A FAMOUS COMET.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 21 December 1901, Page 4

A FAMOUS COMET.

.American astronomers recently observed the famous comet of Eucke in the constellation Gemini in the morning sky. This comet is not much from a spectacular point of view, being highly deficient in respect of tail and streamers, and rather hazy in the outlines of its nucleus. But it is about the most famous of its tribe, and has a small library of literature dedictated to it. For about thirty years after it was first discovered by Mechain, in 1886, it was seen at different times by various observers, each of whom took it for a new comet. Caroline Herschel saw it in 1795 and Pons in 1805. In 1811 Eucke not only observed it, but discovered it was periodic, and that the supposed now bodies ware one and the same. He discovered its period of revolution was the shortest of all known comets, taking only three and a halt years to complete. Since his announcement it has become one of the objects of star-gazers, and scarcely any of its appearances have escaped observation. Ho predicted its return in 1832, and announced that it would! be visible only in the southern skies. The comet duly appeared, and in June, 1822, at Parramatta, New South Wales. Its next predicted return was 1825, and in that year it was ohser ed at Nismes. A Russian had the honour of first signalling it appearance in 1828. Next a German in the famous old town of Gottingen saw it, and on other occasions it favoured Breslau, Buenos Ayres, and the Capo of Good Hope, so that it appears to shed its light with tolerable impartiality over the nations of the earth. Besides its periodicity, other interesting facts have been detected about the comet. It is a member of the small family of comets attached to the solar system. One abnormal symptom which was witnessed at every return was at first a cause for somewhat apprehensive speculation. Eucke found-that the period of revolution was regularly diminishing by about two and □ half hours at each return to perihelion. This effect he attributed to the retarding action of a resisting medium in space. Such a medium would be a source of peril to everything that moved round the sun. As the little comet was visably drawing closer to the sun, so, though more slowly, would the heavy planets. This portended nothing less than the slow, but inevitable, destruction of the solar system. There is, however, always comfort to be got from these predictions of universal catastrophes. The time required for the event was so remote that the earth had a good chance of being dead

first from other causes. Finally, apprehension was calmed by the comet leaving off its unpunctual habits, so that it seems doubtful whether there was any resisting medium after all.