The Meteoritic Hypothesis: A Statement of the Results of a Spectroscopic Inquiry Into the Origin of Cosmical Systems

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Macmillan, 1890 - 560 pages
 

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Page 266 - If this matter is self-luminous, it seems more fit to produce a star by its condensation than to depend on the star for its existence.
Page 331 - View, for instance, the 19th cluster of my 6th class, and afterwards cast your eye on this cloudy star, and the result will be no less decisive than that of the naturalist we have alluded to. Our judgement, I may venture to say, will be, that the nebulosity about the star is not of a starry nature.
Page 114 - Towards the morning of the 13th of November, 1799, we witnessed a most extraordinary scene of shooting meteors. Thousands of bodies and falling stars succeeded each other during four hours. Their direction was very regular from north to south. From the beginning of the phenomenon there was not a space in the firmament equal in extent to three diameters of the moon which was not filled every instant with bodies or falling stars. All the meteors left luminous traces or phosphorescent bands behind them,...
Page 261 - I was in the situation of a natural philosopher who follows the various species of animals and insects from the height of their perfection down to the lowest ebb of life; when, arriving at the vegetable kingdom, he can scarcely point out to us the precise boundary where the animal ceases and the plant begins; and may even go so far as to suspect them not to be essentially different. But recollecting himself, he compares, for instance, one of the human species to a tree, and all doubt upon the subject...
Page 341 - Rigel, etc., are also white stars, but show no lines : perhaps they contain no mineral substance, or are incandescent without flame.
Page 409 - Coronse, especially when the former history of P. Cygni is considered. According to Schonfeld it first attracted attention as an apparently new star in 1600, and fluctuated greatly during the seventeenth century, finally becoming a star of the fifth magnitude, and so continuing to the present time. It has recently been repeatedly observed at Harvard College Observatory with the meridian photometer, and does not appear to be undergoing any variation at present.
Page 284 - X 3730, of which he speaks, though I have other lines which he does not appear to have photographed. This may be due to the fact that he had placed his slit on a different region of the nebula...
Page 261 - I arrived at last to spots in which no trace of a star was to be discerned. But then the gradations to these latter were by such well-connected steps as left no room for doubt but that all these phaenomena were equally occasioned by stars, variously dispersed in the immense expanse of the universe.
Page 248 - ... as perhaps they might be called — have been decidedly indicative of an origin beyond the limits of the planetary system. " But how are the phenomena of periodic meteors to be accounted for, in accordance with this theory ? " The division of Biela's comet into two distinct parts suggests several interesting questions in cometary physics. The nature of the separating force remains to be discovered ; ' but it is impossible to doubt that it arose from the divellent action of the sun, whatever may...
Page 266 - ... for, as we have already observed, reflected light could never reach us at the great distance we are from such objects. Besides, how impenetrable would be an atmosphere of a sufficient density to reflect so great a quantity of light! And yet we observe, that the outward parts of the chevelure are nearly as bright as those that are close...

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