Off on a Comet by Jules Verne (best non fiction books to read .TXT) 📕

are each of the length of seven terrestrial years.

Although the light received from the sun is comparatively feeble,

the nights upon Saturn must be splendid. Eight satellites—

Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, and Japetus—

accompany the planet; Mimas, the nearest to its primary, rotating on its

axis in 221/2 hours, and revolving at a distance of only 120,800 miles,

whilst Japetus, the most remote, occupies 79 days in its rotation,

and revolves at a distance of 2,314,000 miles.

Another most important contribution to the magnificence of the nights

upon Saturn is the triple ring with which, as a brilliant setting,

the planet is encompassed. To an observer at the equator, this ring,

which has been estimated by Sir William Herschel as scarcely 100

miles in thickness, must have the appearance of a narrow band

of light passing through the zenith 12,000 miles above his head.

As the observer, however, increases his latitude either north

or south, the band will gradually widen out into three detached

and concentric rings, of which the innermost, dark though transparent,

is 9,625 miles in breadth; the intermediate one, which is brighter

than the planet itself, being 17,605 miles broad; and the outer,

of a dusky hue, being 8,660 miles broad.

Such, they read, is the general outline of this strange appendage,

which revolves in its own plane in 10 hours 32 minutes.

Of what matter it is composed, and how it resists disintegration,

is still an unsettled question; but it might almost seem

that the Designer of the universe, in permitting its existence,

had been willing to impart to His intelligent creatures the manner

in which celestial bodies are evolved, and that this remarkable

ring-system is a remnant of the nebula from which Saturn

was himself developed, and which, from some unknown cause,

has become solidified. If at any time it should disperse,

it would either fall into fragments upon the surface of Saturn,

or the fragments, mutually coalescing, would form additional

satellites to circle round the planet in its path.

To any observer stationed on the planet, between the extremes of lat.

45 degrees on either side of the equator, these wonderful rings would

present various strange phenomena. Sometimes they would appear as an

illuminated arch, with the shadow of Saturn passing over it like the hour-hand

over a dial; at other times they would be like a semi-aureole of light.

Very often, too, for periods of several years, daily eclipses of the sun

must occur through the interposition of this triple ring.

Truly, with the constant rising and setting of the satellites,

some with bright discs at their full, others like silver crescents,

in quadrature, as well as by the encircling rings, the aspect

of the heavens from the surface of Saturn must be as impressive

as it is gorgeous.

Unable, indeed, the Gallians were to realize all the marvels of this

strange world. After all, they were practically a thousand times

further off than the great astronomers have been able to approach

by means of their giant telescopes. But they did not complain;

their little comet, they knew, was far safer where it was;

far better out of the reach of an attraction which, by affecting

their path, might have annihilated their best hopes.

The distances of several of the brightest of the fixed stars have

been estimated. Amongst others, Vega in the constellation Lyra

is 100 millions of millions of miles away; Sirius in Canis Major,

123 millions of millions; the Pole-star, 282 millions of millions;

and Capella, 340 millions of millions of miles, a figure represented

by no less than fifteen digits.

The hard numerical statement of these enormous figures, however,

fails altogether in any adequate way to convey a due impression

of the magnitude of these distances. Astronomers, in their ingenuity,

have endeavored to use some other basis, and have found “the

velocity of light” to be convenient for their purpose.

They have made their representations something in this way:

“Suppose,” they say, “an observer endowed with an infinite length of vision:

suppose him stationed on the surface of Capella; looking thence

towards the earth, he would be a spectator of events that had happened

seventy years previously; transport him to a star ten times distant,

and he will be reviewing the terrestrial sphere of 720 years back;

carry him away further still, to a star so remote that it requires

something less than nineteen centuries for light to reach it,

and he would be a witness of the birth and death of Christ;

convey him further again, and he shall be looking upon the dread

desolation of the Deluge; take him away further yet (for space is

infinite), and he shall be a spectator of the Creation of the spheres.

History is thus stereotyped in space; nothing once accomplished can

ever be effaced.”

Who can altogether be astonished that Palmyrin Rosette, with his

burning thirst for astronomical research, should have been conscious

of a longing for yet wider travel through the sidereal universe?

With his comet now under the influence of one star, now of another,

what various systems might he not have explored! what undreamed-of

marvels might not have revealed themselves before his gaze!

The stars, fixed and immovable in name, are all of them in motion,

and Gallia might have followed them in their un-tracked way.

But Gallia had a narrow destiny. She was not to be allowed

to wander away into the range of attraction of another center;

nor to mingle with the star clusters, some of which have

been entirely, others partially resolved; nor was she to lose

herself amongst the 5,000 nebulae which have resisted hitherto

the grasp of the most powerful reflectors. No; Gallia was

neither to pass beyond the limits of the solar system,

nor to travel out of sight of the terrestrial sphere.

Her orbit was circumscribed to little over 1,500 millions

of miles; and, in comparison with the infinite space beyond,

this was a mere nothing.