Solar prominence

“ Still other conditions enable these suns to transform and send forth much of the energy of space which comes their way in the established space circuits, Many phases of physical energy and all forms of matter are attracted to, and subsequently distributed by, the solar dynamos. In this way the suns serve as local accelerators of energy circulation, acting as automatic power-control stations. ”

“ On grounds as uncertain as those which sustained many of the exploded doctrines of antiquity, it has been too hastily concluded that the past career of the earth and the duration of solar light must have been comprised within the course of a few millions of years. It is even supposed that, within a like circumscribed period of change and activity, the myriads of solar systems in the wide domains of space around us came into existence from chaotic fire-mist which filled the entire universe. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whatever may be the progress of solar research during the intervening years, it is impossible to imagine the alert astronomer of that remote day without incentive for further investigation of the sun's corona, in which are concealed no doubt many secrets of the sun's evolution from nebula to star. ”

“ It may be that the solar spots and the accessions of heat are produced in some other way. But I must admit I find strong reasons for regarding as probable the general theory, that the alternations of solar activity (not the solar activity itself be it noted) are excited from without. And since we know, as a matter of fact, that meteors exist in enormous numbers within the solar system, and that they aggregate with rapidly increasing density in the sun's neighbourhood, we must believe that they fall upon the sun in enormous numbers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is evident that if such fan action can bring back all the material that has received the solar radiations, and which holds them either as temperature or otherwise, the restoration and perpetuation of solar energy will be complete, for even the heat received by our earth and its brother and sister planets would still remain in the family, as they would radiate it into the interplanetary atmospheric matter supposed to be reclaimed by the sun. ”

“ While solar systems may afford in their circling planets a possible dominion for finite life, and in their suns their daily bread; in the infinite and all-embracing realms of space, filled with the potentialities of all created forms, thrilled with the impulses of all creative force, is to be found the unfailing source of all, the dominion of the eternal architect, before whom nature bends the obedient knee, waits to hear his mighty voice, or swiftly runs to do his royal bidding. ”

“ The solar clouds are not little beads of water; they are little beads of white-hot material so dazzlingly bright as to radiate forth the characteristic brilliance and splendour of the sun. The solar clouds drift to and fro; they are occasionally the sport of terrific hurricanes; they are sometimes driven away from limited areas, and in their absence we see merely the black interior of the solar globe, which we call a sun-spot. Now comes the important question as to the material present in these clouds which confers on the sun its ability to radiate forth such abundant light and heat. ”

“ Though no fixed conclusions are yet established about the causes of the brilliant auroral display, yet, as the results of laborious observations, we are assured that the stabler centre of our solar system holds in its powerful sway the several planets at their respective distances, supplying them all with their seasonable light and heat, vibrating sympathetic chords in all, and even controlling under certain—though to us still unknown—laws the electric streamers that flit, apparently lawlessly, in the distant earth’s atmosphere. ”

“ A theory of the evolution of the solar system, advocated by me during the last seven years, according to which the solar system had its origin in meteoric and cometic aggregation, requires that during the long ages through which the process of development continued there should be occasional outbursts of light and heat in moderate degree from the rest of the system, even to its outskirts. ”

“ A sun-spot is a solar tornado, wherein the intensely hot solar vapors are cooled by expansion, giving rise to the compounds already named. A red star, in Russell's scheme of stellar evolution, is a cooler sun, vast in volume and far more tenuous than atmospheric air when in the initial period of the "giant" stage, but compressed and denser than water in the "dwarf" stage, into which our sun has already entered as it gradually approaches the last phases of its existence. ”

“ Who can contemplate the power which produced the solar system, at once so magnificent, beautiful, and delightful, without astonishment and admiration? The planets are kept in a regular motion, and retained in an invariable course round the sun, by the power of this luminary’s attraction or gravity. These bodies have a projectile force, being propelled forwards in a right line, which is the nature of all simple motion; but the sun’s attraction combining with their own projectile force, withdraws them from their rectilineal courses, and preserves the most perfect harmony in the system. ”

“ Those who are still doubting that our sun emits powerful cosmic rays evidently overlook that the solar disk, in whatever position it may be in the heavens, cuts off the radiations from beyond, replacing them by its own. ”

“ But there are other solar systems within our astral systems, which are as yet in a less advanced state, and even some quantities of nebulous matter which have scarcely begun to advance towards the stellar form. ”

“ There is certainly no one body in creation which is so emphatically pre-eminent as the Sun. Whether or no there are stars which are suns—centres of systems serving in their degree the purposes served by our Sun, I need not now pause to enquire, though I think the idea is a very probable one; but of those celestial objects with which our Earth has a direct relationship, beyond doubt the Sun is unquestionably entitled to the foremost place. It is, as it were, the pivot on 19 which the Earth and all the various bodies comprising the Solar System revolve in their annual progress. ”

“ Now, the question which has agitated astronomy during the past few years has been simply whether the glory of light seen around the sun is in reality a solar appendage, or may not be due wholly or in part to the illumination either of our own atmosphere or of some other matter (not necessarily atmospheric) lying much nearer to us than the sun does. ”

“ It is certain that the sun must under such circumstances fall some degrees in temperature each year. In a couple of thousand years the change in temperature would be sufficiently great to affect in the profoundest manner the supply of sunbeams. As, however, we know that for a couple of thousand years, or, indeed, for periods much longer still, there has been no perceptible decrease in the volume of solar radiations, we conclude that the great luminary cannot be regarded merely as a glowing solid globe dispensing its heat by radiation. ”

“ A further argument in favour of the meteoric origin of solar alternations of heat is to be found in the fact that, on one occasion at least, a solar phenomenon, corresponding precisely to what we should expect to see, if great meteoric masses fell upon the sun, has been followed by precisely the same signs of terrestrial disturbance which accompany and follow the formation of great solar spots. ”

“ Until recently, the solar atmosphere could be seen only when the sun itself was hidden by the moon, a few minutes in a century. Now, however, the spectroscope has brought the chromosphere and the prominences within the range of daily observation, so that they can be studied with nearly the same facility as the spots and faculae, and a fresh field of great interest and importance is thus opened to science. But the corona as yet defies the new method, and can be seen only during the fleeting moments of a solar eclipse. ”

“ 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 condensation of volume of the planets will give rise to great elevation of temperature, while their currents of electricity, poured into the sun, will, by their passage through its enormously compressed hydrogen atmosphere, produce intense heat, and this, rapidly communicated to the solar core within, will raise its temperature to that of the sun as we now see it, and permanently maintain it in that state of incandescence. ”

“ Our globe appears to be little more than an accumulation of terrestrial materials introduced into the boundless ocean of the solar light, as a theatre on which it may display its exhaustless power and energy, and give animation, beauty and sublimity to every surrounding scene—and to regulate all the powers of nature, and render them subservient to the purposes for which they were ordained. ”

“ The second class of solar protuberances, comprising the eruptive type, is the most interesting, inasmuch as it conveys to us a conception of the magnitude and violence of the solar forces. The protuberances of this class, which are always intensely bright, appear for the most part in the immediate vicinity of Sun-spots or faculæ. These protuberances, which seem to be due to the outburst of the chromosphere, and to the violent ejection of incandescent gases and metallic vapors from the interior of the Sun, sometimes attain gigantic proportions and enormous heights. ”

“ The great difficulty, that of the perpetual renewal of the solar fuel, still remains unsolved; the fact that during the millions of years of geological history we find no indications of any declining average of solar energy is so far still unexplained by this, as by every other, attempt to account for the origin of solar and stellar light and heat. ”

“ Our most distant planet, Neptune, is only thirty times this distance from the sun, and we see during every solar eclipse the coronal structure glowing to a distance of more than a million miles from the sun’s disk, and the radial streamers driven forth five million miles, and even farther. (See illustrations [285] of solar corona in Guillemin’s “The Heavens.”) The vast stream of radiating nebulous matter thus forced out by solar repulsion will likewise be acted upon with equal energy by its own internal self-repellent force. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Similarly, near the sun’s poles we should find a gradual darkening, as is the case; but from five degrees to thirty degrees latitude, the sun, in its rotation, by reason of the inclination of its axis, passes at every point directly beneath the planets, or within their area of control, and here we find the solar spots in their greatest number, size, and intensity. These sun-spots cross the face of the sun in about fifteen days, and vary in development from year to year, having a cycle of 11.11 years from maximum to maximum. They also have a long cycle of about fifty-six years. ”