CHAPTER XI. OF COMETS. GREAT NUMBER OF RECORDED COMETS. -THE NUMBER OF THOSE GREAT INTEREST AT IDENTITY WITH SEVERAL OLDER COMETS. (554.) THE extraordinary aspect of comets, their rapid and seemingly irregular motions, the unexpected manner in which they often burst upon us, and the imposing magnitudes which they occasionally assume, have in all ages rendered them objects of astonishment, not unmixed with superstitious dread to the uninstructed, and an enigma to those most conversant with the wonders of creation and the operations of natural causes. Even now, that we have ceased to regard their movements as irregular, or as governed by other laws than those which retain the planets in their orbits, their intimate nature, and the offices they perform in the economy of our system, are as much unknown as ever. No distinct and satisfactory account has yet been rendered of those immensely voluminous append. ages which they bear about with them, and which are known by the name of their tails, (though improperly, since they often precede them in their motions,) any more than of several other singularities which they present. (555.) The number of comets which have been astronomically observed, or of which notices have been recorded in history, is very great, amount 1 ing to several hundreds; and when we consider that in the earlier agcs of astronomy, and indeed in more recent times, before the invention of the telescope, only large and conspicuous ones were noticed; and that, since due attention has been paid to the subject, scarcely a year has passed without the observation of one or two of these bodies, and that sometimes two and even three have appeared at once; it will be easily supposed that their actual number must be at least many thousands. Multitudes, indeed, must escape all observation, by reason of their paths traversing only that part of the heavens which is above the horizon in the daytime. Comets so circumstanced can only become visible by the rare coincidence of a total eclipse of the sun,-a coincidence which happened, as related by Seneca, sixty-two years before Christ, when a large comet was actually observed very near the sun. Several, however, stand on record as having been bright enough to be seen with the naked eye in the daytime, even at noon and in bright sunshine. Such were the comets of 1402, 1532, and 1843, and that of 43 B. c. which appeared during the games celebrated by Augustus in honour of Venus shortly after the death of Cæsar, and which the flattery of poets declared to be the soul of that hero taking its place among the divinities. (556.) That feelings of awe and astonishment should be excited by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a great comet, is no way surprising; being, in fact, according to the accounts we have of such events, one of the most imposing of all natural phenomena. Comets consist for the most part of a large and more or less splendid, but ill-defined nebulous mass of light, called the head, which is usually much brighter towards its centre, and offers the appearance of a vivid nucleus, like a star or planet. From the head, and in a direction opposite to that in which the sun is situated from the comet, appear to diverge two streams of light, which grow broader and more diffused at a distance from the head, and which most commonly close in and unite at a little distance behind it, but sometimes continue distinct for a great part of their course; producing an effect like that of the trains left by some bright meteors, or like the diverging fire of a sky-rocket (only without sparks or perceptible motion.) This is 1 See catalogues in the Almagest of Riccioli; Pingré's Cometographie; Delambre's Astron. vol. iii.; Astronomische Abhandlungen, No. 1, (which contains the elements of all the orbits of comets which have been computed to the time of its publication. 1823;) also a catalogue, by the Rev. T. J. Hussey. Lond. & Ed. Phil. Mag. vol. ii. No. 9, et seq. In a list cited by Lalande from the 1st vol. of the Tables de Berlin, 700 comets are enumerated. See also notices of the Astronomical Society and Astron. Nachr. passim. A great many of the more ancient comets are recorded in the Chinese Annals, and in some cases with sufficient precision to allow of the calculation of rudely approximate orbits from their motions so described. the tail. This magnificent appendage attains occasionally an immense apparent length. Aristotle relates of the tail of the comet of 371 B. C., that it occupied a third of the hemisphere, or 60°; that of A. D. 1618 is stated to have been attended by a train no less than 104° in length. The comet of 1680, the most celebrated of modern times, and on many accounts the most remarkable of all, with a head not exceeding in brightness a star of the second magnitude, covered with its tail an extent of more than 70° of the heavens, or, as some accounts state, 90°; that of the comet of 1769 extended 97°, and that of the last great comet (1843) was estimated at about 65° when longest. The figure (fig. 2, Plate II.) is a representation of the comet of 1819-by no means one of the most considerable, but which was, however, very conspicuous to the naked eye. (557.) The tail is, however, by no means an invariable appendage of comets. Many of the brightest have been observed to have short and feeble tails, and a few great comets have been entirely without them. Those of 1585 and 1763 offered no vestige of a tail; and Cassini describes the comets of 1665 and 1682 as being as round' and as well defined as Jupiter. On the other hand, instances are not wanting of comets furnished with many tails or streams of diverging light. That of 1744 had no less than six, spread out like an immense fan, extending to a distance of nearly 30° in length. The small comet of 1823 had two, making an angle of about 160°, the brighter turned as usual from the sun, the fainter towards it, or nearly so. The tails of comets, too, are often somewhat curved, bending, in general, towards the region which the comet has left, as if moving somewhat more slowly, or as if resisted in their course. (558.) The smaller comets, such as are visible only in telescopes, or with difficulty by the naked eye, and which are by far the most numerous, offer very frequently no appearance of a tail, and appear only as round or somewhat oval vaporous masses, more dense towards the centre, where, however, they appear to have no distinct nucleus, or anything which seems entitled to be considered as a solid body. Stars of the smallest magnitudes remain distinctly visible, though covered by what appears to be the densest portion of their substance; although the same stars would be completely obliterated by a moderate fog, extending only a few yards from the surface of the earth. And since it is an observed fact, that even those This description however applies to the "disc" of the head of these comets as seen in a telescope. Cassini's expressions are, "aussi rond, aussi net, et aussi clair que Jupiter," (where it is to be observed that the latter epithet must by no means be translated bright). To understand this passage fully, the reader must refer to the description given further on, of the "disc" of Halley's comet, after its perihelio, passage in 1835-6. larger comets which have presented the appearance of a nucleus have yet exhibited no phases, though we cannot doubt that they shine by the reflected solar light, it follows that even these can only be regarded as great masses of thin vapour, susceptible of being penetrated through their whole substance by the sunbeams, and reflecting them alike from their interior parts and from their surfaces. Nor will any one regard this explanation as forced, or feel disposed to resort to a phosphorescent quality in the comet itself, to account for the phenomena in question, when we consider, (what will hereafter be shown) the enormous magnitude of the space thus illuminated, and the extremely small mass which there is ground to attribute to these bodies. It will then be evident that the most unsubstantial clouds which float in the highest regions of our atmosphere, and seem at sunset to be drenched in light, and to glow throughout their whole depth as if in actual ignition, without any shadow or dark side, must be looked upon as dense and massive bodies compared with the filmy and all but spiritual texture of a comet. Accordingly, whenever powerful telescopes have been turned on these bodies, they have not failed to dispel the illusion which attributes solidity to that more condensed part of the head, which appears to the naked eye as a nucleus; though it is true that in some, a very minute stellar point has been seen, indicating the existence of a solid body. (559.) It is in all probability to the feeble coercion of the elastic power of their gaseous parts, by the gravitation of so small a central mass, that we must attribute this extraordinary development of the atmospheres of comets If the earth, retaining its present size, were reduced, by any interna. enange (as by hollowing out its central parts) to one thousandth part of its actual mass, its coercive power over the atmosphere would be diminished in the same proportion, and in consequence the latter would expand to a thousand times its actual bulk; and indeed much more, owing to the still farther diminution of gravity, by the recess of the upper parts from the centre. An atmosphere, however, free to expand equally in all directions, would envelope the nucleus spherically, so that it becomes necessary to admit the action of other causes to account for its enormous extension in the direction of the tail,-a subject to which we shall presently take occasion to recur. (560.) That the luminous part of a comet is something in the nature of Newton has calculated (Princ. III. p. 512,) that a globe of air of ordinary density at the earth's surface, of one inch in diameter, if reduced to the density due to the altitude above the surface of one radius of the earth, would occupy a sphere exceeding in radius the orbit of Saturn. The tail of a great comet then, for aught we can tell, may consist of only a very few pounds or even ounces of matter. a smoke, fog, or cloud, suspended in a transparent atmosphere, is evident from a fact which has been often noticed, viz.—that the portion of the tail where it comes up, and surrounds the head, is yet separate from it by an interval less luminous, as if sustained and kept off from contact by a transparent stratum, as we often see one layer of clouds over another with a considerable clear space between. These and most of the other facts observed in the history of comets, appear to indicate that the structure of a comet, as seen in section in the direction of its length, must be that of a hollow envelope, of a parabolic form, enclosing near its vertex the nucleus and head, something as represented in the annexed figure. This would account for the apparent division of the tail into two principal lateral Fig. 75. branches, the envelope being oblique to the line of sight at its borders, and therefore a greater depth of illuminated matter being there exposed to the eye. In all probability, however, they admit great varieties of structure, and among them may very possibly be bodies of widely different physical constitution, and there is no doubt that one and the same comet at different epochs undergoes great changes, both in the disposition of its materials and in their physical state. (561.) We come now to speak of the motions of comets. These are apparently most irregular and capricious. Sometimes they remain in sight only for a few days, at others for many months; some move with extreme slowness, others with extraordinary velocity; while not unfrequently, the two extremes of apparent speed are exhibited by the same comet in different parts of its course. The comet of 1472 described an arc of the heavens of 40° of a great circle' in a single day. Some pursue a direct, some a retrograde, and others a tortuous and very irregular course; nor do they confine themselves, like the planets, within any certain region of the heavens, but traverse indifferently every part. Their variations in apparent size, during the time they continue visible, are no less remarkable than those of their velocity; sometimes they make their first appearance as faint and slow moving objects, with little or no tail; 1120° in extent in the former editions. But this was the arc described in longitude. and the comet at the time referred to had great north latitude. |