Other Worlds than Ours.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 4, 6 January 1904, Page 4

Other Worlds than Ours.

Sir Hubert Ball, the Lowntk'an Professor of Astronomy ami Geometry ut Cambridge, in a recent lecture <m " Other Worlds than Ours," referred to the comparative insignificance of this small world ol! ours auni all that it inherits. To the greater part of 'the vast universe, not only tire earth, hut the sun itself, must be unkufowin. It was a matter of certainty that, with the most powerful telescope conceivable ami the keenest vision, to an astronomer on the Pole Star, or one of its planets, our little sphere would be iirevisi'ble. Jf the untile so ar system were to vanish, ami leave not a wreck behind, the event wo'uld not be of the slight*!,! consequence to the great universe. ComceivuMy, tho conductor of an evening newspaper on a plaaiet revolving round ono of the Pleiades, in want of copy, might, in such a case, insert a few lines to say tjvat in the opinion of their astronomer royal the sun amid its planets—if it had any—had apparently ooased to exist. With regard to Venius, the Lowiwlean professor accepts as proved the theory, on which Mr Wallace relies, liuit the planet of lx>ve always turns the same sr*; to the stai, so tlrat one hemisphere has perianal ndgihit and the other unending day. He did not think that Venus was now the halMtation of rational tonga. Life there might be, hut scarcely tluat of senstient beings like ourselves-. Looking at 'the scores of millions of years of this world's existence, and the fact that 100,000 years would be a li'beral estimate for human' history, it seemed scarcely likely that rational life on Venus wo'uld be simultaneous with that here. For various reasons', no other planet of the solar system is likely to be i nimbi tod- a t present by creatures like ourselves ; in some the time is past, in others it may tto yet to come. In time .past tl«e moon may have been irtlisubited, but no distinct trace of atmosphere is now ibuwd, oind its seas seem to have sunk into thu cavernous interior, as most probably some day the earth's seas would do. Sir ltobert Ball disthe canals of Mars as optical Hlkisions, and is disposod to believe that we see few (if »ny) OJI jts siurljace, but rather certain areas capable of supporting vegetation Mid others desert. 'p ho pictures of •Hipitvi seemed to suggest that the planet was still too hot to be pc-o-pM-not through the sun's heat lor that was only one-twentieth of «e received—but in conseMuenceof Jupfter's own high temwatw a f a Cl>oline Sloibe. What the if* 13 mOSt not on the planet # surface, but is carried r S! 1 ; ;? lU Vast "tmosphere. M „i 7 u ™' 11 succ ess'ion of limiligiht pictures on the sßi-een to emphasise the transcendent grandeur 1 universe awl the cuujitless number of worlds which 't must contain. We see onlv rh. wns an , d bl . i(?h . t ncJjuJa<) . by - t ** ttik unseon worlds were almost eerWWle U T mon nu,,lw,ousito "Jectlng the idea of aj| infinl lTt. Tf " ,CTI thc firmament jvoul-d be a blaze of f,o ~n the thought that the «hofo ol this group of worlds had a greatsi design than merely to teach man his insignificance, and that it was reasonable to suppose, as there were "una vastly greater than ours 'o there were many "other worlds than some of them inhabited bv «" tar higher capabilities. >