THAT NEW PLANET

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 922, 15 March 1930, Page 10

THAT NEW PLANET

VAST SOLAR SYSTEM EXPLAINED BY DIAGRAM DISCOVERY NOT UNEXPECTED The discovery of the new planet, which is reported by cable, was not altogether unanticipated. Professor P. W. Burbidge stated this morning. For years astronomers have been studying the motions of the planets Uranus and Neptune. From their calculations and observations they concluded that small perturbations might have been due to the existence of another planet. Concerning the nature of the new planet it will most possibly be veiled |in clouds of something not yet exi plained. Uranus and Neptune are | veiled by* markings which are prob- | ably cloud peculiarities, not on the j planets themselves but some distance ! away. | The great distance of the new ; planet £rom the sun will not allow it i to receive much heat, but it may have internal heat as is indicated on i Jupiter from the enormous winds | which have been observed there. The rate of these winds is deduced from ! the cloud motions which are observed on the planet. It is difficult to state where there is any life on the new planet. From investigations made in ISSO professor George Forbes concluded that the new planet existed and in j 190 S he confirmed his earlier results. ! He concluded that the new planet was i 105 times as distant from the sun as ! the earth, or three and a half times as I far away as the planet Neptune with a period of 1,100 years. This period ' means that it takes 1,100 earth years ! to complete a circuit of its o\Vn orbit. The vastness of tlie solar system can be judged from the following: Take a globe a foot in diameter to represent the sun, an ordinary shot one-ninth of an inch in diameter 36 yards away to represent the earth, a small marble a distance of nearly 1.100 yards away as Neptune, the last discovered planet, but to represent the star Proxima Centauri, the sun’s nearest neighbour among the stars, another globe would have to be 5,300 miles away*. DOWN TAIHAPE WAY

Another example is that if two small globes representing the sun and the earth were placed four feet apart, representing 90,000,000 miles, the nearest star to the earth would be somewhere down near Taihape. On this same scale Neptune would have to be placed 120 feet from the sun and the newly discovered planet would be some distance beyond that again.

Neptune was discovered on September 23, IS4G. Since that time astronomers have observed it very closely, but so far it has only completed about half its circuit. The discovery of Neptune was followed by a great deal of argument. An Englishman, J. C. Adams, of St. John’s College, Cambridge, made liis first observations in 1841. He thought that tlie irregularities in the motions of the planet Uranus might be accounted for by tlie action of an undiscovered planet beyond. Soon afterward a Frenchman, U. J. Le Verrier, was making similar investigations. Both men were working unknown to the other. Adams called several times to see Airey, the Astronomer Royal, but they did not meet at that time. While the English astronomers were calculating with instruments which were not up-to-date the Frenchman finished his work and passed his results to Dr. Galle, of Berlin, who first saw the planet. Le Verrier received the credit of the discovery of Neptune, but Adams was the first to carry out the mathematical work. Neptune is 2,793,500 miles from the sun and the time required for a revolution in its orbit is 164.8 earth-years. It is 30 times as distant from the sun as the earth.

The Rev. T. E. R. Phillips, writing in “Splendour in the Heavens,” asks: Are there still other planets more remote (than Neptune)? It is reasonable to conclude that the existence of a trans-Neptunian planet might be revealed by the discovery of might be revealed by the discovery of a family of comets whose aphelia (the most distant parts of their orbits) lie outside Neptune’s orbit. Henry* Norris Russell, a noted astronomer, says that Neptune has only concluded aboift half of the circuit of its orbit since it was discovered in 1846 and the planet will be unavailable for full investigation until it has completed its whole orbit. He concluded that a planet beyond Neptune, if of any size, would be discovered sooner or later by means of the disturbance it would produce on the motions of Uranus and Neptune. Uranus lias been observed over nearly two and a half revolutions and there appear to be small unexplained irregularities in its motion. This lead astronomers to suspect the existence of another planet.