Composition of the Sun
Thousands of curious and ingenious theories have been brought forth ; to account for the fact that the sun, j although he has whirled his burning \ disk across the heavens for untold ages, continues to burn without ; being consumed or his bulk being J lessened in the least. Some learned ( men affect to believe that the great ■ orb is a monstrous ball of gas, but eyen a great ball of gas would be ; consumed to its utmost atom in tbe ; course of a few thousand years. . Others pretend to believe that its fires are kept up by the remains of : wrecked worlds which are constantly falling into its depths, but even this seems far from probable, not to say a purely absurd conclusion. In giving his opinion on the last contention, one of the most eminent astronomers of the day has figured that a nioun- , tain range consisting of 176 cubic miles, falling intD the sun, would only be sufficient to maintain the present beat for a single second ; a mass equal to that of our earth would engender only enough oi heat to last 63 years. If these conclusions are correct, and we have no means oi proving them false, well may we ask tbe question : Of what wonderful, indestructible substance is the sun composed 1
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Bibliographic details
Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 121, 9 April 1892, Page 4
Word Count
220Composition of the Sun Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 121, 9 April 1892, Page 4
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