POPULAR ASTRONOMY. 



i99 



THE HEAVENS IN FEBRUARY. 



BY GARRETT P. SKkVISS, BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



Since the most talked about subject 

 in astronomy, this year as well as 

 next, will be comets, on account of 

 tbe return of the great Comet of Hal- 

 ley, we have decided, each month, to 

 indicate on the chart the place of some 

 remarkable comet of the past, which 

 either reached its point of nearest ap- 

 proach, or presented itself under re- 

 markable conditions during that partic- 

 ular month. For this month we pre- 

 sent a drawing" from a contemporary 

 picture, a representation of the im- 

 mense comet of 1843, which will be 

 seen in the lower right-hand corner of 

 the chart. This comet passed round 

 the sun on February 2J, 1843, almost 

 striking the sun's globe, an occurrence 

 nearly unparalleled, and of extraordi- 

 nary interest. From the time the 

 comet disappeared on one side of the 

 sun until it reappeared upon the other 

 was just two hours, during which it 

 traveled at the rate of one million two 

 hundred and sixty thousand miles an 

 hour, 360 miles per second ! On the 

 chart itself will be found an outline of 

 the stupendous tail of this comet as it 

 was seen shortly after it had gone 

 round the sun, when its actual length 

 was estimated to be not less than 200,- 

 000,000 miles. At that time, as the 

 chart shows, the head was near the 

 star Zeta in Cetus, while the great 

 tail stretched away to a point midway 

 between Rigel and Sirius, a distance of 

 about 65 degrees. The comet made its 

 appearance very suddenly, and its enor- 

 mous tail seems to have been shot 

 forth in about twenty days from its 

 first beginning. It moved so straight 

 toward the sun that a very slight 

 change of direction would have suf- 



ficed to precipitate it upon that body. 

 In fact, it must have passed through 

 the solar corona, that great gaseous 

 extension which surrounds the sun 

 and extends to a height of hundreds 

 of thousands of miles above its sur- 

 face. This great comet is interesting 

 on another account. Recently Prof. 

 George Forbes, of England, has 

 shown that, taken in connection with 

 the comets of 1882, 1880 and 1556, it 

 gives a probable clue to the existence 

 of another planet belonging to the so- 

 lar system, but situated far beyond 

 the orbit of Neptune. The theory of 

 Prof. Forbes is that the comet of 1556 

 was disrupted into three parts by ap- 

 proaching very close to this mysteri- 

 ous planet, and that the comets of 

 1843, J 88o and 1882, were the remains 

 of the original comet. By means of 

 the tracks pursued by these comets 

 he has calculated the position of the 

 new planet, which he believes circles 

 around the sun at a mean distance one 

 hundred times that of the earth, or 

 about 9,000,000,000 miles. Its period 

 of revolution is put at one thousand 

 years. Search for this planet will be 

 made, and it is possible that photog- 

 raphy may disclose it at any time. 

 If it is found, in accordance with Prof. 

 Forbes's indications, the result will be 

 one of the most wonderful discoveries 

 ever made, more wonderful even than 

 that of Neptune, which was found 

 through the influence of its attrac- 

 tion upon the planet Uranus. In this 

 case the discovery will be due to the 

 effects of the unknown planet's attrac- 

 tion on a comet thousands of millions 

 of miles away. The comet of 1556 

 also made its appearance in the month 

 of February, and, like those of 1843, 

 1880 and 1882, went astonishingly 

 close to the sun. Its appearance was 



