Solar physics

“ In these regularly variable stars it is the light which varies, but of course the solar heat must vary also,—that is to say, the solar energy varies regularly, but with unequal periods of growth and decline and with larger periods of cyclical variation in addition. Such variations can only be produced by the action of permanently connected and orbitally rotating planetary bodies, acting dynamically through space, to regularly increase and diminish the solar energy, and such bodies can only do this by their orbital positions with reference to each other and to the central sun itself. ”

“ Ultimatonic energy does not obey the linear or direct gravity attraction of near-by or remote material masses, but it does ever swing true to the circuit of the great ellipse of the far-flung creation.
Your own solar center radiates almost one hundred billion tons of actual matter annually, while the giant suns lose matter at a prodigious rate during their earlier growth, the first billion years. A sun's life becomes stable after the maximum of internal temperature is reached, and the subatomic energies begin to be released. ”

“ By the law of the diffusion of gases, and that of the diffusion or transference of heat-energy from molecule to molecule, the vast realms of interstellar space must tend to be all brought into approximate uniformity of tensions, and the force abstracted at those points of space occupied by the relatively few and insignificant solar systems will be returned, not directly at the identical places where such solar systems may exist, but at every part of space to which their radiant energy extends. ”

“ We must also bear in mind that sun-spots do not diminish the solar heat, as they are the result of increased and not of diminished energy. Electric currents of high potential pass directly, as we know, along the lines of least resistance to their opposite center of polarity, so that two planets nearly in conjunction with each other transmit their currents almost directly towards the sun’s center, and upon the same point of solar latitude, while, if at right angles with the sun, they must deliver their electricity along converging lines and thus strike the solar surface at different points. ”

“ The solar system possesses less energy in proportion to its moment of momentum than it would require to have if the orbits of the important planets, instead of lying practically in the same plane, were inclined at various angles. Whatever may have been the original disposition of the materials forming the solar system, they must once have contained much more energy than they have at present. ”

“ If, however, we consider, as is generally believed to be the case, the sun itself to be the sole prime source of its visible energy, nothing but difficulty and vague speculation can be looked for on every hand; but by relegating the solar orb to its proper place, and taking as the starting-point the true source of all energy,—to wit, the hidden forces embodied in the vapors or gases of interstellar space,—the whole process and mode of action will logically follow, and obscurity and difficulty together disappear. ”

“ The heat motion then disappears as heat by its conversion into work, just as the motion of a belt in a mill disappears in the work of the machine which it drives. One two-hundred-and-thirty-two-millionth part of the radiant solar energy, we know, is caught by the flying planets of our system in the forms of heat and light, adapted to sustain life and its continued [140] potentiality, and we know that this solar energy is the sole source of all the development and maintenance of the planets as the possible abodes of organic life, past, present or future. ”

“ Under control of the latter, the earth sweeps around in her orbit at the rate of about twenty miles per second; all these suns could not give our solar system even a minute fraction of that. Of this starlight Professor Ball says, “The sun certainly must receive some heat by the radiation from the stars; but this is quite infinitesimal in comparison with his own stupendous radiation.” Any such attraction, of course, could not control the motions of our solar system, and much less that of many of the others. ”

“ The solar system of circulation, instead of being adapted, like that of the earth, to the distribution of heat received from without, was seen to be directed towards the transportation towards the surface of the heat contained within. Polar and equatorial currents, tending to a purely superficial equalisation of temperature, were replaced by vertical currents bringing up successive portions of the intensely heated interior mass, to contribute their share in turn to the radiation into space which might be called the proper function of a sun. ”

“ Whatever the sun may gain by increment of meteoric masses may pass for what it is worth, but the gradual contraction of his volume cannot proceed while his present temperature is maintained by the passage of such currents,—that is to say, his light and heat will remain constant, and also his mass and volume, so long as the electric currents which pass from the planets to the sun and the constitution of space which surrounds the sun and planets themselves remain constant.
Ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity. ”

“ In the very act of parting with heat, the sun develops a fresh stock. His radiations, in short, are the direct result of shrinkage through cooling. A diminution of the solar diameter by 380 feet yearly would just suffice to cover the present rate of emission, and would for ages remain imperceptible with our means of observation, since, after the lapse of 6,000 years, the lessening of angular size would scarcely amount to one second. ”

“ If the stars were at rest, or if a sufficient number of stars were taken to eliminate the consequences of their individual motions, then the spectroscopic search for the movements of the solar system becomes very simple. It is only necessary to measure the rate at which the solar system alters its distance from the various points around. That point on the celestial sphere where the star shows the velocity of approach to be greatest, can only be the point towards which the solar system is directing its motion. ”

“ Retardation of sun-spots by continuous development to the rear, and recession in front, as the sun rotates on its axis. The short arrows represent lines of planetary energy; the long arrows show the direction of the sun’s rotation.
The dark inner disk represents the solar core, the white circle the photosphere, the mottled area the chromosphere and faculæ, and the dark outer ring the corona. Loops and tufted sprays are shown, caused by inflowing faculæ in front, caught by the uprush of active portions of the sun-spot towards rear. ”

“ The whole sun contracts, every particle of its whole mass falls toward the center and contributes its mite to the total supply of heat. The surface particles move, of course, through a much greater distance than do those within the sphere. On account of the tremendous mass of the sun a very slight contraction will suffice to maintain its supply of heat. A shrinkage in the solar diameter of some 300 feet a year is all that is necessary to account for the great outpour of energy.—Charles Lane Poor, “The Solar System.” ”

“ While they aim to account for the sun’s light and heat, they all fail to consider the active medium of the solar light and heat in the sun itself. It is not simply a highly-heated central mass glowing in space. It is a vast orb surrounded by different envelopes of incandescent vapors or gases, and by far the most vast in volume, as well as in light and heat-radiating power, are the photosphere and its superincumbent chromosphere, composed almost entirely of free hydrogen gas in a state of intense incandescence. ”

“ As before explained, the advent of a comet into our solar system is that of a stranger, with electric polarity the opposite of that of the planetary electrospheres and identical with that of the sun. Under the combined influence of the solar gravity and perturbation by the gravity of the planets these foreign bodies tend to shorten their periods, and finally fall into the ordinary array of the bodies which compose our own solar system. But when this occurs they will, in turn, become contributors to, instead of antagonists of, the energy of the sun ”

“ The mere fact of a differential rate of advance among sun-spots, as they pass across the solar face, of itself demonstrates that the active causes of these phenomena must be extra-solar, and if so, their only possible dynamic source must be looked for in the planets, and the remaining conclusions will of necessity follow as a corollary. ”

“ The sun is only a little more than a hundred times its own diameter away from the earth. Why, then, with the subtle connection between them afforded by the ether which conveys to us the blinding solar light and the life-sustaining solar heat, should it be so difficult to believe that the sun’s enormous electric energies find a way to us also? No doubt the impulse coming from the sun acts upon the earth after the manner of a touch upon a trigger, releasing energies which are already stored up in our planet. ”

“ This allows us to take the latitudinal variation of incoming solar energy into account, for example: in general, areas near the equator receive more energy, and the incoming energy drops off as we move north or south toward the poles. Alternatively, if we are interested in differences in radiation received by different levels of the atmosphere, we might implement a one-dimensional model that’s organized vertically, rather than horizontally. ”

“ What the connection may be, if any, we do not know, but their identical course is obviously related to some common circumstance of origin, as is the probable case with those other groups of stars which drift through space together. They show that solar systems are not necessarily individual creations, but may be formed in groups at the same period of time, and by the operation of natural laws simultaneously directed upon or into the creative matter from which solar systems are built up and sent along their way. ”

“ Formulas have been derived for the energy of radiation from the upper limits of the atmosphere, for the changes in the radiating power, and for the frequency of eruptions and spots. The results thus obtained appear to be in close agreement with observation. The object of the article is to give an abstract of the main principles upon which is built a new solar theory. In a paper which is to appear in the Annals of the Edinburgh Royal Observatory the author will enter more in detail into the various applications of the theory to periodic phenomena at the sun's surface. ”

“ If these distant solar systems, in their drift through space, should encounter a corresponding stream [191] under an increased molecular tension, more highly heated, for example, or charged with electrical potential by the surrounding solar systems, or otherwise, we should expect a similar result to ensue,—that the currents would be increased suddenly, both in quantity and intensity, and all the phenomena of “blazing” stars be revealed in the precise order in which we see them. ”

“ But the fatal defect in the theory is that such impacts, to produce the radiant energy of the sun, must constantly add to its mass in like proportion, and as the motions and distances of the planets in their orbits are regulated and preserved by virtue of the substantially constant mass of the sun, any progressive and considerable increase in its mass must constantly bring the planets nearer and nearer, and thus increase their orbital velocity. ”

“ These planetary globes themselves, as they coalesced and contracted, left behind or threw off rings of their outer matter, which, in turn, became moons, and finally our solar system with its central sun was evolved as we now see it; development continued, the planets cooled and condensed, life appeared when the conditions became suitable, and the original progressive condensation of the central mass—the sun—still continuing, the evolution of light and heat continues, and will continue in a correlative degree. ”

“ It appears to be susceptible of full demonstration that a contraction of the sun’s volume of a given definite amount, which is yet so slight as to be invisible to the most powerful telescope, is competent to furnish a heat-supply equal to all that can have been emitted during historical periods. ”

“ It may be that a theory of atoms of this sort, with a medium between them, is not after all the simplest, but we are probably not yet prepared for any more general hypothesis. Now, we have only to look to our own solar system, in order to see on a large scale an illustration of this conception, for there we have the various heavenly bodies attracting one another, with forces depending only on the distances between them, and independent of the velocities; and we have likewise a medium of some sort, in virtue of which radiant energy is conveyed from the sun to the earth. ”

“ But most comets come from illimitable space, far, far beyond Neptune’s circle and at all angles to the plane of the planetary orbits; and we have already seen that a disk of space of the diameter of Neptune’s orbit and half as thick (see Proctor’s “Familiar Essays”) would, to contain all the matter of our solar system equally distributed, have a density of only one four-hundred-thousandth that of hydrogen gas at [275] atmospheric pressure,—that is to say, such a volume of the lightest substance we know of would make four hundred thousand solar systems like our own. ”