History of Astronomy by George Forbes (classic children's novels TXT) 📕

Sir John Herschel noticed that the spots are mostly confined to two zones extending to about 35° on each side of the equator, and that a zone of equatoreal calms is free from spots. But it was R. C. Carrington[4] who, by his continuous observations at Redhill, in Surrey, established the remarkable fact that, while the rotation period in the highest latitudes, 50°, where spots are seen, is twenty-seven-and-a-half days, near the equator the period is only twenty-five days. His splendid volume of observations of the sun led to much new information about the average distribution of spots at different epochs.

Schwabe, of Dessau, began in 1826 to study the solar surface, and, after many years of work, arrived at a law of frequency which has been more fruitful of results than any discovery in solar physics.[5] In 1843 he announced a decennial period of maxima and minima of sun-spot displays. In 1851 it was generally accepted, and, although a period of eleven years has been found to be more exact, all later observations, besides the earlier ones which have been hunted up for the purpose, go to establish a true periodicity in the number of sun-spots. But quite lately Schuster[6] has given reasons for admitting a number of co-existent periods, of which the eleven-year period was predominant in the nineteenth century.

In 1851 Lament, a Scotchman at Munich, found a decennial period in the daily range of magnetic declination. In 1852 Sir Edward Sabine announced a similar period in the number of “magnetic storms” affecting all of the three magnetic elements—declination, dip, and intensity. Australian and Canadian observations both showed the decennial period in all three elements. Wolf, of Zurich, and Gauthier, of Geneva, each independently arrived at the same conclusion.

It took many years before this coincidence was accepted as certainly more than an accident by the old-fashioned astronomers, who want rigid proof for every new theory. But the last doubts have long vanished, and a connection has been further traced between violent outbursts of solar activity and simultaneous magnetic storms.

The frequency of the Aurora Borealis was found by Wolf to follow the same period. In fact, it is closely allied in its cause to terrestrial magnetism. Wolf also collected old observations tracing the periodicity of sun-spots back to about 1700 A.D.

Spoerer deduced a law of dependence of the average latitude of sun-spots on the phase of the sun-spot period.

All modern total solar eclipse observations seem to show that the shape of the luminous corona surrounding the moon at the moment of totality has a special distinct character during the time of a sun-spot maximum, and another, totally different, during a sun-spot minimum.

A suspicion is entertained that the total quantity of heat received by the earth from the sun is subject to the same period. This would have far-reaching effects on storms, harvests, vintages, floods, and droughts; but it is not safe to draw conclusions of this kind except from a very long period of observations.

Solar photography has deprived astronomers of the type of Carrington of the delight in devoting a life’s work to collecting data. It has now become part of the routine work of an observatory.

In 1845 Foucault and Fizeau took a daguerreotype photograph of the sun. In 1850 Bond produced one of the moon of great beauty, Draper having made some attempts at an even earlier date. But astronomical photography really owes its beginning to De la Rue, who used the collodion process for the moon in 1853, and constructed the Kew photoheliograph in 1857, from which date these instruments have been multiplied, and have given us an accurate record of the sun’s surface. Gelatine dry plates were first used by Huggins in 1876.

It is noteworthy that from the outset De la Rue recognised the value of stereoscopic vision, which is now known to be of supreme accuracy. In 1853 he combined pairs of photographs of the moon in the same phase, but under different conditions regarding libration, showing the moon from slightly different points of view. These in the stereoscope exhibited all the relief resulting from binocular vision, and looked like a solid globe. In 1860 he used successive photographs of the total solar eclipse stereoscopically, to prove that the red prominences belong to the sun, and not to the moon. In 1861 he similarly combined two photographs of a sun-spot, the perspective effect showing the umbra like a floor at the bottom of a hollow penumbra; and in one case the faculæ were discovered to be sailing over a spot apparently at some considerable height. These appearances may be partly due to a proper motion; but, so far as it went, this was a beautiful confirmation of Wilson’s discovery. Hewlett, however, in 1894, after thirty years of work, showed that the spots are not always depressions, being very subject to disturbance.

The Kew photographs [7] contributed a vast amount of information about sun-spots, and they showed that the faculæ generally follow the spots in their rotation round the sun.

The constitution of the sun’s photosphere, the layer which is the principal light-source on the sun, has always been a subject of great interest; and much was done by men with exceptionally keen eyesight, like Mr. Dawes. But it was a difficult subject, owing to the rapidity of the changes in appearance of the so-called rice-grains, about 1” in diameter. The rapid transformations and circulations of these rice-grains, if thoroughly studied, might lead to a much better knowledge of solar physics. This seemed almost hopeless, as it was found impossible to identify any “rice-grain” in the turmoil after a few minutes. But M. Hansky, of Pulkowa (whose recent death is deplored), introduced successfully a scheme of photography, which might almost be called a solar cinematograph. He took photographs of the sun at intervals of fifteen or thirty seconds, and then enlarged selected portions of these two hundred times, giving a picture corresponding to a solar disc of six metres diameter. In these enlarged pictures he was able to trace the movements, and changes of shape and brightness, of individual rice-grains. Some granules become larger or smaller. Some seem to rise out of a mist, as it were, and to become clearer. Others grow feebler. Some are split in two. Some are rotated through a right angle in a minute or less, although each of the grains may be the size of Great Britain. Generally they move together in groups of very various velocities, up to forty kilometres a second. These movements seem to have definite relation to any sun-spots in the neighbourhood. From the results already obtained it seems certain that, if this method of observation be continued, it cannot fail to supply facts of the greatest importance.

It is quite impossible to do justice here to the work of all those who are engaged on astronomical physics. The utmost that can be attempted is to give a fair idea of the directions of human thought and endeavour. During the last half-century America has made splendid progress, and an entirely new process of studying the photosphere has been independently perfected by Professor Hale at Chicago, and Deslandres at Paris.[8] They have succeeded in photographing the sun’s surface in monochromatic light, such as the light given off as one of the bright lines of hydrogen or of calcium, by means of the “Spectroheliograph.” The spectroscope is placed with its slit in the focus of an equatoreal telescope, pointed to the sun, so that the circular image of the sun falls on the slit. At the other end of the spectroscope is the photographic plate. Just in front of this plate there is another slit parallel to the first, in the position where the image of the first slit formed by the K line of calcium falls. Thus is obtained a photograph of the section of the sun, made by the first slit, only in K light. As the image of the sun passes over the first slit the photographic plate is moved at the same rate and in the same direction behind the second slit; and as successive sections of the sun’s image in the equatoreal enter the apparatus, so are these sections successively thrown in their proper place on the photographic plate, always in K light. By using a high dispersion the faculæ which give off K light can be correctly photographed, not only at the sun’s edge, but all over his surface. The actual mechanical method of carrying out the observation is not quite so simple as what is here described.

By choosing another line of the spectrum instead of calcium K—for example, the hydrogen line H(3)—we obtain two photographs, one showing the appearance of the calcium floculi, and the other of the hydrogen floculi, on the same part of the solar surface; and nothing is more astonishing than to note the total want of resemblance in the forms shown on the two. This mode of research promises to afford many new and useful data.

The spectroscope has revealed the fact that, broadly speaking, the sun is composed of the same materials as the earth. Ångstrom was the first to map out all of the lines to be found in the solar spectrum. But Rowland, of Baltimore, after having perfected the art of making true gratings with equidistant lines ruled on metal for producing spectra, then proceeded to make a map of the solar spectrum on a large scale.

In 1866 Lockyer[9] threw an image of the sun upon the slit of a spectroscope, and was thus enabled to compare the spectrum of a spot with that of the general solar surface. The observation proved the darkness of a spot to be caused by increased absorption of light, not only in the dark lines, which are widened, but over the entire spectrum. In 1883 Young resolved this continuous obscurity into an infinite number of fine lines, which have all been traced in a shadowy way on to the general solar surface. Lockyer also detected displacements of the spectrum lines in the spots, such as would be produced by a rapid motion in the line of sight. It has been found that both uprushes and downrushes occur, but there is no marked predominance of either in a sun-spot. The velocity of motion thus indicated in the line of sight sometimes appears to amount to 320 miles a second. But it must be remembered that pressure of a gas has some effect in displacing the spectral lines. So we must go on, collecting data, until a time comes when the meaning of all the facts can be made clear.

Total Solar Eclipses.—During total solar eclipses the time is so short, and the circumstances so impressive, that drawings of the appearance could not always be trusted. The red prominences of jagged form that are seen round the moon’s edge, and the corona with its streamers radiating or interlacing, have much detail that can hardly be recorded in a sketch. By the aid of photography a number of records can be taken during the progress of totality. From a study of these the extent of the corona is demonstrated in one case to extend to at least six diameters of the moon, though the eye has traced it farther. This corona is still one of the wonders of astronomy, and leads to many questions. What is its consistency, if it extends many million miles from the sun’s surface? How is it that it opposed no resistance to the motion of comets which have almost grazed the sun’s surface? Is this the origin of the zodiacal light? The character of the corona in photographic records has been shown to depend upon the phase of the sun-spot period. During the sun-spot maximum the corona seems most developed over the spot-zones—i.e., neither at the equator nor the poles. The four