The story of the sun, moon, and stars . d in form; whether they are, as some suppose, thechief source of the suns light and heat; whether theylie on his surface or float in his atmosphere; what istheir real nature, and what is their real use,—aboutthese questions we are at present quite in the dark. We have next tothink a little moreabout the edge orlimb of the sun,and the stormyflames and out-burst there quite latelythe only time forobserving such ap-pearances was dur-ing a total eclipseof the sun. Lately,by means of thenew instrumentcalled the spectro-scope, it has beenfound possi
The story of the sun, moon, and stars . d in form; whether they are, as some suppose, thechief source of the suns light and heat; whether theylie on his surface or float in his atmosphere; what istheir real nature, and what is their real use,—aboutthese questions we are at present quite in the dark. We have next tothink a little moreabout the edge orlimb of the sun,and the stormyflames and out-burst there quite latelythe only time forobserving such ap-pearances was dur-ing a total eclipseof the sun. Lately,by means of thenew instrumentcalled the spectro-scope, it has beenfound possible totake observations when no eclipse is going on. A few words of explanation as to eclipses of thesun seem needful, before going further. An eclipseof the sun is caused simply by the round body of themoon passing exactly between the sun and the earth,so as to hide the sun from us. Let there be a candle on the table, while you standnear. The rays of light from the candle fall uponyour face. Now move slowly, to and fro, a round ball. SUN-FLAMES, MAY 3, 1892. 144 story of the: sun, moon, and stars. between you and the candle. So long as it is not pre-cisely in the line between—so long as it is a littlehigher, or a little lower, or a little to one side—thenyon can still see the flame. Once let the ball comejust between the light and your eyes, and you see it nomore. In other words the candle-flame is eclipsed—hidden, veiled, cut off—by the ball. It may seem curious at first sight that the moon,which is very small compared with the sun, shouldhave power to cover the sun. But remember the dif-ference of the distance. The sun is very far, and themoon is very near. Any small object very near willeasily hide from your sight a large object at a con-siderable distance. You may hold up a shilling-pieceat arms length, and make it cover from sight a man,or even a house, if the latter be far enough sun at a distance of ninety-three millions of miles,and the moon at a dis
Size: 1384px × 1805px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidstor, booksubjectastronomy
