Startling Phases of a Great Comet 



By Win. II. Knight. 



■ & i 



The greal Cornel Morehouse (1908 e), which arrived al 

 perihelion on Christmas day, L908, is. in the Language of As- 

 tronomer Barnard of the Ferkes Observatory, "the si bi- 

 zarre cornel thai we have had to deal with since photography 

 began to register the freaks of the tails of comets. Almost 

 nightly it has shown features thai would have singled ii oul 

 as a very remarkable object, and on inure than one occasion 

 it has presented a most extraordinary and unique appearance." 



It is now swinging round the sun in a great parabolic 

 curve, having arrived from mid-heaven above the plane <d' the 

 earth's orbit, and plunged through thai plane to the mid- 

 heaven below, at an angle of 140 degrees; consequently its 

 motion round the sun is retrograde, or contrary to thai of 

 the earth. 



At its perihelion passage (point nearest to the sun) on the 

 25th of December, the comet was barely 5,000,000 miles within 

 the earth's orbit, as shown in the accompanying diagram, but 

 the earth on that date was at the opposite extremity of its 

 orbit, or aboul 180,000,000 miles distant from the comet. 



Suppose the greal comet had arrived at the same point six 

 months earlier, we should then have beheld this enormous hut 

 loosely aggregated mass of matter, partly self-luminous, and 

 having a diameter about one-third thai of the sun. at such 

 close range that we could readily observe the violent disturb- 

 ances going on within its hrillianl nucleus, and it would have 

 formed an importanl epoch in astronomical research. 



Its mysterious tail, an appendage streaming out into 

 space for a distance of 27.000.000 miles, would have completely 

 enveloped the earth, and would possibly have introduced some 

 noxious elements into our atmosphere, though under such 

 extreme dilution as to he quite harmless. It is asserted that 

 the earth plunged through the tail of a greal comet which 

 suddenly flamed across the northern sky in 1861, and that the 

 only noticeable effed was a slightly roseate line in the atmo- 

 sphere. 



When the Morehouse comet was lirst seen by its discov- 

 erer, September 1. 1908, it was 140.ooo.ooi) miles away, hid 

 while it was approaching, the earth was moving in an 

 opposite direction, and during the month of October the two 

 bodies were hut Little more than 100,000,000 miles apart. On 

 account, however, of the high declination of the comet, within 

 thirty degrees of the celestial north pole, it could he observed 

 fv sunset to sunrise. 



These opportunities were so well availed of in some 



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