WONDERS OF SPACE.

Bruce Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 51, 28 June 1909, Page 3

WONDERS OF SPACE.

A MARVELLOUS JOUIINEY.

Until recently Neptune was supposed to lie oil tiie outermost boundary of the solar system; now we are told that place has been usurped by two hitherto unknown planets. One of those is said lo be forty-fivo times and tho other sixty times the distance of the earth from the sun. The outermost planet is therefore twice as iar hxjin the sun as tho planet .Neptune, whoso distance is estimated at two billion eight hundred miles. We can scarcely realise what this actually means, says Miss Mary i'roctor, unless we make use of a familiar illustration, such as the time which would be required for a motor car go:.;g sixty miles an hour to cover tiiis distance.

Let ua imagine a broad level road reaching from the sun to the outermost planet Neptune, awd the car proceeding in that direction at an average speed of a mile a minute without stopping night and day, until it reached our planet earth. By this time one hundred and seventy-five years would have elapsed. Continuing on its way to Aeptunc, it would not reach its destination until iivo thousand two hundred and fiftey years later. Though tho occupants of the car, iioary with age, would long since have passed the allotted, span oi mail's die ju earth, yet we can imagine them urging tne chauiieur to continue til© journey sail lurther to the planet, iviueli in some ioriy-five times tho distance of the sun from the earth. Putting on full speed tiie ear plunges olikvard, the record on arrival at the planet being seven thousand eigiit hundred and seventy-live years. A final ?purt enables the chauiieur to cover the aistanee separating his party from tho outermost planet of ail and we can imagine the ear finally lauding on the outermost ;ilanct, some ten thousand live hundred years having elapsed since ihe car started from the sun. On arrival at the planet the travellers would find the merest glimmer of fight front the sun, now some five billion live hundred and eighty million miles distant and a corresponding chillinass, compared with which tlie cold of our Arctic regions would be warm. This we argue from the fact that irom Neptune, which is only one-half the distance of the new planet from tho <sun, the disc of the sun is only about one-hundredth ;)i ours in apparent size and in consequence the solar light and heat received by this planet arc greatly diminished^ Whether the two new planets are inhabited worlds is one oi the problems iO be ranked with the so-called canals of Mare and other theories regarding the solar system, which have so far taxed the ingenuity of astronomers. Meanwhile we await with interest fur- : her news of the newly-discovered .■calms in the solar system and wonder what the future will reveal as to their peculiar characteristics.