The story of the sun, moon, and stars (1898) (14778490252)

Identifier: storyofsunmoonst00gibe (find matches)
Title: The story of the sun, moon, and stars
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Giberne, Agnes, 1845- (from old catalog)
Subjects: Astronomy
Publisher: Cincinnati, National book company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress



Text Appearing Before Image:
a journey to the moon as the one describedtwo chapters back were indeed possible, the voyagealoft would hardly be so easily and safely performedas is there taken for granted. Putting aside thethought of other difficulties, such as lack of convey-ance and lack of air, there would be the danger ofpassing through a very considerable storm of mis-siles—a kind of celestial cannonade—which, to saythe least, would prove very far from agreeable. These starlets and meteor planets, as theyhave been called, are not visible in a normal condition,because of their minuteness. But on entering our at-mosphere they are rendered luminous, owing to theheat evolved by the sudden and violent compression 83 84 STORY OF THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS. of the air in front of the moving body. According tothis view, shooting-stars, which simply dart across theheavens, may be regarded as coming within the limitsof the atmosphere, and carried out of it again, by theirimmense velocity, passing on in space. Meteoric
Text Appearing After Image:
METEOR EMERGING FROM BEHIND A CI^OUD (NOV. 23, 1877). showers may result from an encounter with a groupof these bodies, while aerolites are those which comeso far within the sphere of the earths attraction as tofall to its surface. More than two thousand years agothe Greeks venerated a famous stone which fell fromthe heavens on the river iBgos. It will scarcely be believed what numbers of theseshooting-stars or meteorites constantly fall to the earth.As she travels on her orbit, hurrying along at the rateof nineteen miles each second, she meets them by LITTLE SERVANTS. 85 tens of thousands. They too, like the earth, are jour-neying round the great center of our family. Butthey are so tiny, and the earth by comparison is soimmense, that her strong attraction overpowers oneafter another, drags it from its pathway, and draws itto herself. And then it falls, flashing like a bright star acrossthe sky, and the little meteorite has come to his end.His myriads of companions, hastening still a