It has been discovered that some of the tiny stars that we can hardly see twinkling in the depths of the azure sky are enormous suns, larger and heavier than our own, and millions of times more voluminous than the Earth.
Our planet is only a grain of dust floating in the immensity of Heaven. Yet this atom of infinity is the cradle of an immense creation incessantly renewed, and perpetually transformed by the accumulated centuries.
And what diversity exists in this army of worlds and suns, whose regular harmonious march obeys a mute order....
But we have as yet said nothing about weight on the surface of the worlds, and I see signs of impatience in my readers, for after so much simple if unpoetical demonstration, they will certainly ask me for the explanation that will prove to them that a kilogram transported to Jupiter or Mars would weigh more or less than here.
Give me your attention five minutes longer, and I will restore your faith in the astronomers.
It must not be supposed that objects at the surface of a world like Jupiter, 310 times heavier than our own, weigh 310 times more. That would be a serious error. In that case we should have to assume that a kilogram transported to the surface of the Sun would there weigh 324,000 times more, or 324,000 kilograms. That would be correct if these orbs were of the same dimensions as the Earth. But to speak, for instance, only of the divine Sun, we know that he is 108 times larger than our little planet.
Now, weight at the surface of a celestial body depends not only on its mass, but also on its diameter.
In order to know the weight of any body upon the surface of the Sun, we must argue as follows:
Since a body placed upon the surface of the Sun is 108 times farther from its center than it is upon a globe of the dimensions of the Earth, and since, on the other hand, attraction diminishes with the square of the distance, the intensity of the weight would there be 108 multiplied by 108, or 11,700 times weaker. Now divide the number representing the mass, i.e., 324,000, by this number 11,700, and it results that bodies at the surface of the Sun are 28 times heavier than here. A woman whose weight was 60 kilos would weigh 1,680 kilograms there if organized in the same way as on the Earth, and would find walking very difficult, for at each step she would lift up a shoe that weighed at least ten kilograms.