Mystery of Comets

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 15, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 11.

Mystery of Comets

Mystery of Comets.—Prof. E. L. Larkin, of Mount Lowe Observatory, as well as other scientists, tells us that the mystery of comets is still to be solved. All sorts of theories are set afloat regarding them. There are certain things that are known and well known, but there are a great many other things that are not known at all. Professor Larkin thinks that were it not for the planets no comets would return at all. They would dash around the sun and that would be the last; but the planets hold them to the solar system, or at least many of them. There is great difference regarding the nuclei of comets. In some, the nucleus seems to be a solid body; in others, stars have been seen through them. The magnitudes of these nuclei or heads of comets range, we are told, from 40,000 to 100,000 miles in diameter. The comet of A.D. 1811 was 1,200,000 miles in diameter. That is with a diameter a half larger than that of the sun, and yet the matter in it was of such small amount that the planets were not disturbed by its approach. Sometime we will know very much more of these things than at present. Then we can look upon them with immortal eyes.