SPOTS ON VENUS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1360, 10 February 1912, Page 13

SPOTS ON VENUS.

« SOME NEW PHOTOGRAPHS. The planet Venus has usually been supposed to be wrapped in clouds, either of water vapour or of snow, and speculative cosmogonisla have sometimes believed that we see in her a typo of the. conditions which obtained on tho Earth in the carboniferous em or before it, when rain continually descended, and the lace of tho Sun was always hidden by a pall of vapour. Oiving to this hypothetic.il veil the surface of Venus has been regarded as indistinguishable, and therefore (ho planet's period of rotation could only be surmised. During the past year 11. I , '. Quenissct, of the Juvisy Observatory, has made, a number of photographs of Venus, which indicate, however,, a clearer prospect. Usually, as he observes in reporting the result of his observations to the Paris Academy, the only distinctive things to be seen on Venus are- a darkening of the terminator limb and sometimes a whitening at the Poles. Any spots appear to be of tho nature of fight clouds. But during June and July ho succeeded in photographing some of those spots, which seemed to be more strongly marked than usual. Their definite appearance on 11. Qucnifsafs photographic plates furnishes the first real proof of I he existence of spots on. Venus—though we must do Professor Lowell, of Flagstair Observatory, Hie credit of saying that he has asserted his recognition of them through the clear air of Arizona. M. Quenisset's seven photographs are thus described by him: The first , shows the terminator of the limb darkened; the second a greyish spot in the soul hern' hemisphere—it was just leaving tho terminator and moving .slowly towards the north-east; tho third, another greyish spot, rather fainter than the last, but finite well defined in the northern hemisphere; the fourth photograph shows a light area between the two spots; the fifth the polar region whitening; and the sixth the antarctic becoming grey. Tho last photograph reveals the western limb of Venus turned towards the Sun. and becoming very bright. Other photographs were made five and six days Inter of one of the spots, and it is evident that astronomy is at hst in sight oF a moans of determining Ly tlia observation of their movements the rotation period of the planet.