HOW THE SUN'S HEAT IS KEPT UP.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2307, 19 January 1892, Page 3

HOW THE SUN'S HEAT IS KEPT UP.

Besides the planetary and cQn,\atary> bodies which reyoh'e about il\e sun, \i is now 4eni\onstratetd that the interplanetary spaces are occupied by smaller masses q| matter, from the size of a m^^fffte/to particles of flowing tl\e su,n. m a oirol*-- ' tort fsve\«- »**-" " -- 1 * Btream > neaiw iX ,xoaching nearer and .„., until they are gradually drawn into the solar fires. The showers of meteoric hail which pelt our earth at certain periods of the year are merely cosmical bodies that have been diverted from their path in certain parts of her orbit. That faint cone of light which streams upward from the setting of the rising sun, near the time of the equinoxes, is but a zone of planetary dust illuminated by the sun's rays—a shower of matter descending upon the solar orb, and rendered visible to us, like the rain sent down from a summer cloud and projected upon the clear heavens beyond. The blacksmith's hammer warms the cold iron. A meteorite falling through the earth's atmosphere develops so much friction as to generate heat sufficient to dissipate the body into vapor. One of these cosmical bodies falling upon the sun must, by the concussion, produce about 700 times as «*«lich heat jxs would be generated by an eiuiaT^rTffGSNlPltel., It is thus that the enormously hign temperature of our sun is maintained.