THE EARTH AT ITS BEGINNING 



then sinks into darkness again. But its steadiness would 

 make it an object of suspicion. There would be another 

 brief period in which it might be taken for a comet ; but 

 comets have a light quite different from that of reflected 

 sunlight. So that anxious expectation would be dissi- 

 pated, and the world would begin to recognise the mon- 

 ster for what it really was. If its size were the same as 

 that of the Sun, then it would first become visible to us 

 when 15,000,000,000 miles distant, 1 or let us say 1600 

 times farther away from us than we are from the Sun. 

 We and it would approach slowly at first. It would be 

 nearly ten years before the distance had been reduced to 

 6,000,000,000 of miles, and the intruder had begun to 

 be visible to the naked eye. In fourteen years it would 

 have reached the outer edge of the Solar System, and 

 would be the brightest star in the heavens. In another 

 year it would be twice as bright as Venus at her brightest, 

 and would be coming nearer with appalling swiftness. 

 In less than two months it would be as near the Sun as we 

 are. In a week more it would have plunged into the Sun 

 at the rate of 400 miles a second, and in the awful heat 

 born in that collision, Sun and earth and planets would 

 be molten, and the Solar System overwhelmed 

 In uiiremorseful folds of rolling fire. 



Suppose that this catastrophe were to take place. 

 Would that be the end of all things ? No. Out of the 

 fiery mist many millions of miles across like one of those 



1 See an article by Mr. Ellard Gore in Knowledge, November, 

 1905. The object would not be visible at this distance except through 

 large telescopes. 



93 



