MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



on Venus, provided that planet rotates in a manner 

 to expose first one side and then another to the sun's 

 influence. But it chances that this is a matter of 

 doubt. It was formerly supposed that the period of 

 rotation of Venus had been accurately determined, 

 particularly by the Italian astronomer De Vico, who 

 made the period 23 hours and 21 minutes. But more 

 recently another Italian astronomer, Schiaparelli, 

 whose observations of Mars have just been cited, 

 fixed attention on certain bright spots near the 

 southern horn of Venus (this planet showing phases 

 like those of the moon), and watched them for many 

 consecutive hours. He claimed that the line sepa- 

 rating day and night on Venus does not shift to any 

 appreciable extent, hence that Venus really rotates, 

 after the manner of Mercury and the moon, in such 

 a way as to present the same face always to its pri- 

 mary. 



Other astronomers have confirmed this observa- 

 tion. If it represents the facts, there can be no ques- 

 tion of the uninhabitability of Venus; to quote Pro- 

 fessor Maunder, "the side exposed to the sun will 

 wither in a temperature of about 227 degrees Centi- 

 grade, in which all moisture will be evaporated; the 

 side remote from it will be bound in eternal ice. In 

 neither hemisphere will water exist in the liquid 

 state; in neither hemisphere will life be possible." 



It must be added, however, that recent studies 

 made with the spectroscope have tended to confirm 

 the earlier belief that Venus rotates much as the earth 

 does in a period of approximately twenty-four hours. 

 But the cloudy state of the atmosphere of Venus 



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