342 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE TJRANOLOGICAL 



Of all known satellites, the Moon is the one whose orbit is 

 the most excentric as compared with that . of the primary 

 planet round which it revolves. (Respecting the distances 

 of satellites from their central planets, see Kosmos, Bd. i. 

 S. 102; Eng.ed.p. 88-89.) The distance of Saturn's nearest 

 satellite, Mimas, is at present estimated not at 20022, but 

 at 25600 German geographical miles (80088 and 102400 

 English) ; whence the resulting distance from Saturn's Ring 

 is somewhat above 7000 German (28000 Eng.) geographical 

 miles, reckoning the breadth of the Ring at 6047 German, 

 or 24188 English, and the distance of the Ring from the sur- 

 face of the planet 4594 German, or 18376 English, geogra- 

 phical miles ( 542 ) . The orbits of satellites present also remark- 

 able anomalies in regard to position, though there is at the 

 same time a certain agreement in this respect in the system of 

 Jupiter, whose satellites all move very nearly in the plane of 

 the equator of their central planet. In the group of Saturn's 

 satellites, 7 revolve nearly in the plane of the Ring, while 

 the outermost or 8th, Japetus, is inclined 12 14' to that 

 plane. 



In these general considerations respecting the planetary 

 spheres, we have descended from the higher (probably not 

 the highest) system ( 543 ) that of the Sun to the subordi- 

 nate partial systems of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Nep- 

 tune. As a tendency to generalisation is, as it were, inborn 

 in thoughtful and imaginative man, as an unsatisfied cos- 

 mical anticipation seems to present to him, in the movement 

 of translation of our solar system in space ( 544 ), the idea of an 

 ascending relation and subordination ; so, on the other hand, 

 the possibility has been suggested that J.ipiter's satellites 



