THE SUN’S LIGHT AND HEAT.
I conceive that one reason why scientists believe in the nebular
hypothesis is because of their knowing that heat consumes. One cannot
contemplate a burning object without perceiving that it grows smaller
and smaller; therefore why should not the sun with its flaming
hydrogen, rising sometimes to a height of 200,000 miles, consume the
sun? It is claimed but 1/2300 millionth of its force reaches earth,
and yet it is asserted that the sun could melt 287,200,000 cubic miles
of ice per second without quenching its heat.[17] From what we know
appertaining to heat, how can we think it is otherwise than reducing
the sun’s volume?
Yet we must remember there are other things as difficult of
comprehension. We see the mist rising from the ocean and forming into
clouds that drift through the heavens when moved by the winds, and we
might well believe in future years the oceans will be drained of their
contents. But when we learn that all those waters pass into the sky but
to condense and fall to earth, and then through streams again reach the
oceans, we can readily understand that they may be the same to-day as
when created; nor conceive how it will be otherwise to the end of time.
Again, when a boiler of water seems wasting through invisible steam,
expanded 1800 times its original bulk, we might well believe it is
being destroyed only we have learned all that steam in some manner
cools and forms again the first element H^2 O, not one particle being
lost. When any body is burned and we see the flames ascending into the
air, we say it is being destroyed, for so it seems; but chemists tell
us the form alone is changed and the weight after burning identical
with its first weight; showing thereby that not one particle of earth
can either be formed or destroyed, but simply changed from combinations
of molecules to simple molecules, or _vice-versa_.
We see earth everywhere surrounded by an atmospheric sea, not of oxygen
and hydrogen, but of oxygen and nitrogen—four-fifths being nitrogen—and
were the other fifth the same no life could exist in it. Scientists
tell us this atmosphere extends from one to two hundred miles into the
sky, but is densest at the earth’s surface; and as one ascends rapidly
rarifies so that at a height of a few miles no life can exist. From
what is known of winds and cyclones one might expect the atmosphere
would be torn from earth, especially as earth moves at the rate of
1100 miles per minute, and revolves on its axis about the same number
of miles per hour. One would suppose, at least, that which is highest
and thinnest must be left behind in space; yet we cannot learn since
Earth’s creation that any of it has been thus lost.
Furthermore, when we contemplate earth’s delicate poise of forces,—“No
balance turning to 1/1000 of a grain being more delicate,”—we may
well believe the sun is the same to-day as two thousand years ago; for
it could not have wasted any of its substance without having thereby
affected the gravitation of the earth. In some manner, like the waters
that rise from ocean and return again; like the steam, and burning
bodies that are not lost; and like the atmosphere the earth holds,
the sun may be also holding its every atom of heat; though changed,
perhaps, in some of its combinations. We must remember that the
sun’s rays, as they pass into space, can be seen by us only when the
vibrations are between 400 and 800 trillions per seconds, for above or
below that number they are invisible to human sight. Were these rays
condensed, or in some manner changed, making as great a difference
between them as there is difference between the vapors rising from the
ocean to the clouds, and the streams returning to them; they might
before their condensation, or change, give different vibrations from
the ones they would afterward give. While the heat escaping from one
gave light the others returning might be invisible to us. It is evident
that were the sun a dark object it would be invisible to us, as would
the moon without the sun’s rays resting upon it.
May not all light be restored to the sun, and thus keep up its supply
of heat—as well as vapors be returned to ocean—instead of supposing it
is caused by contraction? The only sounds that our ears can detect are
vibrations between 16.5 and 38,000 per second and unquestionably all
above 38,000, even up to and above those of light, would give sound
had we the faculties to detect it. Had we then the right senses all
vibrations below 400 trillions or above 800 trillions per second would
be visible as well as the vibrations that give us light.
Though it is difficult to understand, from all the materials that we
are familiar with, how a fire can burn without its substance being
consumed, we should remember the bush that astonished Moses by burning
without consuming. As little can we conceive that there is a great
globe of fire keeping up its flame and heat for thousands of years
without being diminished. The sun, although seeming to us small as
a ball, is visible at a distance of over 90,000,000 miles. Could we
conceive of any object, even though a million times larger than earth,
being seen by us at that distance only from the fact that it is thus
daily seen, and apparently is the same size as when our eyes first
rested upon it. Even these visible truths are beyond our conception,
and knowing that it is so we should feel that any truth, however
astonishingly great, may be possible.
When we realize that without the sun’s heat and light we ourselves
could not here exist; that it has power to lift the waters that are
unfit for man’s use and restore them again in a purified state; and
power to produce food for him both in the animal and vegetable kingdom,
the truth is not lessened. Were the sun nearer the earth or farther
away all life would here be destroyed; and should any one of all the
suns in space vary the least in its orbit it would be the destruction
of earth. Yet as far as we have learned no sun has ever come within
twenty trillions of miles to interfere with our globe, and from all the
above facts we may well believe there are truths concerning the sun’s
light and heat that we do not yet understand.
That the ocean keeps up its supply of radiation, and as far as we see
never diminishes; that the heat from volcanoes and all other fires
of earth does not escape from earth’s hold, but is returned in new
forms to be used again; leads us to question whether earth’s heat
passes beyond its own atmosphere. The heat of our great solar light
may likewise be equal to that of Adam’s day and continue thus unwasted
until the end of time, or until its great Author sees fit to change it.
While astronomers tell us that the diminution of the sun’s diameter
1/10,000 part would liberate heat enough to supply its current
expenditure for about 2,000 years, they have also shown that it could
be supplied by the friction meteors would cause by rushing into the
sun; provided that the number falling into it in one year equalled the
moon’s volume.[18] We can know little of the number there may be, for
only that they occasionally fall into our atmosphere and are instantly
burned, we should not know of their existence. But it is said that
every 33 years we pass through a shoal of them 100,000 miles broad,
and many thousand times greater in length, and that it has been thus
for centuries. Prof. Newton estimates the average number of meteors
that traverse our atmosphere daily, large enough to be visible to the
eye on a dark night, is 7,500,000. With the telescope-meteors added,
the number is increased to 400 millions. As the sun is more than a
million times the size of the earth should the number falling into it
be increased at the same rate it might reach 150 quadrillions daily,
170,000 falling on every square mile of the sun’s surface.
Again; it is stated by Sir Robert Ball that a body of a pound’s weight
falling from a great distance into the sun, might, in the course of its
friction through the sun’s atmosphere, generate as much heat as would
be produced by the combustion of many times its own weight of coal, if
consumed under the most favorable circumstances. Is there sufficient
evidence yet given to prove that this is not a source of the sun’s
light and heat instead of contraction? The moon, we will say, contains
5,000 millions of cubic miles. If the sun’s radius was 100 millions
of miles, or extended as far as earth, it would have a surface of
120,000 trillions of square miles. Place the earth on its surface and
it would occupy less than 1,000 millionth of that surface, allowing it
to settle into it one-half. The moon’s volume if spread over earth’s
surface would cover it but twenty-five miles deep. If then, the same
quantity of material were spread over the sun while reaching out to
earth it would be covered by it less than 1/300 of an inch in depth;
so thinly, in fact that an apple-skin would be thick in comparison.
Are we prepared to say this amount does not actually accumulate year
by year on the surface of earth, for we are told: “The world is thus
pelted on all sides day and night, year after year, century after
century, by troops and battalions of shooting stars of every size, from
objects not much larger than grains of sand up to mighty masses which
can only be expressed in tons. In the lapse of ages our globe must thus
be gradually growing by the everlasting deposit of meteoric debris.
Looking back through the vista of time past, it becomes impossible to
estimate how much of the solid earth may not owe its origin to this
celestial source.”[19]
But as the sun does not extend out to earth let us see how deeply the
moon’s volume would cover a globe one million miles in diameter having
a surface of three trillions of square miles. Spread the moon’s volume
upon this and we find it would cover the sun about nine feet deep.
This being for one year it would be only at the rate of nine inches
per month, or one-third of an inch per day. Snow would cover earth
to that depth in half an hour, while a mist or dew could cover it in
about twenty-four hours. Thus a constant deposit of meteoric dust even
like dew would give to the sun a volume equal to the moon’s in about
one year. With these facts before us let us notice what is actually
observed about the sun’s corona, so plainly seen when the sun is
totally eclipsed; for can that corona be less than the dew that falls
upon earth if it is thus visible at a distance of more than ninety
millions of miles? We are told, “The corona is a vast shell of unknown
vapors in a highly attenuated state many thousands of miles thick, and
observed to extend at least one-half a degree from what is ordinarily
taken to be the visible edge of the sun.” Is it, then, too much to
believe it is helping to keep up the light and heat of the sun? It is
further asserted that its depth is nearly 100,000 miles and “consists
of reflected light, sent to us from dust particles or meteoroids giving
new densities and rarities that cause the changeful light. Whether they
are there by constant projection, and fall again to the sun, or are
held by electric influence, or by force of orbital revolution, we do
not know.”[20]
The same author quotes from Professor Pierce: “The heat which the earth
receives directly from meteors is the same in amount which it receives
from the sun by radiation, and that the sun receives five-sixths of
its heat from the meteors that fall upon it.” Prof. Langley has stated
that no more than half the sun’s radiant force reaches earth, the
remainder being absorbed by the atmosphere and dust which floats it;
and that much of the absorption must be accomplished by the cosmic
matter existing beyond the atmosphere, while that matter must be more
accumulative in the neighborhood of the sun. Is it not reasonable then,
to suppose that the meteoric, or cosmic dust, falling into the sun is
equivalent to a dew that would cover it one-third of an inch in 24
hours; for why should not the sun attract this little amount of matter
when it has power to draw worlds eighty times larger than earth and
nearly 3,000 million miles distant? Astronomers do not question the
power of this attraction, then if the sun can draw in one meteor may
it not easily draw all that are needed to supply its heat? for the
earth’s orbit around the sun is like a thread. In that orbit it passes
swarms of meteors, and thus of the number that may exist in the vast
circumference about our sun we have little real knowledge.
If it is true that earth receives but a portion of the fearful hydrogen
heat that flames in the sun’s photosphere, one-half being restrained
that it does not reach the earth, may not the rest as easily be
withheld in the far distant space and lie within the sun’s power of
gravitation?
While the sun is the light and heat of earth and all the planets and
their satellites,—as a mother caring for her children,—may not all
these planets, with their atmospheres and powers of gravitation,
help return to her what she so freely bestows upon them? Is it more
difficult to believe this than that we are daily using heat stored for
ages in earth by this same wondrous sun whose light and heat, if more
or less, would work the destruction of man?
When we think of the hundreds of millions of years ago that Saturn and
Jupiter were a portion of the sun’s body we should, according to the
nebular theory, expect that those bodies would long since have cooled.
But if Saturn is to-day a hot, gaseous body of not one-thousandth
part the sun’s mass, nor of an equal density with it, how does it
happen that it is not cold? As astronomers cannot tell the years it
may continue thus hot possibly there may be something about light and
heat that is not yet understood? We are told by Dr. Huggins: “The green
coronal line has no known representative in terrestrial substances, nor
has Schuster been able to recognize any of our elements in the other
lines of the corona.”
It has been said that “the sun cannot shine forever;” why not? Let us
imagine two persons in a room making an agreement that thereafter but
one of them shall be in the room at the same time, for as one enters
it the other will immediately leave. This they might agree to do every
hour, day, year, or millions of years even, could they exist here, and
thus keep it up forever. Likewise if the sun’s rays in some manner
keep returning to the sun, they may exist forever. For if true that “a
particle traveling in a straight line with uniform speed in the same
direction is never able to get beyond a certain limited distance from
the original position, to which it will every now and then return,”
let us apply the theory to a ray of light and see what the result will
be. One would think that a ray of light moving through a cold space
would certainly cool in one minute, but we find that such is not the
case; for this ray of light is the same when it reaches earth as when
it started upon its journey. The eighth minute it moved as fast and
was identically the same as when first projected from the sun. Thus it
ever remains flying through space at the rate of 11 millions of miles
each minute, keeping the same speed as long as it can be detected by
human invention, and on reaching the sun, its starting point, it must
be the same in light, heat, and energy as when it left,—be that time
hundreds, thousands, or millions of years,—and is ready to repeat its
voyage forever; why not? If for every ray of light that goes out from
the sun the same number enters, this process must forever keep the sun
supplied. Is it not true of the waters of the Niagara Falls that no
more flows down its stream than has already ascended to the clouds in
vapor, then may it not be equally true of the sun’s light and heat?
The gravitation that applies to bodies may also apply to light, and
give to it as much greater an orbit than that of comets as comets
have greater than that of the planets. Though light may have a vastly
greater ellipse it may in the end return to the sun which projects
it, to be again projected. When we think of the molecules in space
that everywhere seem to possess the same properties, and the vastness
of that space, we are ready to conceive that light may have the same
unending properties.
Again, in reference to the stars burning out, or growing old—as is
believed by some to be the case with our own sun and other suns in
space, because of their varied colors and appearances—the following
thoughts may be suggested. At times our sun seems to have dark spots
upon its surface, while in other places great prominences are observed.
This being the case who believes that everywhere the sun emits the same
light and heat; and if not what must be the effect at our distance from
the sun whether a dark spot, or a great projection of flaming hydrogen
is directly before us? Let us imagine a sphere, with the sun for its
centre, that has a radius reaching out a little way beyond earth, and
a surface that might contain 1200 millions of bodies like our earth.
Supposing earth to occupy, in turn, each of these 1200 millions of
places we cannot believe the sun to have the same appearance from each
of them. We are told by Prof. Ball that masses of vapor are frequently
expelled from the interior of the sun with a speed of from 300 to
nearly 1,000 miles a second, although the fact would hardly be credible
only that the spectroscope enables the observer to actually witness the
ascent of these solar prominences at a distance of more than ninety
millions of miles. Now from these facts would one suppose that the sun
could appear the same when viewed from each of those 1,200 millions of
places?
When observed from a position directly facing the dark spots the sun
would seem very different from the same body viewed from a place
facing the solar heights whose streams of fire were moving toward one
at the rate of from 500 to 1,000 miles per second. Or let us form a
sphere with the next nearest sun, Alpha Centauri, as its centre, and
a radius of ten trillions of miles. In such a sphere we might place
1,210 quadrillions of earths. Who believes, that were that number of
bodies of earth’s size placed about the star Alpha Centauri, to each
of them it would appear alike, especially if it were like our sun with
dark spots and prominences upon its surface? It would seem that the
light received from it might be so variable that different ages would
be attributed to the sun, according to the position from which it was
observed. Our own sun when seen from different points of the earth’s
surface—as, for instance, from the arctic region or torrid zone—does
not look to us exactly the same. A very little change in the atmosphere
affects the appearance of the sun as we daily view it, and the pictures
of the corona taken at different places—or even at the same place with
different instruments—are found on careful examination to present quite
different appearances.
Once again, assume the sun’s diameter to be one million of miles
with a surface of three trillions of square miles which if two miles
in depth would have twice that number of cubic miles, _i. e._, six
trillions of cubic miles. Imagine then a sphere with a radius of three
billions of miles from the sun’s centre, that is one reaching beyond
the planet Neptune, and we have a sphere containing 108 octillions of
cubic miles in volume, which divided by six trillions gives us 18,000
trillions of centuries, providing the mass has contracted six trillions
of cubic miles each century. It might be said that when the sun had
6,000 millions of miles for its diameter it would have contracted more
than six trillions of miles a century; but we must remember that it
is a law of spherical, gaseous volumes that they revolve swifter and
swifter, and grow hotter and hotter as they contract. Hence, the sun
to-day being smaller is revolving more rapidly and contracting faster
than ever before; though it is not detected by us. As its diameter
and volume must have been larger when it contracted more slowly its
decrease could not have been more rapid, if as rapid as now, and at
the rate of no more than six trillions of miles each century. If this
be true we cannot have over estimated the number of centuries that the
sun has been contracting. Then from these suppositions if the sun’s
energy has not waned in all these 18,000 trillions of centuries, it
seems probable that the Power that has caused it to glow thus long
may continue to give to it an energy that shall flow on with unabated
strength throughout the coming ages.
As the idea of the burning-out of the sun is based upon the theory
that the sun formerly was larger than now and has been reduced to its
present size by contraction—although we can in no manner detect that
change—the theory may still be questionable. It seems more agreeable
to believe there will be no limit to the sun’s bright radiance. Its
unbounded flow of light throughout all the years of past time should
give us assurance (until there is certain evidence to the contrary)
that it is as capable of existence, and as able to resist the inroads
of time, as the water in our oceans, the earth upon which we live,
the air surrounding earth, and the ether above; all of which we feel
exist and are preserved by the Powerful Hand and All-Seeing Eye of an
Almighty Creator. It really matters little to us whether or not the
sun is burning-out, for we could live, did that Creator so order, as
well without as with it. There are creatures better adapted to the
arctic seas than to the waters of the torrid zone; there are others
that provide not for themselves but lie dormant through the cold
winter months; there are birds and animals that see by night as well
as by day; and our sight could as easily be adjusted for vision in
one vibration per second as to make it dependent on 400 trillions of
vibrations.
Still our natures are such that what would be harmful in our present
state we prefer should not happen even in the years to come; and so
continue to believe in the sun’s endurance, although there may be some
things that give credence to the idea that destruction will come to
it in the future. We can understand that one ignorant of vaporization
might sit at the foot of Niagara Falls and say, “Surely there cannot
be water above to supply much longer this enormous, swiftly-flowing
volume.” In a like manner we are unable with the sun 90,000,000 miles
distant, to detect any diminution of its light or heat; and judging
only of the condition it was in 2,000 years ago by its power of
gravitation, and its hold upon the planet-worlds—as evidenced by the
transits of Venus and the eclipses—we are led to believe that, wise as
men are, they do not yet fully comprehend all the laws relating to this
wonderful Solar Energy.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Warren, “Recreations in Astronomy,” p. 94.
[18] Ball, “In Starry Realms,” p. 21.
[19] Ball, “In Starry Realms,” p. 230.
[20] Warren, “Recreations in Astronomy,” p. 82.