetary particles in orbits of any eccentricity. ”

“ Our own solar system, composed as it is of many parts, of thousands of meteors and comets, of numbers of satellites and planets, all revolving around one common centre, also forms a complete and perfect mechanism in itself. For millions and millions of years this perfect mechanism has been harmoniously working together in all its parts, as it moves in all its unity through the realms of infinite space. ”

“ If it were possible to conceive of a stationary solar system, then, by the conjoint working of the two forces, it would be equally possible to conceive of perfect stability and harmony existing between the respective planets and satellites of that system while stationary. ”

“ After, in this way, throwing off the first planet, the central sun continued to cool and grow smaller, until the increase in the rate of its rotation was again such as to permit its centrifugal force to form a second ring around its equator, which being left as the sun continued to contract, gave rise to another planet, or to Uranus, and so on until the four major planets and the four minor planets were born. ”

“ Let E, Fig. 58, page 244, be the earth, and M, one of the superior planets, Mars, for example, each body being seen in its path around the [244] sun. At M, the planet would be in opposition to the sun, like the moon at the full; at Q and Q ́, it would be seen ninety degrees off, or in quadrature; and at M ́, in conjunction. We know, however, that this must be a superior and not an inferior conjunction, for the illuminated disk is still turned towards us; whereas, if it came between us and the sun, like Mercury, or Venus, in its inferior conjunction, its dark side would be presented to us. ”

“ It is wonderful to contemplate how the planetary forces balance each other so perfectly that universal equilibrium is maintained despite the disturbances of the 1500 millions which inhabit the earth alone, not to speak of other spheres. ”

“ If a planet is setting in the West at the time of our birth its angle strikes us in such a manner as to draw us to a certain type of marriage partner, and the planets under the earth, in the North, have an effect upon our condition in the latter part of life. ”

“ But since ’tis certain that the Earth and Jupiter have their Water and Clouds, there is no Reason why the other Planets But not just like ours. should be without them. I can’t say that they are exactly of the same nature with our Water; but that they should be liquid their Use requires, as their Beauty does that they should be [28] clear. For this Water of ours, in Jupiter or Saturn, would be frozen up instantly by reason of the vast distance of the Sun. ”

“ Earth's orbital radius does in our views of the immensity of
space. ”

“ Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of space, passing from land to land, among peoples, amid events. ”

“ Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."
Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. ”

“ Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, 19th March, 1879 Sir, I have received with much pleasure the table of the satellites of Jupiter which you have been so kind as to send me, and I am encouraged by your interest in the Jovial system to ask you if you have made any special study of the apparent retardation of the eclipses as affected by the geocentric position of Jupiter.
I am told that observations of this kind have been somewhat put out of fashion by other methods of determining quantities related to the velocity of light, but they afford the only method, so far as I know, of getting any estimate of the direction and magnitude of the velocity of the sun with respect to the luminiferous medium. ”

“ Astronomy teaches the correct use of the sun and the planets. These may be put on a frame of little sticks and turned round. This causes the tides. Those at the ends of the sticks are enormously far away. From time to time a diligent searching of the sticks reveals new planets. The orbit of a planet is the distance the stick goes round in going round. Astronomy is intensely interesting; it should be done at night, in a high tower in Spitzbergen. This is to avoid the astronomy being interrupted. ”

“ A Man that is of Copernicus’s Opinion, that this Earth of ours is a Planet, carry’d round and enlighten’d by the Sun, like the rest of the Planets, cannot but sometimes think, that it’s [2] not improbable that the rest of the Planets have their Dress and Furniture, and perhaps their Inhabitants too as well as this Earth of ours: Especially if he considers the later Discoveries made in the Heavens since Copernicus’s time, viz. ”

“ The geocentric system of astronomy, with its eccentrics and its epicycles, was an hypothesis utterly at variance with fact, which nevertheless did great things for the advancement of astronomical knowledge. ”

“ The moon is not kept in her orbit round the earth, nor the earth in her orbit round the sun, by a force that varies merely in the inverse ratio of the squares of the distances. ”

“ This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems: ”

“ Or, perchance, coming generations will not abide the dissolution of the globe, but, availing themselves of future inventions in aerial locomotion, and the navigation of space, the entire race may migrate from the earth, to settle some vacant and more western planet, it may be still healthy, perchance unearthy, not composed of dirt and stones, whose primary strata only are strewn, and where no weeds are sown. It took but little art, a simple application of natural laws, a canoe, a paddle, and a sail of matting, to people the isles of the Pacific, and a little more will people the shining isles of space. ”

“ We must believe then, that as from hence we see Saturn and Jupiter; if we were in either of the Two, we should discover a great many Worlds which we perceive not; and that the Universe extends so in infinitum." ”

“ Also the motion of the planet in its orbit was such that equal areas were described about the Sun by the radius vector of the planet in equal times.—Kepler, Astronomia Nova αἰτολογητός (Prague) , 1609. ”

“ Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it—we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. ”

“ Still, considering mere possibilities, it is not impossible that the twentieth century may be destined to make known natural forces which will enable us to fly from continent to continent with a speed far exceeding that of the bird. ”

“ Perhaps the immense Milky Way which on clear nights we behold stretching across the heavens, this vast encircling ring in which our planetary system is itself but a molecule, is in its turn but a cell in the Universe, in the Body of God. All the cells of our body combine and co-operate in maintaining and kindling by their activity our consciousness, our soul; ”

“ What now, dear reader, shall we make out of our telescope? Shall we make a Mercury's magic-wand to cross the liquid ether with, and, like Lucian, [10] lead a colony to the uninhabited evening star, allured by the sweetness of the place? ”

“ Bearing this obvious course of zoological reasoning in mind, let us endeavour for a moment to disconnect our thinking selves from the mask of humanity; let us imagine ourselves scientific Saturnians, if you will, fairly acquainted with such animals as now inhabit the Earth, and employed in discussing the relations they bear to a new and singular 'erect and featherless biped,' which some enterprising traveller, overcoming the difficulties of space and gravitation, has brought from that distant planet for our inspection, well preserved, may be, in a cask of rum. ”

“ ⁠By these considerations, however, Kepler was led to enunciate his third law, that the squares of the periodic times of planets are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from the sun.—Kepler, Prodromus Dissertationum Mathematicarum continens Mysterium Cosmographicum, etc. ”

“ V GREAT TELESCOPES AND THEIR WORK One hardly knows where, in the history of science, to look for an important movement that had its effective start in so pure and simple an accident as that which led to the building of the great Washington telescope, and went on to the discovery of the satellites of Mars. ”

“ The earth is not in the centre of the Sun's orbit nor at the centre of the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements, and united with them. And any one standing on the moon, when it and the sun are both beneath us, would see this our earth and the element of water upon it just as we see the moon, and the earth would light it as it lights us. ”