STARRY HEAVENS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLIII, Issue 9836, 2 April 1923, Page 6

STARRY HEAVENS

‘‘CELESTIAL VAGABONDS." HISTORY OF HALLEY’S COMET. in one of the lectures at the Scien.ilic Novelties Exhibition, King’s College, London, Sir Richard Gregory, P.R.A.S., recently told his audience many interesting and amusing tilings about “celestial vagabonds," reports the “Daily Telegraph.” This was the title bestowed by the distinguished astronomer on comets, in his lecture on “ Comets and Shooting Stars.” The former would, he said, wander about ( space in an irregular way, coming and going at their own perverse will, sometimes paying return visits to the staid and respectable members of the solar system; at others careering off. into illimitable space after one circuit round the sun and never coming back any more. Comets have been known and -recorded from very ancient times, especially by the Chinese. The first comet which was proved tq have a regular orbit —a very eccentric one. it is true—and to be a periodic visitor to the sun, was that now known as Halley’s Comet. It was so named after the famous astronomer, who, in the seventeenth century, calculated its orbit and predicted that it would again return to the sky 75 years later. Halley did not live to witness the fulfilment of his prediction, but it was fulfilled, and every 75 years since then it has re-appeared. Sometimes it has been unpunctual, but that was due to the influence of the planet Neptune, who, if, he happened to be near tho comet when about to start on its. return journey to the sun, caused a little delay.' Halley’s Comet has been traced back as far as May, 240 8.C.. mainly in Chinese records, and may be regarded as a member of the solar system, though a very irregular one, as its orbit lies entirely within the orbit of Neptune. On most of its periodic returns until its motions were understood, Halley’s Comet caused . great dismay and perturbation to the inhabitants'of the earth. It was held to bo the prognostic of some great disaster. One of its appearances was just Ijefore the Norman invasion of when it was held to foretell the downfall or Harold and the Saxon dynasty. The comet which Josephus mentions as being visible during the siege of Jerusalem in 59 A.D. was also Halley’s. Its last return was in 1910, and it will again appear in 1985. Halley’s Comet is shorn of a great deal of the glory which it formerly had, due,Sir Richard Gregory said, to the dissipation of its substance in its wanderings, a habit which apparently is common to celestial as well as to terrestrial vagabonds. The last really great comet was that which appeared in 1858, and despite the spread of knowledge in the nineteenth century, ( caused, the lecturer thought, a good’ many people to say thoir prayers more earnestly than usual.

Shooting stars were quite different objects. These were particles of solid matter, mostly iron and nickel, varying in size from microscopic grains up to masses weighing thousands of tons. These fell into the earth’s atmosphere at speeds varying from 25 to 30 up to about 70 miles an hour, and were for the most part burned up by the friction. Some, however, actually reached the earth, and it was believed that the idol in the temple of Diana at Ephesus and the famous black stone at Mecca, as well as other objects which had been worshipped as of celestial origin at various times and places, were meteoric stones which had fallen on the earth in this wav. One of the. finest collections of those meteors in the world was in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. Included in it was a mass weighing over three tons, which fell in Australia, but several much larger masses are known.