Page:The evolution of worlds - Lowell.djvu/113

Rh Now, if an object be coming toward the observer, emitting or reflecting light as it does so, each wave-length of its spectrum will be shortened in proportion to the relative speed of its approach as compared with the speed of light, because each new wave is given out by so much nearer the observer and in reflection the body may also meet it. Reversely it will be lengthened if the object be receding from the observer or he from it. This would change the color of the object were it not that while each hue moves into the place of the next, like the guests at Alice's tea-party in Wonderland, some red rays pass off the visible spectrum, but new violet rays come up from the infra-violet and the spectrum is as complete as before. Fortunately, however, in all spectra are gaps where individual wave-lengths are absorbed or omitted, and these, the lines in the spectrum, tell the tale of shift. Now if a body be rotating, one side of it will be approaching the observer, while the opposite side is receding from him, and if the slit be placed perpendicular to the axis about which the spin takes place, each spectral line will appear not straight across the spectrum of the object, but skewed, the approaching side being tilted to the violet end, the receding side to the red.

This was to be the procedure adopted for the rotation of Venus. By placing the slit parallel to the ecliptic,