A SOLAR AURORA.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 December 1920, Page 4

A SOLAR AURORA.

Tile brilliant solar atjroj'a observed between 1.40 and 2,15 p.m. on-Saturday, the 11th, was a magnificent spectacle in the heavens. At frequent periods during the time it lasted the sun's corona shone resplendently. For the past five years astronomers have been earnestly studying the several great sunspota in relation to auroral displays. On this subject Professor Charles Clii'ee, F.K.S., demonstrator of astronomy in the University of Cambridge, England, states that sunspots are conducive to aurora, and "warrants the conclusion that years of many sun-spots are years of many auroras, and years of few sun-spots years of few auroras." The Professor is here referring chiefly to lunar auroras. Professor R. A. Sampson, F.R.S., Astronomer Royal for Scotland, thus describes a sun-spot:—"Each spot shows with more or less completeness a ring-Bhaped penumbra enclosing a darker umbra; the umbra Which looks black-beside -the photosphere is actually about as brilliant as limelight." It invariably occurs, to me that such a rare and giorious phenomenon should 'in the interests of young people, be fully recorded in the newspapers. —W. W. Smith.