76 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



THE GRAVISPHERE 



EXPLANATION: This is an imaginary figure designed to 

 portray the relation of our solar system to the universe at 

 large. Observe that the south pole is placed at the top; this 

 has been done purposely in order to impress the lesson that 

 our cosmic fall is toward the north celestial pole. It has 

 been found desirable, for the sake of avoiding confusion, to 

 represent the Gravisphere as stationary and the orbit of the 

 sun (along the Antarctic Circle) as closed; but the reader 

 should conceive of the whole Sphere as falling the length of 

 its own diameter (3,836,000,000,000) in the period of some 

 20,630 years. The arrow-heads in the line of the Circle 

 indicate the direction in which the sun is moving; but were 

 it correctly represented, the path should actually appear as 

 a deep spiral coil with a sheer fall equal to its horizontal 

 circumference and a total length of 6,800,000,000,000 miles. 

 The Prime Resultant is shown in three different positions, 

 but in reality it follows the sun's movement, describing the 

 cone that has the Antarctic Circle for its base. The earth 

 is drawn (vastly enlarged in proportion) in four different 

 quadrantal positions, 6,452 years apart, in order to exhibit 

 the nutation of its axis whereby the Circle of Precession is 

 produced. In parenthesis, it may be added that the center 

 of the Gravisphere (the Vertex) does not fall in a perfectly 

 rectilinear path, but in a curve whose radius is on the order 

 of 10 light years and period of revolution 1,900,000 years. 



