WANDERERS IN SPACE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20312, 21 January 1928, Page 15

WANDERERS IN SPACE.

It is .'i 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 ns 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 455 miles, or a little more than the distance between London and Edinburgh. The rest are much smaller, being only ]0 to 20 miles in diameter, and nothing more than masses of rock whose united ar°a would not equal one-fourth that of the earth. The one we are concerned with among this flock of little wanderers is the small planet Eros. For, in 1931 this tiny spliere is due to pay us one of its periodical visits, when it wil) come within 16.000. miles of our globe. Mars, it will bo remembered, made its closest approach in November of last year—there was some talk of trying to signal to it >v communicate with it —but then it was 35.000. miles away, more than twice the distance Eros will be. Astronomers ire already preparing to greet this little ' stranger, not for anything particularly interesting in itself, but because it holds in advantageous position from which certain celestial calculations can be made.