ODD PECULIARITIES OF THE PLANETS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 15, Issue 31, 19 April 1904, Page 7

ODD PECULIARITIES OF THE PLANETS.

Professor Schiapelli, the famous Italian v astronomer, has recently completed a protracted study of the planet Mercury and has succeeded in charting its surface. He finds that Mercury is the only planet that is heavier than' the earth. Taking the density of the earth as 1, that of Mercury is 1.26. No other member of the solar system, not even the sun itself ,can compare with our earth in weight. Jupiter, the larg--est of all the planets, is 1,400 times as big as the earth, but only 300 times as heavy. Mercury holds the two records for being heaviest, bulk for bulk, of all the planets, and of being nearest to the sun. But in all other respects the earth beats it. Mercury is only three times as largo as the moon. It has little or no atmosphere, and, consequently, • equally little water. Moreover, it seems fairly cwrtain that it revolves no longer on its own axix like our i planet, but resembtes the moon in turning one face always towards the sun. If you put down the figure 6, and add after it 21 noughts, you will have the approximate weight in tons of the world we live and work in. Venus, and not Mars as is often supposed, is the nearest of all the planets to ourselves. It also resembles the earth nearly in size and weight, and during its occasional transits across the sun’s disc we can see its atmosphere. Mars is nearly 50,000,000 miles farther from the sun, than the eafth, but it is so much lees hidden by clouds that we can toll more of its shape and ( malm than about any other members of the solar system. Out of 100 square miles of our earth 72 are water and 28 arc land. In Mars water is so scarce that it is probably hoarded by the inhabitants, if any, with great care. Mars has two small moons and therein it excels Mercury and Venus, which have no such light-giv-ing satellites. Jupiter is so covered with everchanging bands of clouds that practically nothing is known of its surface. Its atmosphere must bo thousands of miles deep, so that the inhabitants. if any, can never see the sun, which makes it certain that no creature belonging to the earth could live there at all. Jupiter also is a great sufferer from storms. Wind which blows 90 miles an hour on our planet levels everything before it. On Jupiter a 200-mile breeze is of common occurrence and blows for weeks at a time, as we can see by the movements of the clouds. Jupiter has four moons, but as they shine only with reflected sunlight the four together only give one-sixteenth as much light as our own moon. Saturn is destitute of animal life. It is 745 times as large as this earth but weighs only 90 times as much. It is' in fact only three-fifths as heavy as its bulk of water. Anyone moving - to Saturn, therefore, from this earth would be i unable to keep afloat, even were he the best of swimmers. Saturn evidently is in a liquid condition, for astronomers watching this planet have noticed that it constantly changes shape. One side of it will bulge or well out sometimes as much as 400 or 500 miles. On this earth we get just 90 times iaa much heat and light as Saturn has from the sun ; and all of Saturn’s moons, eight In number, cannot make up for the deficiency, for their combined light is but onesixteenth that of our pale satellite. “ Science Siftings.”