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Show • 8 Tllln BODIES 0,. SPACE. • required pitch, was enabled with awe-struck min~ to see suspended in the vast empyrean ~stral systems, ~~, a~ he called them., firmaments, resembling our o n. Like light cloudlets to a certain power of the telesco~e, they re .. solved themselves, under a greater power, 1nto stars, thouo-h these generally seemed no larger than the finest parti~les of diamond dust. The general forms of these systems are var~o~s ; but one at least has been detect~d as bearing a stnlung resemblance to the .supposed fot m of our own. The distances are also vanous, as proved by the different degrees of telescopic power necessary to bring them into view. The f~rthest o~served by the astronOiner were estimated by htm as th1.rty-~ve .thousand times more remote than Sirius, supposing Its distance to be about twenty thousand millions. of. mtles. It would thus appear, that not only does grav1tahon keep our ~ar.th in its place in the solar system, .and the solar syste~ 10 1ts place in our. astral system, but. It als? may be presumed to have the mi()'htier duty of preservtng a local an·ange .. ment between that astral system and an immensity of others, through which the imagination is le~t to.wa?der on and on without limit or stay, save that V\o·lnch 1s gt ven by its inability to grasp the unbounded. The two I-Ierschels have in succession made some other most remarkable observations on the regions of space. They have found within the limits of our astral system, and generally in its outer fields, a great number of objects which, fronl their foggy appearance, are called ncbulce; som~ of vast extent and irregular figure, as that . in the sword of Orion, which is visible to the naketl eye, others of shape more defined; others, again, in which s1nall bright nuclei appear here and there over. the surfa.oe Between this last form and another class of obJects, which appear as clusters of nuclei with nebulous matter around each nucleus, there is but a step in what appears a chain of related things. Then, again, our astral space shows what are called nebulous stars-namely, luminous spherical objects, bright in the centre and dull ·towards the extremities. Thea~ appear to be only an auvanced condition of the class of objects above described. Finally, nebulous stars exist in every stage of cor ·centration, down to that state in which we see only a common star with a slight bur around it. It may be presumed that all these are but stages in a progress, just as if, seeing a child, a THEIR ARRANGEMEN rs AND FORMATION. 9 boy, ~youth, a middle-aged, and an old man together. we Jn1ght presume that the whole were only variations of one being. Are we to .suppose that we have got a gli1npse of the process through which a sun goes between its original condition, as a·mass of diffused nebulous matter, and its fall-formed state as a compact oody? We shall see how far such an idea is supported by other things known with regard to the occupant~ cf space, and the laws of n1atter. A superficial vie\V of the astronomy of the solar system gives us only the idea of a vast luminous body (the sun) in the centre, and a few smaller, though various sized bodies, revolving at diffm·ent distances around it; some of these, again, having smaller planets (satellites) revolving around them. There are, however, some general features of the solar system which, 'vhen a pl'ofounder attention makes us acquainted \Vith thent, strike the mind very forcibly. It is, in the first place, remarkable, that the planets all move nearly in one pla.ne., corresponding ·with the centre of the surl's body. Next, it is not less remarkable, that the motion of the sun on its axis, those of the planets around the sun, and the satellites around their primaries~* and the motions of aU on their axis, are in one direction -namely, from west to east. Had aU these matters been left to accident, the chances against the uniforrnity which we find would have been, though calculable, inconceivably great Laplace states them at four millions of millions to ~:me . It is thus po·werfully impressed on us, that the uniformity of the motions, as well as their general adjust- • ment to one plane, must have been a consequence of some cause acting throughout the whole system. ~orne of the other relations of the bodies are not less remarkable. The pri~ary ~l~nets show a progressive increase of bulk and dimun1tton of density, from the one nearest to the sun to that which is most distant. With respect to the density alone, we find, taking water as a measun'. and counting it as one, that Saturn is ~~, or le~q • The orbitual rP.volutions ofthe satellites of Uranus have not as yQt been clearly scann~d. It has been thought that their path is retrograde compared w1t~ the rest. Perhaps.this may be owing to a boule'!'e,~se~nent o~ the pnmary, for the inclination of its equator tG the echpt1c Is admitted to be unusually high; but tl~ ~ubject is al together so obscure that nothing can be founded <1 "l it. 2 |
