The evolution of worlds from nebulae

by Lee Parker Dean

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.