THE ORIGIN OF COMETS.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3127, 25 February 1879, Page 4

THE ORIGIN OF COMETS.

In his theory of the development of the solar system, Kant derives the comets from the substance of the condensing solar nebula. He regards them as really planets, which, through some disturbing oause, have been forced out of their normal orbit. On the other hand, La Place, in working out his nebula hypothesis, supposes comets to be formed of matter dispersed throughout the regions of the fixed stars, and that origin has no relation to the solar nebula. Are we in possession of facts which may warrant a positive decision between these two theories? This inquiry has recently been studied by Professor Newton, who, in a recent number of the American Journal of Science and Arts, first indicates the consequences of the two theories with regard to form and distribution of the cemetary paths, and then compares the actually observed paths of 247 comets. The former are represented by the author iD two graphic curves, and when the results of observations are put into the same form, it is at first found that the curve thus had differs from both the theoretical ones. As, however, the known comets all have their perihelion (that part of their orbit nearest the sun) within the orbit of Mars, and are exposed to planetary disturbances. Professor Newton calculates the influence of these disturbances, and arrives at the result that the curve corresponding to the actual cometary paths is thus brought into good agreement with the theoretical curve deduced from La Place's hypothesis, whereas it does not so agree with the curve from Kant's hypothesis. Thus the origin of comets, it seems, must be placed in interstellar space.