ASTROXOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 



NEW PLANETS AND COMETS FOR 1864. 



THE discovery of three new asteroidal planets has been announced 

 during the past year, making the whole number now recognized 

 eighty-two. 



The eightieth asteroid was discovered by Mr. Pogson of the Obser- 

 vatory of Madras, India. It has received the name of Sappho. 

 The eighty-first asteroid was discovered September 30, by Mr. 

 Tempel of Marseilles, France. It has received the name of Terp- 

 sichore. 



The eighty-second asteroid was discovered November 27, by M. Lu- 

 ther of Bilk, Germany. It has received the name -of Alkmene, 



New Comets. Five new comets have been discovered during the 

 past year ; but none of them exhibited any special features of in- 

 terest. 



Stela's Comet, which during its apparition in 1840 exhibited such 

 remarkable phenomena, its nucleus splitting up into two in a most 

 mysterious manner, each component pursuing different paths, will 

 be with us again this year. As might have been imagined, the strange 

 splitting up in 1846, considerably disturbed its path ; but although 

 when it was observed by Father Secchi in 1852 it was distant 6 in 

 right ascension and 2 in declination from its predicted place, much 

 of the deviation was due to the error of the ephemeris. The comet 

 could not be observed at its perihelion in 1859, so that the 1865 re- 

 turn Avill be watched for by astronomers with the greatest interest. 



ASTRONOMICAL SUMMARY. 



Supposed fifth Satellite of Jupiter. M. Gftsparis, of the Observatory 

 at Naples, saw, July 22, 1864, at 7.59 P.M. a black, well-defined point 

 on the disc of the planet. In a quarter of an hour this black point, 

 moving in the direction of the planet's rotation, disappeared, passing from 

 the margin. M. de Gasparis asks if this is the same body that has been 

 seen by Messrs. Long and Baxendell. M. Flammarion, in the Paris 

 Cosmos, says ir, could not have been a little planet in conjunction with 

 Jupiter, for in that cas-e its motion would have been in an opposite direc- 

 tion, and it was not one of the four known satellites, as they were all 

 visible. Could it, he asks, have been a fifth small satellite? 



The, Spectrum of Comet II, 1864. Prof. Donati, of Florence, publishes 

 in Astron. Nach. a sketch of the spectrum afforded by this comet, and 

 he remarks that it resembles that produced by metals, the black bands 

 being broader than the luminous. 



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