The Surface of the Sun.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 95, 25 April 1891, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Surface of the Sun.

On an examination of the solar disc for the first time there appears little to be seen, especially after our study of the moon, which appears so diversified with plains, mountains, craters, and shining streaks. On a general view tbe surface of the sun through the telescope appears somewhat like curdled milk seen at a distance, or like rough drawing paper, buc on a more careful Bcrutiny irregular grains of extreme brilliancy will be eeen arranged in groups, and streaks will appear floating in a darker medium with a larger telescopic power. The grains appear to be an aggregation of granules or luminous dots about 100 miles in diameter, forming about a fifth part of the sun's disc and probably giving at least three-fourths of ita light. They are compared to rice grains by Seccbi, and to Nasmyth they appeared like willow leaves thousands of miles long and interlaced somewhat like basket work. There are irregular bright etreake occurring near the solar limbs, sometimes extending for 20,000 miles, termed faculte, which appear to be luminous matter elevated above the general surface in crests and ridges protruding through the solar atmosphere like mountains, which, to be eeen at at all, must be all least 230 miles in height, or about 45 times the height of the highest mountains on the earth. These faculse are merely elevations, and have not tbe permanency or stability of mountains. They are continually changing like terrestrial clouds,rolling and tossing and changing their form like a Bheet of flame. The photosphere itself is merely a sheet of self-luminous clouds like those of our own atmosphere, our rain being replaced by a rain of molten metal condensed from the vapours of a metal that so largely exists in the sun's atmosphere. The solar atmosphere in which these clouds are suspended is really a burning fiery furnace ab an inconceivable temperature, in which faculse and granules are formed by a combination, raging with an intense,, and awful fury so much beyond our conception thas we are utterly unable at such an immense distance to grasp or realise it in even the slightest degree. Dante's Inferno, or I the lake burning with tire and brimstone, ; cannot be compared to it leg one moment.