Page:Newton's Principia (1846).djvu/468

 The near approach of the comets is farther confirmed from the light of their heads; for the light of a celestial body, illuminated by the sun, and receding to remote parts, is diminished in the quadruplicate proportion of the distance; to wit, in one duplicate proportion, on account of the increase of the distance from the sun, and in another duplicate proportion, on account of the decrease of the apparent diameter. Wherefore if both the quantity of light and the apparent diameter of a comet are given, its distance will be also given, by taking the distance of the comet to the distance of a planet in the direct proportion of their diameters and the reciprocal subduplicate proportion of their lights. Thus, in the comet of the year 1682, Mr. Flamsted observed with a telescope of 16 feet, and measured with a micrometer, the least diameter of its head, 2′ 00; but the nucleus or star in the middle of the head scarcely amounted to the tenth part of this measure; and therefore its diameter was only 11″ or 12″; but in the light and splendor of its head it surpassed that of the comet in the year 1680, and might be compared with the stars of the first or second magnitude. Let us suppose that Saturn with its ring was about four times more lucid; and because the light of the ring was almost equal to the light of the globe within, and the apparent diameter of the globe is about 21″, and therefore the united light of both globe and ring would be equal to the light of a globe whose diameter is 30″, it follows that the distance of the comet was to the distance of Saturn as 1 to $$\scriptstyle \sqrt{4}$$ inversely, and 12″ to 30 directly; that is, as 24 to 30, or 4 to 5. Again; the comet in the month of April 1665, as Hevelius informs us, excelled almost all the fixed stars in splendor, and even Saturn itself, as being of a much more vivid colour; for this comet was more lucid than that other which had appeared about the end of the preceding year, and had been compared to the stars of the first magnitude. The diameter of its head was about 6′; but the nucleus, compared with the planets by means of a telescope, was plainly less than Jupiter; and sometimes judged less, sometimes judged equal, to the globe of Saturn within the ring. Since, then, the diameters of the heads of the comets seldom exceed 8′ or 12′, and the diameter of the nucleus or central star is but about a tenth or perhaps fifteenth part of the diameter of the head, it appears that these stars are generally of about the same apparent magnitude with the planets. But in regard that their light may be often compared with the light of Saturn, yea, and sometimes exceeds it, it is evident that all comets in their perihelions must either be placed below or not far above Saturn; and they are much mistaken who remove them almost as far as the fixed stars; for if it was so, the comets could receive no more light from our sun than our planets do from the fixed stars.

So far we have gone, without considering the obscuration which comets suffer from that plenty of thick smoke which encompasseth their heads, and through which the heads always shew dull, as through a cloud; for by