The story of the sun, moon, and stars . light—what if Jupiter ishimself in some sort a second sun to his moons, andwhat if those moons are really inhabited planets?It may be so. That is all we can say. The idea isnot an impossible one. The so-called moims are certainly small. Butthey are by no means too small for such a would in that case, with his five moons circlinground him, enjoying his light and warmth, be a smallpicture of the sun, with his four inner planets and theasteroids circling round him, basking in a more lavishamount of the same. Picturing the moons as giving lig
The story of the sun, moon, and stars . light—what if Jupiter ishimself in some sort a second sun to his moons, andwhat if those moons are really inhabited planets?It may be so. That is all we can say. The idea isnot an impossible one. The so-called moims are certainly small. Butthey are by no means too small for such a would in that case, with his five moons circlinground him, enjoying his light and warmth, be a smallpicture of the sun, with his four inner planets and theasteroids circling round him, basking in a more lavishamount of the same. Picturing the moons as giving light to Jupiter, wefind them seemingly dim and weak for such a pur-pose—though, of course, we may here make a grandmistake in supposing the eyesight of living creaturesin Jupiter to be no better than our own eyesight. 2o8 STORY OF THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS. Even upon earth a cat can see plainly where a manhas to grope his way in darkness. But by picturing the moons as inhabited, andJupiter as giving out some measure of heat and light. THE SYSTEM OF JUPITER. to make up for the lessened amount of light and heatreceived from the sun, the matter becomes more easyto our understanding. The nearest moon has indeed a magnificent viewof Jupiter as a huge bright disk in its sky, no less JUPITER. 209 than three thousand times as large as our moon ap-pears to us, shining brightly with reflected sunlight,and it may be glowing with a red light of his own inaddition. Even the farthest off of the five sees himwith a face sixty-five times the size of our the varying colors and stormy changes in thecloud-belts, viewed thus near at hand, must affordmarvelously beautiful effects. Just as Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars travelround the sun, at different distances, nearly in thesame plane, so Jupiters five moons travel round him,at different distances, nearly in the same moons are always to be seen in a line, notone high and another low, one near his pole and an-other near h
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidstor, booksubjectastronomy
