The Story of the Heavens, Sir Robert Stawell Ball [snow like ashes series TXT] 📗

The Lesser Members of our System--Bode's Law--The Vacant Region in
the Planetary System--The Research--The Discovery of Piazzi--Was
the small Body a Planet?--The Planet becomes Invisible--Gauss
undertakes the Search by Mathematics--The Planet Recovered--Further
Discoveries--Number of Minor Planets now known--The Region to be
Searched--The Construction of the Chart for the Search for Small
Planets--How a Minor Planet is Discovered--Physical Nature of the
Minor Planets--Small Gravitation on the Minor Planets--The Berlin
Computations--How the Minor Planets tell us the Distance of the
Sun--Accuracy of the Observations--How they may be
Multiplied--Victoria and Sappho--The most Perfect Method.

In our chapters on the Sun and Moon, on the Earth and Venus, and on Mercury and Mars, we have been discussing the features and the movements of globes of vast dimensions. The least of all these bodies is the moon, but even that globe is 2,000 miles from one side to the other. In approaching the subject of the minor planets we must be prepared to find objects of dimensions quite inconsiderable in comparison with the great spheres of our system. No doubt these minor planets are all of them some few miles, and some of them a great many miles, in diameter. Were they close to the earth they would be conspicuous, and even splendid, objects; but as they are so distant they do not, even in our greatest telescopes, become very remarkable, while to the unaided eye they are almost all invisible.

In the diagram (p. 234) of the orbits of the various planets, it is shown that a wide space exists between the orbit of Mars and that of Jupiter. It was often surmised that this ample region must be tenanted by some other planet. The presumption became much stronger when a remarkable law was discovered which exhibited, with considerable accuracy, the relative distances of the great planets of our system. Take the series of numbers, 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, whereof each number (except the second) is double of the number which precedes it. If we now add four to each, we have the series 4, 7, 10, 16, 28, 52, 100. With the exception of the fifth of these numbers (28), they are all sensibly proportional to the distances of the various planets from the sun. In fact, the distances are as follows:--Mercury, 3.9; Venus, 7.2; Earth, 10; Mars, 15.2; Jupiter, 52.9; Saturn, 95.4. Although we have no physical reason to offer why this law--generally known as Bode's--should be true, yet the fact that it is so nearly true in the case of all the known planets tempts us to ask whether there may not also be a planet revolving around the sun at the distance represented by 28.

So strongly was this felt at the end of the eighteenth century that some energetic astronomers decided to make a united effort to search for the unknown planet. It seemed certain that the planet could not be a large one, as otherwise it must have been found long ago. If it should exist, then means were required for discriminating between the planet and the hosts of stars strewn along its path.

The search for the small planet was soon rewarded by a success which has rendered the evening of the first day in the nineteenth century memorable in astronomy. It was in the pure skies of Palermo that the observatory was situated where the memorable discovery of the first known minor planet was made by Piazzi. This laborious and accomplished astronomer had organised an ingenious system of exploring the heavens which was eminently calculated to discriminate a planet among the starry host. On a certain night he would select a series of stars to the number of fifty, more or less, according to circumstances. With his meridian circle he determined the places of the chosen objects. The following night, or, at all events, as soon as convenient, he re-observed the whole fifty stars with the same instrument and in the same manner, and the whole operation was afterwards repeated on two, or perhaps more, nights. When the observations were compared together he was in possession of some four or more places of each one of the stars on different nights, and the whole series was complete. He was persevering enough to carry on these observations for very many groups, and at length he was rewarded by a success which amply compensated him for all his toil.

It was on the 1st of January, 1801, that Piazzi commenced for the one hundred and fifty-ninth time to observe a new series. Fifty stars this night were viewed in his telescope, and their places were carefully recorded. Of these objects the first twelve were undoubtedly stellar, and so to all appearance was the thirteenth, a star of the eighth magnitude in the constellation of Taurus. There was nothing to distinguish the telescopic appearance of this object from all the others which preceded or followed it. The following night Piazzi, according to his custom, re-observed the whole fifty stars, and he did the same again on the 3rd of January, and once again on the 4th. He then, as usual, brought together the four places he had found for each of the several bodies. When this was done it was at once seen that the thirteenth object on the list was quite a different body from the remainder and from all the other stars which he had ever observed before. The four places of this mysterious object were all different; in other words, it was in movement, and was therefore a planet.

A few days' observation sufficed to show how this little body, afterwards called Ceres, revolved around the sun, and how it circulated in that vacant path intermediate between the path of Mars and the path of Jupiter. Great, indeed, was the interest aroused by this discovery and the influence which it has exercised on the progress of astronomy. The majestic planets of our system had now to admit a much more humble object to a share of the benefits dispensed by the sun.

After Piazzi had obtained a few further observations, the season for observing this part of the heavens passed away, and the new planet of course ceased to be visible. In a few months, no doubt, the same part of the sky would again be above the horizon after dark, and the stars would of course be seen as before. The planet, however, was moving, and would continue to move, and by the time the next season had arrived it would have passed off into some distant region, and would be again confounded with the stars which it so closely resembled. How, then, was the planet to be pursued through its period of invisibility and identified when it again came within reach of observation?

This difficulty attracted the attention of astronomers, and they sought for some method by which the place of the planet could be recovered so as to prevent Piazzi's discovery from falling into oblivion. A young German mathematician, whose name was Gauss, opened his distinguished career by a successful attempt to solve this problem. A planet, as we have shown, describes an ellipse around the sun, and the sun lies at a focus of that curve. It can be demonstrated that when three positions of a planet are known, then the ellipse in which the planet moves is completely determined. Piazzi had on each occasion measured the place which it then occupied. This information was available to Gauss, and the problem which he had to solve may be thus stated. Knowing the place of the planet on three nights, it is required, without any further observations, to tell what the place of the planet will be on a special occasion some months in the future. Mathematical calculations, based on the laws of Kepler, will enable this problem to be solved, and Gauss succeeded in solving it. Gauss demonstrated that though the telescope of the astronomer was unable to detect the wanderer during its season of invisibility, yet the pen of the mathematician could follow it with unfailing certainty. When, therefore, the progress of the seasons permitted the observations to be renewed, the search was recommenced. The telescope was directed to the point which Gauss's calculations indicated, and there was the little Ceres. Ever since its re-discovery, the planet has been so completely bound in the toils of mathematical reasoning that its place every night of the year can be indicated with a fidelity approaching to that attainable in observing the moon or the great planets of our system.

The discovery of one minor planet was quickly followed by similar successes, so that within seven years Pallas, Juno, and Vesta were added to the solar system. The orbits of all these bodies lie in the region between the orbit of Mars and of Jupiter, and for many years it seems to have been thought that our planetary system was now complete. Forty years later systematic research was again commenced. Planet after planet was added to the list; gradually the discoveries became a stream of increasing volume, until in 1897 the total number reached about 430. Their distribution in the solar system is somewhat as represented in Fig. 55. By the improvement of astronomical telescopes, and by the devotion with which certain astronomers have applied themselves to this interesting research, a special method of observing has been created for the distinct purpose of searching out these little objects.

It is known that the paths in which all the great planets move through the heavens coincide very nearly with the path which the sun appears to follow among the stars, and which is known as the ecliptic. It is natural to assume that the small planets also move in the same great highway, which leads them through all the signs of the zodiac in succession. Some of the small planets, no doubt, deviate rather widely from the track of the sun, but the great majority are approximately near it. This consideration at once simplifies the search for new planets. A certain zone extending around the heavens is to be examined, but there is in general little advantage in pushing the research into other parts of the sky.

The next step is to construct a map containing all the stars in this region. This is a task of very great labour; the stars visible in the large telescopes are so numerous that many tens of thousands, perhaps we should say hundreds of thousands, are included in the region so narrowly limited. The fact is that many of the minor planets now known are objects of extreme minuteness; they can only be seen with very powerful telescopes, and for their detection it is necessary to use charts on which even the faintest stars have been depicted. Many astronomers have concurred in the labour of producing these charts; among them may be mentioned Palisa, of Vienna, who by means of his charts has found eighty-three minor planets, and the late Professor Peters, of Clinton, New York, who in a similar way found forty-nine of these bodies.

The astronomer about to seek for a new planet directs his telescope towards that part of the sun's path which is on the meridian at midnight; there, if anywhere, lies the chance of success, because that is the region in which such a body is nearer to the earth than at any other part of its course. He steadfastly compares his chart with the heavens, and usually finds the stars in the heavens and the stars in the chart to correspond; but sometimes it will happen that a point in the heavens is missing from the chart. His attention is at once arrested;