WHEN A COMET FELL ON EARTH.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 342, 4 March 1911, Page 7

WHEN A COMET FELL ON EARTH.

SHOULD HALLEY-K COMET BE STJITWr!I'X'KED ? Our readers already know that Hal lev's comet is on a visit to us for the 20th time in 2,000 years. Vte have also chronicled some queer facts about the stranger now careering towards earth at the rate of a million miles a day. The astronomers tell us vrc need not fear it will strike the earth, because it will not come closer to us than 1..'?,000,,000 miles This is the scientific schedule, but that does not keep any one wlic wishes to be inspired with proper awe on the approach of our most re markable comet, from asking what might take place if, for any reason, it left the scientific schedule, as Bicla's comet did when it did the most remarkable thing thus far known in the history of the solar system, since men have begun to watch the sky. That is, after coming back over and over on schedule time, until it was supposed to he as regular as the earth itself, it split in two, underwent final shipwreck somewheri in the heavens, and, according to the last supposed to be known of it, fell on earth several hundred miles to th< south of El Paso, Texas. The probability that this was the last of that comet is conceded bysuch cautious astronomers as Pro fessor Young. It is an authentii record, valued because it is abou l as near the history of Biela's lost comet as we will ever get. It is cer tainly lost, and it is thought thai we have the last trace of it on cartl now in a lump of nickel-iron whict fell in Mexico.

Although Halley's comet has beer coming back regularly every seventy six or seventy-seven years since r is supposed to have appeared with its tail filling the sky before the fall of Jerusalem, it may end finally a. ; Biela's comet did, falling in a stai shower on earth, or on some othei planet, or into the sun, or scattering through space around the sun ir masses perhaps of nickel-iron, unseen on earth, unless the earth captures them out of space and set; them blazing through the sky as they fall. Halley's is not a third-rats astronomer's comet like Biela's but £ comet for everybody, with all mankind interested in it. It may set all the gongs in Asia beating while wc arc watching it through telescopes Millions who do not know enough tc be frightened at the idea of its striking the earth, may find it awful enough 1o make them try hard tc think, with results which, while they last, may s:em to them the most awful they ever felt in their lives. While all who are intelligently interested in comets will want Halley's back regularly, tail and all, as something to think about, there is a chance that it will lose its tail and also a chance, very remote now, that it may be shipwrecked finally anc lost in space. It is a "chance," onlj until the law is learned. The chanci is worth discussing only in the liop« of learning more of the law. Can a comet lawfully get out of its regular path and be pulled down finally bj the earth or some other planet 1 That is a question of law, and as far as wc have learned the law, the answer is that, it can.

We do not know much yet ah out the lav.*. All we are beginning to find out dates from the night in January, IS4D, when Professor Challis looked through his telescope at the Cambridge Observatory and coul< not believe his eyes. The spectacle he saw in the heavens was too as tounding to believe. It was Biela's comet split into two distinct comets. Such a thing had never been hearc of or imagined as possible. But in some way it had actually occurred, and a massive piece of it in the. shape of nickel-iron, weighing lOJlbs. was seen to fall and was recovered. It is extant to this day. Biela's lost coniet dees not. compare with Halley's, which must liavt billions of stones or small and large masses of matter, probably nickeliron, in its magnificent head. If it were shipwrecked by Jupiter, by the earth, or by any other planet, these if they were drawn close enough by the planet to break the hold the sun has cn them, might do a number ol interesting things.

They might revolve around the earth at a distance, collecting in such a ''ing as that of Saturn, which is suppose.! to be composed of an infinite number of such stones, or they might whirl closer and closer in revolving around it until finally the largest of them, which do qot burn up in the atmosphere by friction, must fail as this bielid fell In Mexico. The hope of getting a beautiful earth ring, such as that of Saturn's by capturing comets, is very small, if only because comets have not matter enough in them to make it. If the earth could capture anJ shipwreck such a cornet as Halley's, it would probably make the most mag nificcntly awful spectacle ever seer? on earth, as the skies Ham ing with millions of blazing meteors, preseting out from a single point In the heavens, s;omewlntt. in the shape o 1 a vast umbrella, its grandeur would be awful, but there would be no shock. The earth would burn up the comet. The comet could not burn the earth, because the only (ire woulc be that of the friction of the stones of the comet against the air, as \t turned them into blazing gas, leaving on 1 }' a few to resell the earth. There could be no direct fall. Nothing falls in space. Everything revolves aro'ind something else. They would be whirled round and round, with their own speed, controlled by the mass and motion of the whirling earth. If we remember kow a grindstone

often splits to iragnieuts wiien too fast by steam, vrc may suppose that with their revolution increased to the enormous speed at which the earth might whirl anything it picks up out of space, the largest and hardest of such bodies might be split into smaller fragments on coming closer to the earth, by being whirled until they reach the denser parts of the atmosphere where, as a result of friction, they begin to blaze as gas. If the "moon were to fall," as some have supposed it might, it could not fall directly down, but could be whirled around only in this way, and perhaps torn to fragments as small as "bielids" before reaching the earth. As far as the law is known there is no falling. It is a law of balance in ordered revolution. But as heavenly bodies are framed by law, they may go to pieces under the same law. —"Popular Science Siftings. "