Astronomy for the Man in the Street, on Our Solar and Planetary System |
Common terms and phrases
aphelion appear astronomers atmosphere attraction axis body called Camille Flammarion canals celestial centre Chromosphere circle clock Cloth colour Crown 8vo dark density DIAGRAM diameter disc Dublin Dunsink earth eclipse equator Fcap Fcap 8vo Flammarion force globe gravity Greenwich habitation heat heavens Hence inch Ireland Irish Jovian Jupiter lecture Lick Observatory light lunar Mars Martian mean distance mean solar measure Mercury meridian MIDDLE ABBEY STREET miles per minute miles per second million miles millions of miles moon motion naked eye nearest Neptune night object Observatory Old Jove orbit parallax perihelion photosphere planetary habitation polar Popular Astronomy Professor question rays reader revolving round Richard Proctor ring rotation round the sun satellites Saturn shew sidereal sidereal day Sir Robert Ball solar system solid space spots story sun's suppose surface telescope temperature terrestrial true solar Uranus velocity Venus weight
Popular passages
Page 15 - Every particle of matter, in the universe, attracts every other particle with a force, which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
Page 14 - that every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle, with a force whose direction is that of the line joining the two, and whose magnitude is directly as the product of their masses, and inversely as the square of their distances from each other.
Page 222 - This peculiarity is, that through tidal action caused by the sun, its day has been made to coincide with its year, or, more properly, that it rotates on its axis in the same time that it revolves round the sun. Hence it always presents the same face to the sun ; and while one-half has a perpetual day, the other half has perpetual night, with perpetual twilight through refraction in a narrow belt adjoining the illuminated half.
Page 329 - The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands.
Page 63 - ... only an insensible point in the immensity of space. The sublime results to which this discovery has led should suffice to console us for our extreme littleness, and the rank which it assigns to the earth.
Page 63 - Seduced by the illusions of the senses, and of self. love, man considered himself for a long time as the centre of the motion of the celestial bodies, and his pride was justly punished by the vain terrors they inspired. The labour of many ages has at length withdrawn the veil which covered the system. Man appears...
Page 35 - And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars.
Page 107 - On the whole we may fairly conclude that, whilst there is some evidence of a tidal yielding of the earth's mass, that yielding is certainly small, and that the effective rigidity is at least as great as that of steel.
Page 142 - Hence, if any two angles of a triangle are given, the third may be found by subtracting the sum of the two from two right angles.
Page 208 - Mars, as we shall presently see, appears to exhibit habitudes more closely corresponding to those we are apt to consider essential to the wants of living creatures. But in size, in situation, and in density, in the length of her seasons and of her rotation, in the figure of her orbit and in the amount of light and heat she receives from the sun, Venus bears a more striking resemblance to the earth than any orb within the solar system.