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?