Fig. 31.—Zodiacal Light.
We might say with evident truth that the far-off planets are a part of the sun, since the space they traverse is filled with the power of that controlling king; not only with light, but also with gravitating power.
But come to more ponderable matters. If we look into our western sky soon after sunset, on a clear, moonless night in March or April, we shall see a dim, soft light, somewhat like the milky-way, often reaching, well defined, to the Pleiades. It is wedge-shaped, inclined to the south, and the smallest star can easily be seen through it. Mairan and Cassini affirm that they have seen sudden sparkles and movements of light in it. All our best tests show the spectrum of this light to be continuous, and therefore reflected; which indicates that it is a ring of small masses of meteoric matter surrounding the sun, revolving with it and reflecting its light. One bit of stone as large as the end of one's thumb, in a cubic mile, would be enough to reflect what light we see looking through millions of miles of it. Perhaps an eye sufficiently keen and far away would see the sun surrounded by a luminous disk, as Saturn is with his rings. As it extends beyond the earth's orbit, if this be measured as a part of the sun, its diameter would be about 200,000,000 miles.
Come closer. When the sun is covered by the disk of the moon at the instant of total eclipse, observers are startled by strange swaying luminous banners, ghostly and weird, shooting in changeful play about the central darkness (Fig. 32). These form the corona. Men have usually been too much moved to describe them, and have always been incapable of drawing them in the short minute or two of their continuance. But in 1878 men travelled eight thousand miles, coming and returning, in order that they might note the three minutes of total eclipse in Colorado. Each man had his work assigned to him, and he was drilled to attend to that and nothing else. Improved instruments were put into his hands, so that the sun was made to do his own drawing and give his own picture at consecutive instants. Fig. 33 is a copy of a photograph of the corona of 1878, by Mr. Henry Draper. It showed much less changeability that year than common, it being very near the time of least sun-spot. The previous picture was taken near the time of maximum sun-spot.
Fig. 32.—The Corona in 1858, Brazil.
It was then settled that the corona consists of reflected light, sent to us from dust particles or meteoroids swirling in the vast seas, giving new densities and rarities, and hence this 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. That the corona cannot be in any sense an atmosphere of any continuous gas, is seen from the fact that the comet of 1843, passing within 93,000 miles of the body of the sun, was not burned out of existence as a comet, nor in any perceptible degree retarded in its motion. If the sun's diameter is to include the corona, it will be from 1,260,000 to 1,460,000 miles.
Fig. 33.—The Corolla in 1878, Colorado.
Come closer still. At the instant of the totality of the eclipse red flames of most fantastic shape play along the edge of the moon's disk. They can be seen at any time by the use of a proper telescope with a spectroscope attached. I have seen them with great distinctness and brilliancy with the excellent eleven-inch telescope of the Wesleyan University. A description of their appearance is best given in the language of Professor Young, of Princeton College, who has made these flames the object of most successful study. On September 7th, 1871, he was observing a large hydrogen cloud by the sun's edge. This cloud was about 100,000 miles long, and its upper side was some 50,000 miles above the sun's surface, the lower side some 15,000 miles. The whole had the appearance of being supported on pillars of fire, these seeming pillars being in reality hydrogen jets brighter and more active than the substance of the cloud. At half-past twelve, when Professor Young chanced to be called away from his observatory, there were no indications of any approaching change, except that one of the connecting stems of the southern extremity of the cloud had grown considerably brighter and more curiously bent to one side; and near the base of another, at the northern end, a little brilliant lump had developed itself, shaped much like a summer thunderhead.