Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/66

56 that, like the Moon, it will well repay the most minute and assiduous study.

Its satellite system deserves careful observation, especially in respect to the eclipses which occur; since we find in them a measure of the time required for light to cross the orbit of the earth, and so of the solar parallax, and also because, as has been already mentioned, they furnish a test of the constancy of the earth's rotation. The photometric method of observing these eclipses, first instituted by Professor Pickering at Cambridge in 1878, and since reinvented by Cornu in Paris, has already much increased the precision of the results. With reference to the mathematical theory of the motion of these satellites, the same remarks apply as to the planetary theory. As yet nothing appears in the problem to be beyond the power and scope of existing methods, when carried out with the necessary care and prolixity; but a new and more compendious method is most desirable.

The problems of Saturn are much the same as those of Jupiter, excepting that the surface and atmospheric phenomena are less striking, and more difficult of observation. But we have, in addition, the wonderful rings, unique in the heavens, the loveliest of all telescopic objects, the type and pattern, I suppose, of world-making, in actual progress before our eyes. There seems to be continually accumulating evidence from the observations of Struve, Dawes, Henry, and others, that these whirling clouds are changing in their dimensions and in the density of their different parts; and it is certainly the duty of every one who has a good telescope, a sharp eye, and a chastened imagination, to watch them carefully, and set down exactly what he sees. It may well be that even a few decades will develop most important and instructive phenomena in this gauzy girdle of old Chronos. Great care, however, is needed in order not to mistake fancies and illusions for solid facts. Not a few anomalous appearances have been described and commented on, which failed to be recognized by more cautious observers with less vivid imaginations, more trustworthy eyes, and better telescopes.

The outer planets, Uranus and Neptune, until recently, have defied all attempts to study their surface and physical characteristics. Their own motions and those of their satellites have been well worked out; but it remains to discuss their rotation, topography, and atmospheric peculiarities. So remote are they, and so faintly illuminated, that the task seems almost hopeless; and yet, within the last year or two, some of our great telescopes have revealed faint and evanescent markings upon Uranus, which may in time lead to further knowledge of that far-off relative. Perhaps the telescope of the future will give us some such views of Neptune as we now get of Jupiter.

There is a special reason for attempts to determine the rotation periods of the planets, in the fact that there is very possibly some connection between these periods, on the one hand, and, on the other, the