StNicholas [serial] . wispof smoke, at a speed of forty miles a second ! But there is another thing some people areafraid of. Astronomers can tell what a thing isby the light it gives off, and so they have dis-covered that in this comets tail there is a gascalled cyanogen. Now, when this gas comesin contact with hydrogen it makes prussic acid,one of the worst poisons we know. This is thepoison that whales are sometimes killed a bomb of prussic acid strikes and ex-plodes in a whale, the animal, big as it is, turnsover and dies inside of five minutes. A singledrop of prussic acid on yo
StNicholas [serial] . wispof smoke, at a speed of forty miles a second ! But there is another thing some people areafraid of. Astronomers can tell what a thing isby the light it gives off, and so they have dis-covered that in this comets tail there is a gascalled cyanogen. Now, when this gas comesin contact with hydrogen it makes prussic acid,one of the worst poisons we know. This is thepoison that whales are sometimes killed a bomb of prussic acid strikes and ex-plodes in a whale, the animal, big as it is, turnsover and dies inside of five minutes. A singledrop of prussic acid on your tongue would killyou almost instantly. Still we have nothing tofear. There is not enough cyanogen in the tailto do any damage, and it is so light that it can-not sink through the air or find enough hydrogento form any dangerous amount of prussic acid. 680 HALLEYS COMET [June, Nearly all comets tails have cyanogen in them,and this is not the first time we have encountereda comets tail. In 1819 and again in 1861 the. FIG. 2. BEFORE MAY l8, 19IO, THE COMET IS SEEN ONLY IN THE EAST JUST BEFORE DAWN FROM THE SUN-RISE SIDE OF THE EARTH. earth passed through a comets tail, but no onenoticed anything except a splendid display ofNorthern Lights. Those of you who get this copyof St. Nicholas before the evening of May 18had better look out for an aurora. No, we need have no fear of the tail. If thehead of a comet struck us, that would be a dif-ferent story. But we are not going to comeanywhere near the head. When we pass* throughthe tail, the head will be 14,000,000 miles comet and the earth will be traveling inopposite directions, as shown in Fig. I. Theearth is moving at a speed of nineteen miles asecond and the comet at twenty-two, so we wonttarry long in the tail, not more than a few hoursat most. During April and the first part of May thecomet could be seen only before sunrise. Afterthe eighteenth of May it will appear in the eveningskies. Figs. 2 and 3 show how this is.
Size: 1492px × 1675px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidstnicholasse, bookyear1873
