The Moons of Mars.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 338, 30 January 1889, Page 3

The Moons of Mars.

It , was an noun pea months' ago that Asaph Hall had discovered at Washington, ~on the ll!ih and 17th of; Au gust, two\safel- • lites of Mars, tii,eir t dianaeters being, ,as it seemed, not greater., than ten kilometres, and their times of revolution around, their central planet being shorter than had been observed in any Bimilar case. ,The outer, L rhoon, named Deiinos, was said to perform , its revolution in,304 hours, and the inner one, Phbbos, in 71 hours. vM.-.E. .Dubois recently read a , paper, *on • this subject .before the French Academy 'of Sciences, in which he pointed put that-such celerity was quite at variance with the theory, of the movements ot the celestial bodies in apace, as expounded by Laplace, according to which no satellite performs its revolution around its principal tnore quickly than this latter jreyolves^ around its 'own axis. M. ' Dubpis inclines to .the opinion that. the mojpns of Mars are 1 two of t the- planetoids which h^ve such, anomalous and seemingly varying , or bita. He thinks that, in one of .those aberrations, they came .so ,neaf to Mars tiliat, they were caught and detained within i£s sphere of -attraction. As a faot, one of tjiese planetoids, has so very edcentric an orbit .that it combs very near Mars." > 'On the 12bh> of September, 1876, it came vvithin 9,000;000< miles of Mars, and has nqt r since>bee.n. seen. <-„B.ut even at that* 1 nearness ,the, attractive force 'of Mars'would r be many thousand'time^iless^than^that oosf s ]the' ; lsun'; must 'be. prepared to\admiti some , exfiraprdinary/planetic disturbances > 'before we could imagine^the^ transformation,! of 'onle'qf'. those planetoids into a p^tellite' of s',Mars. 5 ',Mars. • .aqclr.tli^dWQQyery, twelvefyeara afterwards, of Ithe !tvvo moons of Mars'are ; singular>c6in- k „cidences. , , ,• ']>'■>:■: