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Article ON THE SUPPOSED INFLUENCE OE COMETS. ← Page 2 of 5 →
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On The Supposed Influence Oe Comets.
Great excitement was prevailing a short time ago , in consequence of the expected return of the great comet of 1556 * Its appearance then caused Charles V . great terror , and . was one of the principal causes of his abdicating the throne , and from this circumstance it has received the name of Charles "V . ' s comet . A vulgar superstition
declared that it would destroy the earth . It was stated by the newspaper chronicles a few months since that in Galicia , and many par ts of the continent , the belief th at the comet would appear on the 13 th of June , and cause the destruction of the world and its inhabitants , was so prevalent , that the peasants were unmanageable , the ground was left uncultivated , and no notice was taken of passports , it being said that as the world would not last loner , it was no matter
where people went . A similar panic , arising from the idea that a comet was rapidly approaching the earth , occurred in Paris in 1773 , when many persons died of fright , and numbers prepared for the worst by purchasing , what were offered at high premiums—places in paradise . It was on this occasion that M . Arago wrote his celebrated work on comets . We propose in the present paper to show the groundlessness of all such fears ; and we will first consider what is the nature of a comet ,
Comets are simply masses of vapour moving m space , subject to the same laws of motion and gravitation as the planets ^ and like those bodies , are rendered visible by the light they receive from the sun , round which they revolve in elliptical orbits of great eccentricity . The ellipse is an oval figure , resembling a circle elongated in one direction , so that the diameters are not equal , as in the circle .
In the longest diameter are two points called foci , which correspond to the centre in a circle , and the eccentricity is half the distance between these foci . In the orbit of a comet these two points are a great distance apart , and the sun is situated in one of them , consequently the comet is much nearer the suii at one portion of its orbit than it is at another . The point of its orbit at which the comet is
nearest to the sun is called its perilielion , that at which it is furthest from the same body being its aphelion . In consequence of the extremely attenuated state of the substance of a comet , it is only visible when very near the sun , and as it moves with great rapidity during this part of its orbit , it is only visible for a very brief space of time . The longest appearance on record is that of the comet of 1811 , which
continued visible for 510 days . The average duration of time during which these bodies are seen , is , however , only a few weeks . But it is evident that during even this brief space of time the positions of the comet may be observed with sufficient accuracy to
determine the elements of its orbit , and so to ascertain when it will make its next appearance . The first attempt of this nature was made by Newton , who endeavoured to calculate the period of the great comet of KJ 80 , which he ascertained to be about 600 years . This splendid object came from the regions of space immediately above the ecliptic , and rushing downwards , instead of plunging
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On The Supposed Influence Oe Comets.
Great excitement was prevailing a short time ago , in consequence of the expected return of the great comet of 1556 * Its appearance then caused Charles V . great terror , and . was one of the principal causes of his abdicating the throne , and from this circumstance it has received the name of Charles "V . ' s comet . A vulgar superstition
declared that it would destroy the earth . It was stated by the newspaper chronicles a few months since that in Galicia , and many par ts of the continent , the belief th at the comet would appear on the 13 th of June , and cause the destruction of the world and its inhabitants , was so prevalent , that the peasants were unmanageable , the ground was left uncultivated , and no notice was taken of passports , it being said that as the world would not last loner , it was no matter
where people went . A similar panic , arising from the idea that a comet was rapidly approaching the earth , occurred in Paris in 1773 , when many persons died of fright , and numbers prepared for the worst by purchasing , what were offered at high premiums—places in paradise . It was on this occasion that M . Arago wrote his celebrated work on comets . We propose in the present paper to show the groundlessness of all such fears ; and we will first consider what is the nature of a comet ,
Comets are simply masses of vapour moving m space , subject to the same laws of motion and gravitation as the planets ^ and like those bodies , are rendered visible by the light they receive from the sun , round which they revolve in elliptical orbits of great eccentricity . The ellipse is an oval figure , resembling a circle elongated in one direction , so that the diameters are not equal , as in the circle .
In the longest diameter are two points called foci , which correspond to the centre in a circle , and the eccentricity is half the distance between these foci . In the orbit of a comet these two points are a great distance apart , and the sun is situated in one of them , consequently the comet is much nearer the suii at one portion of its orbit than it is at another . The point of its orbit at which the comet is
nearest to the sun is called its perilielion , that at which it is furthest from the same body being its aphelion . In consequence of the extremely attenuated state of the substance of a comet , it is only visible when very near the sun , and as it moves with great rapidity during this part of its orbit , it is only visible for a very brief space of time . The longest appearance on record is that of the comet of 1811 , which
continued visible for 510 days . The average duration of time during which these bodies are seen , is , however , only a few weeks . But it is evident that during even this brief space of time the positions of the comet may be observed with sufficient accuracy to
determine the elements of its orbit , and so to ascertain when it will make its next appearance . The first attempt of this nature was made by Newton , who endeavoured to calculate the period of the great comet of KJ 80 , which he ascertained to be about 600 years . This splendid object came from the regions of space immediately above the ecliptic , and rushing downwards , instead of plunging