THE HEAVENS 



367 

 "to think the 



powers of the human mind, enabling man 

 thoughts of the Almighty after Him." 



Perhaps the readiest way in which to recall at any time 

 the relative distances of the planets from the sun is to make 

 use of the following device known as Bode's Law: 



Assigning 93,000,000 miles as the unit distance for the 

 earth, the distance of the sun from any one of the other 

 planets is readily found in round numbers by multiplying 

 the earth's distance by the number given in the bottom row. 

 A marked exception exists in the case of Neptune where the 

 multiplier used must be 30 rather than 38.8. 



It is interesting to calculate the intensity of light and heat 

 from the sun upon some of these other planets relative to that 

 received by the earth. The intensity of light and heat at 

 Neptune, thirty times more distant than the earth, is (Mo) 2 

 or one nine-hundredth as much, while on Mercury which is 

 only Jfo as far away the light and heat intensity is ( l %) 2 or 

 about twice as great. 



1 The asteroids are small planetary bodies revolving about the sun at dis- 

 tances approximately as indicated. They may be considered as fragments of 

 a planet which for some unknown reason either failed to unite or to remain 

 united as did the other eight planets. 



