Galileo's moons, though the largest bodies of Jupiter's satellite system, are, as we have already pointed out, very small indeed when compared with the planet itself. The diameters of two of them, Europa and Io, are, however, about the same as that of our moon, while those of the other two, Callisto and Ganymede, are more than half as large again. The recently discovered satellites are, on the other hand, insignificant; that found by Barnard, for example, being only about 100 miles in diameter.
Of the four original satellites Io is the nearest to Jupiter, and, seen from the planet, it would show a disc somewhat larger than that of our moon. The others would appear somewhat smaller. However, on account of the great distance of the sun, the entire light reflected to Jupiter by all the satellites should be very much less than what we get from our moon.
Barnard's satellite circles around Jupiter at a distance less than our moon is from us, and in a period of about 12 hours. Galileo's four satellites revolve in periods of about 2, 3½, 7, and 16½ days respectively, at distances lying roughly between a quarter of a million and one million miles. Perrine's two satellites are at a distance of about seven million miles, and take about nine months to complete their revolutions.
The larger satellites, when viewed in the telescope, exhibit certain defined markings; but the bodies are so far away from us, that only those details which are of great extent can be seen. The satellite Io, according to Professor Barnard, shows a darkish disc, with a broad white belt across its middle regions. Mr. Douglass, one of the observers at the Lowell Observatory, has noted upon Ganymede a number of markings somewhat resembling those seen on Mars, and he concludes, from their movement, that this satellite rotates on its axis in about seven days. Professor Barnard, on the other hand, does not corroborate this, though he claims to have discovered bright polar caps on both Ganymede and Callisto.
In an earlier chapter we dealt at length with eclipses, occultations, and transits, and endeavoured to make clear the distinction between them. The system of Jupiter's satellites furnishes excellent examples of all these phenomena. The planet casts a very extensive shadow, and the satellites are constantly undergoing obscuration by passing through it. Such occurrences are plainly comparable to our lunar eclipses. Again, the satellites may, at one time, be occulted by the huge disc of the planet, and at another time seen in transit over its face. A fourth phenomenon is what is known as an eclipse of the planet by a satellite, which is the exact equivalent of what we style on the earth an eclipse of the sun. In this last case the shadow, cast by the satellite, appears as a round black spot in movement across the planet's surface.
In the passages of these attendant bodies behind the planet, into its shadow, or across its face, respectively, it occasionally happens that Galileo's four satellites all disappear from view, and the planet is then seen for a while in the unusual condition of being apparently without its customary attendants. An instance of this phenomenon took place on the 3rd of October 1907. On that occasion, the satellites known as I. and III. (i.e. Io and Ganymede) were eclipsed, that is to say, obscured by passing into the planet's shadow; Satellite IV. (Callisto) was occulted by the planet's disc; while Satellite II. (Europa), being at the same moment in transit across the planet's face, was invisible against that brilliant background. A number of instances of this kind of occurrence are on record. Galileo, for example, noted one on the 15th of March 1611, while Herschel observed another on the 23rd of May 1802.
It was indirectly to Jupiter's satellites that the world was first indebted for its knowledge of the velocity of light. When the periods of revolution of the satellites were originally determined, Jupiter happened, at the time, to be at his nearest to us. From the periods thus found tables were made for the prediction of the moments at which the eclipses and other phenomena of the satellites should take place. As Jupiter, in the course of his orbit, drew further away from the earth, it was noticed that the disappearances of the satellites into the shadow of the planet occurred regularly later than the time predicted. In the year 1675, Roemer, a Danish astronomer, inferred from this, not that the predictions were faulty, but that light did not travel instantaneously. It appeared, in fact, to take longer to reach us, the greater the distance it had to traverse. Thus, when the planet was far from the earth, the last ray given out by the satellite, before its passage into the shadow, took a longer time to cross the intervening space, than when the planet was near. Modern experiments in physics have quite confirmed this, and have proved for us that light does not travel across space in the twinkling of an eye, as might hastily be supposed, but actually moves, as has been already stated, at the rate of about 186,000 miles per second.
The Planet Saturn
Seen in the telescope the planet Saturn is a wonderful and very beautiful object. It is distinguished from all the other planets, in fact from all known celestial bodies, through being girt around its equator by what looks like a broad, flat ring of exceeding thinness. This, however, upon closer examination, is found to be actually composed of three concentric rings. The outermost of these is nearly of the same brightness as the body of the planet itself. The ring which comes immediately within it is also bright, and is separated from the outer one all the way round by a relatively narrow space, known as "Cassini's division," because it was discovered by the celebrated French astronomer, J.D. Cassini, in the year 1675. Inside the second ring, and merging insensibly into it, is a third one, known as the "crape ring," because it is darker in hue than the others and partly transparent, the body of Saturn being visible through it. The inner boundary of this third and last ring does not adjoin the planet, but is everywhere separated from it by a definite space. This ring was discovered independently[23] in 1850 by Bond in America and Dawes in England.