Facts and figures? I am in a position now to give them to you. My meteor had a diameter of five miles, a circumference of some fifteen. Its density relative to Earth was .67. Its surface gravity—again relative to your Earth—was .00039, placing Earth as 1.00. My weight at the surface of my meteor—neglecting other factors which I shall name in a moment—was slightly over one ounce.
Without undue exertion I could leap upward nearly ten thousand feet—that is to say, almost two miles. And the mountain of rock I tossed into the air on your Earth would have weighed some 320,000 pounds!
I have said that the boulders I tossed upward left the surface of the meteor never to return. At an initial velocity of 13 feet a second, all objects became satellites of the meteor, revolving about it comparatively close to the surface in perfect circles. The velocity of escape was but 18½ feet a second, i. e., that velocity which would cause an object to pass into outer Space, moving onward until it found some larger body to encircle.
I give these figures without corrections for atmosphere, axial rotation of the meteor, or the attraction of other bodies. Theoretically they are accurate, though in practice they were altered somewhat. During our brief days we weighed more than I have stated; while at night, less. Indeed, had we essayed a jump into the air at night, we should doubtless have been unable to struggle our way back.
How can that be, you ask? Our proximity to Saturn! Around this great planet we were revolving at a distance of no more than thirty-five thousand miles. Saturn’s surface gravity is a trifle greater than that of your earth—1.07 to be exact. Saturn’s density is only one-ninth that of the Earth; but the difference is made up because of its tremendous size. Saturn’s gravity—to us on the meteor—was an appreciable pull, even though diminished by the distance between us, and further offset by the meteor’s rapid rotation.
Thus, you see, when Saturn was below us—in daytime—its gravity was added to ours. But at night, when it was in the sky above, it was subtracted.
These conditions applied to the days I am describing. Our meteor was then between Saturn and the Sun. Later in our year, when we had passed around Saturn, the Sun was blotted out. There was then no daylight—merely alternate periods of a sky filled with Saturn’s silver disk and the azure, star-filled outer Space.
I have not mentioned the time of our meteor’s axial rotation. It was, as you on Earth measure time, 2 hours, 58 minutes. A complete day and night in less than three hours!
When I had finished showing Nona my strength, it was night again. And such a night! Saturn no more than thirty-five thousand miles away! The darkened bands were plainly visible. When fully overhead, the circular limb of the planet came down in all directions almost to our horizon. The silver light from it was dazzling. And everywhere in the sky, meteors like ourselves were whirling past—silver in Space, flaming red when fragments of them struck our atmosphere.
Occasionally a meteorite would strike our surface, but we had no fear of them. For an hour perhaps, we stood together, silent, gazing with awe at these mysteries of the sky. Until at last Nona gently drew me back to her cave.