WANDERERS IN SPACE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 24, 30 January 1928, Page 11

WANDERERS IN SPACE

It is a general belief that, excluding the moon, Mars is the nearest heavenly body to the earth. However, there is another member of the solar family that on occasions approaches us more closely than our neighbour the red planet (says a contributor to the Edinburgh "Weekly Scotsman"). Travelling through space between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter are over 1000 bodies of a small size which are known as the minor planets. Ceres, the largest of these, has a diameter of 485 miles, or a littlo more than the distance between London and Edinburgh. The rest are much smaller, being only 10 to 20 miles in diameter, and nothing more than masses of rock whose united area would not equal one-fourth that of the earth. The ono we are concerned with among this flock of little wanderers is the small planet Eros. In 1931 this tiny sphere is due to pay us one of its periodical visits, when it will come within 16,000,000 miles of our globe. Mars, it will be remembered, made its closest approach in November of 1926 —there was some talk of trying to signal it to or communicate with it— but thon it was 35,000,000 miles away, more than twice the distance Eros will be. Astronomers are already preparing to greet this little atranger, not for anything particularly interesting in itself, but because it holds an advantageous position from which certain celestial calculations can be made.