The Story of the Heavens

by Robert S. Ball

These tremendous climatic changes succeed each other much more rapidly than do the variations of our seasons. On Mercury the interval between midsummer and midwinter is only forty-four days, while the whole year is only eighty-eight days. Such rapid variations in solar heat must in themselves exercise a profound effect on the habitability of Mercury. Mr. Ledger well remarks, in his interesting work,[14] that if there be inhabitants on Mercury the notions of "perihelion" and "aphelion," which are here often regarded as expressing ideas of an intricate or recondite character, must on the surface of that planet be familiar to everybody. The words imply "near the sun," and "away from the sun;" but we do not associate these expressions with any obvious phenomena, because the changes in the distance of the earth from the sun are inconsiderable. But on Mercury, where in six weeks the sun rises to more than double his apparent size, and gives more than double the quantity of light and of heat, such changes as are signified by perihelion and aphelion embody ideas obviously and intimately connected with the whole economy of the planet.

It is nevertheless rash to found any inferences as to climate merely upon the proximity or the remoteness of the sun. Climate depends upon other matters besides the sun's distance. The atmosphere surrounding the earth has a profound influence on heat and cold, and if Mercury have an atmosphere—as has often been supposed—its climate may be thereby modified to any necessary extent. It seems, however, hardly possible to suppose that any atmosphere could form an adequate protection for the inhabitants from the violent and rapid fluctuations of solar radiation. All we can say is, that the problem of life in Mercury belongs to the class of unsolved, and perhaps unsolvable, mysteries.

It was in the year 1629 that Kepler made an important announcement as to impending astronomical events. He had been studying profoundly the movements of the planets; and from his study of the past he had ventured to predict the future. Kepler announced that in the year 1631 the planets Venus and Mercury would both make a transit across the sun, and he assigned the dates to be November 7th for Mercury, and December 6th for Venus. This was at the time a very remarkable prediction. We are so accustomed to turn to our almanacs and learn from them all the astronomical phenomena which are anticipated during the year, that we are apt to forget how in early times this was impossible. It has only been by slow degrees that astronomy has been rendered so perfect as to enable us to foretell, with accuracy, the occurrence of the more delicate phenomena. The prediction of those transits by Kepler, some years before they occurred, was justly regarded at the time as a most remarkable achievement.

The illustrious Gassendi prepared to apply the test of actual observation to the announcements of Kepler. We can now assign the time of the transit accurately to within a few minutes, but in those early attempts equal precision was not practicable. Gassendi considered it necessary to commence watching for the transit of Mercury two whole days before the time indicated by Kepler, and he had arranged an ingenious plan for making his observations. The light of the sun was admitted into a darkened room through a hole in the shutter, and an image of the sun was formed on a white screen by a lens. This is, indeed, an admirable and a very pleasing way of studying the surface of the sun, and even at the present day, with our best telescopes, one of the methods of viewing our luminary is founded on the same principle.

Gassendi commenced his watch on the 5th of November, and carefully studied the sun's image at every available opportunity. It was not, however, until five hours after the time assigned by Kepler that the transit of Mercury actually commenced. Gassendi's preparations had been made with all the resources which he could command, but these resources seem very imperfect when compared with the appliances of our modern observatories. He was anxious to note the time when the planet appeared, and for this purpose he had stationed an assistant in the room beneath, who was to observe the altitude of the sun at the moment indicated by Gassendi. The signal to the assistant was to be conveyed by a very primitive apparatus. Gassendi was to stamp on the floor when the critical moment had arrived. In spite of the long delay, which exhausted the patience of the assistant, some valuable observations were obtained, and thus the first passage of a planet across the sun was observed.

The transits of Mercury are not rare phenomena (there have been thirteen of them during the nineteenth century), and they are chiefly of importance on account of the accuracy which their observation infuses into our calculations of the movements of the planet. It has often been hoped that the opportunities afforded by a transit would be available for procuring information as to the physical character of the globe of Mercury, but these hopes have not been realised.

Spectroscopic observations of Mercury are but scanty. They seem to indicate that water vapour is a probable constituent in the atmosphere of Mercury, as it is in our own.

A distinguished Italian astronomer, Professor Schiaparelli, some years ago announced a remarkable discovery with respect to the rotation of the planet Mercury. He found that the planet rotates on its axis in the same period as it revolves around the sun. The practical consequence of the identity between these two periods is that Mercury always turns the same face to the sun. If our earth were to rotate in a similar fashion, then the hemisphere directed to the sun would enjoy eternal day, while the opposite hemisphere would be relegated to perpetual night. According to this discovery, Mercury revolves around the sun in the same way as the moon revolves around the earth. As the velocity with which Mercury travels round the sun is very variable, owing to the highly elliptic shape of its orbit, while the rotation about its axis is performed with uniform speed, it follows that rather more than a hemisphere (about five-eighths of the surface) enjoys more or less the light of the sun in the course of a Mercurial year.

This important discovery of Schiaparelli has lately been confirmed by an American astronomer, Mr. Lowell, of Arizona, U.S.A., who observed the planet under very favourable conditions with a refractor of twenty-four inches aperture. He has detected on the globe of Mercury certain narrow, dark lines, the very slow shifting of which points to a period of rotation about its axis exactly coincident with the period of revolution round the sun. The same observer shows that the axis of rotation of Mercury is perpendicular to the plane of the orbit. Mr. Lowell has perceived no sign of clouds or obscurations, and indeed no indication of any atmospheric envelope; the surface of Mercury is colourless, "a geography in black and white."

We may assert that, there is a strong à priori probability in favour of the reality of Schiaparelli's discovery. Mercury, being one of the planets devoid of a moon, will be solely influenced by the sun in so far as tidal phenomena are concerned. Owing, moreover, to the proximity of Mercury to the sun, the solar tides on that planet possess an especial vehemence. As the tendency of tides is to make Mercury present a constant face to the sun, there need be little hesitation in accepting testimony that tides have wrought exactly the result that we know they were competent to perform.