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OTHER WORLDS
by
GARRETT P. SERVISS.
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OTHER WORLDS.
Their Nature and Possibilities in the Light of the Latest Discoveries. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.20 net; postage additional.
No science has ever equaled astronomy in its appeal to the imagination, and recently popular interest in the wonders of the starry heavens has been stimulated by surprising discoveries and imaginary discoveries, as well as by a marked tendency of writers of fiction to include other worlds and their possible inhabitants within the field of romance.
Mr. Serviss's new book on "Other Worlds, their Nature and Possibilities in the Light of the Latest Discoveries," summarizes what is known. With helpful illustrations, the most interesting facts about the planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, etc., as well as about the nearest of all other worlds, the moon, are presented in a popular manner, and always from the point of view of human interest—a point that is too seldom taken by writers on science.
ASTRONOMY WITH AN OPERA-GLASS.
A Popular Introduction to the Study of the Starry Heavens with the simplest of Optical Instruments. Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50.
"By its aid thousands of people who have resigned themselves to the ignorance in which they were left at school, by our wretched system of teaching by the book only, will thank Mr. Serviss for the suggestions he has so well carried out."—New York Times.
PLEASURES OF THE TELESCOPE.
A Descriptive Guide to Amateur Astronomers and All Lovers of the Stars. Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, $1.50.
"The volume will be found interesting by those for whom it is written, and will inspire many with a love for the study of astronomy, one of the most far-reaching of the sciences."—Milwaukee Journal.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
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OTHER WORLDS
Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries.
by
GARRETT P. SERVISS
Author of "Astronomy with an Opera-glass" and "Pleasures of the Telescope"
With Charts and Illustrations
"Shall we measure the councils of heaven by the narrow impotence of human faculties, or conceive that silence and solitude reign throughout the mighty empire of nature?"
—DR. THOMAS CHALMERS.
New York D. Appleton and Company 1901 Copyright, 1901, by D. Appleton and Company.
TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS.
PREFACE
The point of view of this book is human interest in the other worlds around us. It presents the latest discoveries among the planets of the solar system, and shows their bearing upon the question of life in those planets. It points out the resemblances and the differences between the earth and the other worlds that share with it in the light of the sun. It shows what we should see and experience if we could visit those worlds.
While basing itself upon facts, it does not exclude the discussion of interesting probabilities and theories that have commanded wide popular attention. It points out, for instance, what is to be thought of the idea of interplanetary communication. It indicates what must be the outlook of the possible inhabitants of some of the other planets toward the earth. As far as may be, it traces the origin and development of the other worlds of our system, and presents a graphic picture of their present condition as individuals, and of their wonderful contrasts as members of a common family.
In short, the aim of the author has been to show how wide, and how rich, is the field of interest opened to the human mind by man's discoveries concerning worlds, which, though inaccessible to him in a physical sense, offer intellectual conquests of the noblest description.
And, finally, in order to assist those who may wish to recognize for themselves these other worlds in the sky, this book presents a special series of charts to illustrate a method of finding the planets which requires no observatory and no instruments, and only such knowledge of the starry heavens as anybody can easily acquire.
G.P.S.
BOROUGH OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK CITY, September, 1901.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY 1
Remarkable popular interest in questions concerning other worlds and their inhabitants—Theories of interplanetary communication—The plurality of worlds in literature—Romances of foreign planets—Scientific interest in the subject—Opposing views based on telescopic and spectroscopic revelations—Changes of opinion—Desirability of a popular presentation of the latest facts—The natural tendency to regard other planets as habitable—Some of the conditions and limitations of the problem—The solar system viewed from outer space—The resemblances and contrasts of its various planets—Three planetary groups recognized—The family character of the solar system
CHAPTER II
MERCURY, A WORLD OF TWO FACES AND MANY CONTRASTS 18
Grotesqueness of Mercury considered as a world—Its dimensions, mass, and movements—The question of an atmosphere—Mercury's visibility from the earth—Its eccentric orbit, and rapid changes of distance from the sun—Momentous consequences of these peculiarities—A virtual fall of fourteen million miles toward the sun in six weeks—The tremendous heat poured upon Mercury and its great variations—The little planet's singular manner of rotation on its axis—Schiaparelli's astonishing discovery—A day side and a night side—Interesting effects of libration—The heavens as viewed from Mercury—Can it support life?
CHAPTER III
VENUS, THE TWIN OF THE EARTH 46
A planet that matches ours in size—Its beauty in the sky—Remarkable circularity of its orbit—Probable absence of seasons and stable conditions of temperature and weather on Venus—Its dense and abundant atmosphere—Seeing the atmosphere of Venus from the earth—Is the real face of the planet hidden under an atmospheric veil?—Conditions of habitability—All planetary life need not be of the terrestrial type—The limit fixed by destructive temperature—Importance of air and water in the problem—Reasons why Venus may be a more agreeable abode than the earth—Splendor of our globe as seen from Venus—What astronomers on Venus might learn about the earth—A serious question raised—Does Venus, like Mercury, rotate but once in the course of a revolution about the sun?—Reasons for and against that view
CHAPTER IV
MARS, A WORLD MORE ADVANCED THAN OURS 85
Resemblances between Mars and the earth—Its seasons and its white polar caps—Peculiar surface markings—Schiaparelli's discovery of the canals—His description of their appearance and of their duplication—Influence of the seasons on the aspect of the canals—What are the canals?—Mr. Lowell's observations—The theory of irrigation—How the inhabitants of Mars are supposed to have taken advantage of the annual accession of water supplied by the melting of the polar caps—Wonderful details shown in charts of Mars—Curious effects that may follow from the small force of gravity on Mars—Imaginary giants—Reasons for thinking that Mars may be, in an evolutionary sense, older than the earth—Speculations about interplanetary signals from Mars, and their origin—Mars's atmosphere—The question of water—The problem of temperature—Eccentricities of Mars's moons
CHAPTER V
THE ASTEROIDS, A FAMILY OF DWARF WORLDS 129
Only four asteroids large enough to be measured—Remarkable differences in their brightness irrespective of size—Their widely scattered and intermixed orbits—Eccentric orbit of Eros—the nearest celestial body to the earth except the moon—Its existence recorded by photography before it was discovered—Its great and rapid fluctuations in light, and the curious hypotheses based upon them—Is it a fragment of an exploded planet?—The startling theory of Olbers as to the origin of the asteroids revived—Curious results of the slight force of gravity on an asteroid—An imaginary visit to a world only twelve miles in diameter
CHAPTER VI
JUPITER, THE GREATEST OF KNOWN WORLDS 160
Jupiter compared with our globe—His swift rotation on his axis—Remarkable lack of density—The force of gravity on Jupiter—Wonderful clouds—Strange phenomena of the great belts—Brilliant display of colors—The great red spot and the many theories it has given rise to—Curious facts about the varying rates of rotation of the huge planet's surface—The theory of a hidden world in Jupiter—When Jupiter was a companion star to the sun—The miracle of world-making before our eyes—Are Jupiter's satellites habitable?—Magnificent spectacles in the Jovian system
CHAPTER VII
SATURN, A PRODIGY AMONG PLANETS 185
The wonder of the great rings—Saturn's great distance and long year—The least dense of all the planets—It would float in water—What kind of a world is it?—Sir Humphry Davy's imaginary inhabitants of Saturn—Facts about the rings, which are a phenomenon unparalleled in the visible universe—The surprising nature of the rings, as revealed by mathematics and the spectroscope—The question of their origin and ultimate fate—Dr. Dick's idea of their habitability—Swedenborg's curious description of the appearance of the rings from Saturn—Is Saturn a globe of vapor, or of dust?—The nine satellites and "Roche's limit"—The play of spectacular shadows in the Saturnian system—Uranus and Neptune—Is there a yet undiscovered planet greater than Jupiter?
CHAPTER VIII
THE MOON, CHILD OF THE EARTH AND THE SUN 212
The moon a favorite subject for intellectual speculation—Its nearness to the earth graphically illustrated—Ideas of the ancients—Galileo's discoveries—What first raised a serious question as to its habitability—Singularity of the moon's motions—Appearance of its surface to the naked eye and with the telescope—The "seas" and the wonderful mountains and craters—A terrible abyss described—Tycho's mysterious rays—Difference between lunar and terrestrial volcanoes—Mountain-ringed valleys—Gigantic cracks in the lunar globe—Slight force of gravity of the moon and some interesting deductions—The moon a world of giantism—What kind of atmospheric gases can the moon contain—The question of water and of former oceans—The great volcanic cataclysm in the moon's history—Evidence of volcanic and other changes now occurring—Is there vegetation on the moon?—Lunar day and night—The earth as seen from the moon—Discoveries yet to be made
CHAPTER IX
HOW TO FIND THE PLANETS 256
It is easy to make acquaintance with the planets and to follow them among the stars—The first step a knowledge of the constellations—How this is to be acquired—How to use the Nautical Almanac in connection with the charts in this book—The visibility of Mercury and Venus—The oppositions of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn
INDEX 277
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE Chart of Mars Frontispiece
Diagram showing causes of day and night on portions of Mercury 35
Regions of day and night on Mercury 38
Venus's atmosphere seen as a ring of light 56
View of Jupiter facing 168
Three views of Saturn facing 186
Diagram showing the moon's path through space 217
The lunar Alps, Apennines, and Caucasus facing 222
The moon at first and last quarter facing 226
Phases and rotation of the moon 250
Charts showing the zodiacal constellations: 1. From right ascension 0 hours to 4 hours 259 2. " " 4 " " 8 " 261 3. " " 8 " " 2 " 263 4. " " 12 " " 16 " 265 5. " " 16 " " 20 " 267 6. " " 20 " " 24 " 269
OTHER WORLDS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
Other worlds and their inhabitants are remarkably popular subjects of speculation at the present time. Every day we hear people asking one another if it is true that we shall soon be able to communicate with some of the far-off globes, such as Mars, that circle in company with our earth about the sun. One of the masters of practical electrical science in our time has suggested that the principle of wireless telegraphy may be extended to the transmission of messages across space from planet to planet. The existence of intelligent inhabitants in some of the other planets has become, with many, a matter of conviction, and for everybody it presents a question of fascinating interest, which has deeply stirred the popular imagination.
The importance of this subject as an intellectual phenomenon of the opening century is clearly indicated by the extent to which it has entered into recent literature. Poets feel its inspiration, and novelists and romancers freely select other planets as the scenes of their stories. One tells us of a visit paid by men to the moon, and of the wonderful things seen, and adventures had, there. Lucian, it is true, did the same thing eighteen hundred years ago, but he had not the aid of hints from modern science to guide his speculations and lend verisimilitude to his narrative.
Another startles us from our sense of planetary security with a realistic account of the invasion of the earth by the terrible sons of warlike Mars, seeking to extend their empire by the conquest of foreign globes.
Sometimes it is a trip from world to world, a kind of celestial pleasure yachting, with depictions of creatures more wonderful than—
"The anthropophagi and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders"—
that is presented to our imagination; and sometimes we are informed of the visions beheld by the temporarily disembodied spirits of trance mediums, or other modern thaumaturgists, flitting about among the planets.
Then, to vary the theme, we find charming inhabitants of other worlds represented as coming down to the earth and sojourning for a time on our dull planet, to the delight of susceptible successors of father Adam, who become, henceforth, ready to follow their captivating visitors to the ends of the universe.
In short, writers of fiction have already established interplanetary communication to their entire satisfaction, thus vastly and indefinitely enlarging the bounds of romance, and making us so familiar with the peculiarities of our remarkable brothers and sisters of Mars, Venus, and the moon, that we can not help feeling, notwithstanding the many divergences in the descriptions, that we should certainly recognize them on sight wherever we might meet them.
But the subject is by no means abandoned to the tellers of tales and the dreamers of dreams. Men of science, also, eagerly enter into the discussion of the possibilities of other worlds, and become warm over it.
Around Mars, in particular, a lively war of opinions rages. Not all astronomers have joined in the dispute—some have not imagination enough, and some are waiting for more light before choosing sides—but those who have entered the arena are divided between two opposed camps. One side holds that Mars is not only a world capable of having inhabitants, but that it actually has them, and that they have given visual proof of their existence and their intelligence through the changes they have produced upon its surface. The other side maintains that Mars is neither inhabited nor habitable, and that what are taken for vast public works and engineering marvels wrought by its industrious inhabitants, are nothing but illusions of the telescope, or delusions of the observer's mind. Both adduce numerous observations, telescopic and spectroscopic, and many arguments, scientific and theoretic, to support their respective contentions, but neither side has yet been able to convince or silence the other, although both have made themselves and their views intensely interesting to the world at large, which would very much like to know what the truth really is.
And not only Mars, but Venus—the beauteous twin sister of the earth, who, when she glows in the evening sky, makes everybody a lover of the stars—and even Mercury, the Moor among the planets, wearing "the shadowed livery of the burnished sun," to whom he is "a neighbor and near bred," and Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon itself—all these have their advocates, who refuse to believe that they are lifeless globes, mere reflectors of useless sunshine.
The case of the moon is, in this respect, especially interesting, on account of the change that has occurred in the opinions held concerning its physical condition. For a very long time our satellite was confidently, and almost universally, regarded as an airless, waterless, lifeless desert, a completely "dead world," a bare, desiccated skull of rock, circling about the living earth.
But within a few years there has been a reaction from this extreme view of the lifelessness of the moon. Observers tell us of clouds suddenly appearing and then melting to invisibility over volcanic craters; of evidences of an atmosphere, rare as compared with ours, yet manifest in its effects; of variations of color witnessed in certain places as the sunlight drifts over them at changing angles of incidence; of what seem to be immense fields of vegetation covering level ground, and of appearances indicating the existence of clouds of ice crystals and deposits of snow among the mountainous lunar landscapes. Thus, in a manner, the moon is rehabilitated, and we are invited to regard its silvery beams not as the reflections of the surface of a desert, but as sent back to our eyes from the face of a world that yet has some slight remnants of life to brighten it.
The suggestion that there is an atmosphere lying close upon the shell of the lunar globe, filling the deep cavities that pit its face and penetrating to an unknown depth in its interior, recalls a speculation of the ingenious and entertaining Fontenelle, in the seventeenth century—recently revived and enlarged upon by the author of one of our modern romances of adventure in the moon—to the effect that the lunar inhabitants dwell beneath the surface of their globe instead of on the top of it.
Now, because of this widespread and continually increasing interest in the subject of other worlds, and on account of the many curious revelations that we owe to modern telescopes and other improved means of investigation, it is certainly to be desired that the most important and interesting discoveries that have lately been made concerning the various globes which together with the earth constitute the sun's family, should be assembled in a convenient and popular form—and that is the object of this book. Fact is admittedly often stranger and more wonderful than fiction, and there are no facts that appeal more powerfully to the imagination than do those of astronomy. Technical books on astronomy usually either ignore the subject of the habitability of the planets, or dismiss it with scarcely any recognition of the overpowering human interest that it possesses. Hence, a book written specially from the point of view of that subject would appear calculated to meet a popular want; and this the more, because, since Mr. Proctor wrote his Other Worlds than Ours and M. Flammarion his Pluralite des Mondes Habites, many most important and significant discoveries have been made that, in several notable instances, have completely altered the aspect in which the planets present themselves for our judgment as to their conditions of habitability.
No doubt the natural tendency of the mind is to regard all the planets as habitable worlds, for there seems to be deeply implanted in human nature a consciousness of the universality of life, giving rise to a conviction that one world, even in the material sense, is not enough for it, but that every planet must belong to its kingdom. We are apt to say to ourselves: "The earth is one of a number of planets, all similarly circumstanced; the earth is inhabited, why should not the others also be inhabited?"
What has been learned of the unity in chemical constitution and mechanical operation prevailing throughout the solar system, together with the continually accumulating evidence of the common origin of its various members, and the identity of the evolutionary processes that have brought them into being, all tends to strengthen the a priori hypothesis that life is a phenomenon general to the entire system, and only absent where its essential and fundamental conditions, for special and local, and perhaps temporary, reasons, do not exist.
If we look for life in the sun, for instance, while accepting the prevalent conception of the sun as a center of intense thermal action, we must abandon all our ideas of the physical organization of life formed upon what we know of it from experimental evidence. We can not imagine any form of life that has ever been presented to our senses as existing in the sun.
But this is not generally true of the planets. Life, in our sense of it, is a planetary, not a solar, phenomenon, and while we may find reasons for believing that on some of the planets the conditions are such that creatures organized like ourselves could not survive, yet we can not positively say that every form of living organism must necessarily be excluded from a world whose environment would be unsuited for us and our contemporaries in terrestrial life.
Although our sole knowledge of animated nature is confined to what we learn by experience on the earth, yet it is a most entertaining, and by no means unedifying, occupation, to seek to apply to the exceedingly diversified conditions prevailing in the other planets, as astronomical observations reveal them to us, the principles, types, and limitations that govern the living creatures of our world, and to judge, as best we can, how far those types and limits may be modified or extended so that those other planets may reasonably be included among the probable abodes of life.
In order to form such judgments each planet must be examined by itself, but first it is desirable to glance at the planetary system as a whole. To do this we may throw off, in imagination, the dominance of the sun, and suppose ourselves to be in the midst of open space, far removed both from the sun and the other stars. In this situation it is only by chance, or through foreknowledge, that we can distinguish our sun at all, for it is lost among the stars; and when we discover it we find that it is only one of the smaller and less conspicuous members of the sparkling host.
We rapidly approach, and when we have arrived within a distance comparable with that of its planets, we see that the sun has increased in apparent magnitude, until now it enormously outshines all the other stars, and its rays begin to produce the effect of daylight upon the orbs that they reach. But we are in no danger of mistaking its apparent superiority to its fellow stars for a real one, because we clearly perceive that our nearness alone makes it seem so great and overpowering.
And now we observe that this star that we have drawn near to has attending it a number of minute satellites, faintly shining specks, that circle about it as if charmed, like night-wandering insects, by its splendor. It is manifest to us at the first glance that without the sun these obedient little planets would not exist; it is his attraction that binds them together in a system, and his rays that make them visible to one another in the abyss of space. Although they vary in relative size, yet we observe a striking similarity among them. They are all globular bodies, they all turn upon their axes, they all travel about the sun in the same direction, and their paths all lie very nearly in one plane. Some of them have one or more moons, or satellites, circling about them in imitation of their own revolution about the sun. Their family relationship to one another and to the sun is so evident that it colors our judgment about them as individuals; and when we happen to find, upon closer approach, that one of them, the earth, is covered with vegetation and water and filled with thousands of species of animated creatures, we are disposed to believe, without further examination, that they are all alike in this respect, just as they are all alike in receiving light and heat from the sun.
This preliminary judgment, arising from the evident unity of the planetary system, can only be varied by an examination of its members in detail.
One striking fact that commands our attention as soon as we have entered the narrow precincts of the solar system is the isolation of the sun and its attendants in space. The solar system occupies a disk-shaped, or flat circular, expanse, about 5,580,000,000 miles across and relatively very thin, the sun being in the center. From the sun to the nearest star, or other sun, the distance is approximately five thousand times the entire diameter of the solar system. But the vast majority of the stars are probably a hundred times yet more remote. In other words, if the Solar system be represented by a circular flower-bed ten feet across, the nearest star must be placed at a distance of nine and a half miles, and the great multitude of the stars at a distance of nine hundred miles!
Or, to put it in another way, let us suppose the sun and his planets to be represented by a fleet of ships at sea, all included within a space about half a mile across; then, in order that there might be no shore relatively nearer than the nearest fixed star is to the sun, we should have to place our fleet in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, while the distance of the main shore of the starry universe would be so immense that the whole surface of the earth would be far too small to hold the expanse of ocean needed to represent it!
From these general considerations we next proceed to recall some of the details of the system of worlds amid which we dwell. Besides the earth, the sun has seven other principal planets in attendance. These eight planets fall into two classes—the terrestrial planets and the major, or jovian, planets. The former class comprises Mercury, Venus, the earth, and Mars, and the latter Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. I have named them all in the order of their distance from the sun, beginning with the nearest.
The terrestrial planets, taking their class name from terra, the earth, are relatively close to the sun and comparatively small. The major planets—or the jovian planets, if we give them a common title based upon the name of their chief, Jupiter or Jove—are relatively distant from the sun and are characterized both by great comparative size and slight mean density. The terrestrial planets are all included within a circle, having the sun for a center, about 140,000,000 miles in radius. The space, or gap, between the outermost of them, Mars, and the innermost of the jovian planets, Jupiter, is nearly two and a half times as broad as the entire radius of the circle within which they are included. And not only is the jovian group of planets widely separated from the terrestrial group, but the distances between the orbits of its four members are likewise very great and progressively increasing. Between Jupiter and Saturn is a gap 400,000,000 miles across, and this becomes 900,000,000 miles between Saturn and Uranus, and more than 1,000,000,000 miles between Uranus and Neptune. All of these distances are given in round numbers.
Finally, we come to some very extraordinary worlds—if we can call them worlds at all—the asteroids. They form a third group, characterized by the extreme smallness of its individual members, their astonishing number, and the unusual eccentricities and inclinations of their orbits. They are situated in the gap between the terrestrial and the jovian planets, and about 500 of them have been discovered, while there is reason to think that their real number may be many thousands. The largest of them is less than 500 miles in diameter, and many of those recently discovered may be not more than ten or twenty miles in diameter. What marvelous places of abode such little planets would be if it were possible to believe them inhabited, we shall see more clearly when we come to consider them in their turn. But without regard to the question of habitability, the asteroids will be found extremely interesting.
In the next chapter we proceed to take up the planets for study as individuals, beginning with Mercury, the one nearest the sun.
CHAPTER II
MERCURY, A WORLD OF TWO FACES AND MANY CONTRASTS
Mercury, the first of the other worlds that we are going to consider, fascinates by its grotesqueness, like a piece of Chinese ivory carving, so small is it for its kind and so finished in its eccentric details. In a little while we shall see how singular Mercury is in many of the particulars of planetary existence, but first of all let us endeavor to obtain a clear idea of the actual size and mass of this strange little planet. Compared with the earth it is so diminutive that it looks as if it had been cut out on the pattern of a satellite rather than that of an independent planet. Its diameter, 3,000 miles, only exceeds the moon's by less than one half, while both Jupiter and Saturn, among their remarkable collections of moons, have each at least one that is considerably larger than the planet Mercury. But, insignificant though it be in size, it holds the place of honor, nearest to the sun.
It was formerly thought that Mercury possessed a mass greatly in excess of that which its size would seem to imply, and some estimates, based upon the apparent effect of its attraction on comets, made it equal in mean density to lead, or even to the metal mercury. This led to curious speculations concerning its probable metallic composition, and the possible existence of vast quantities of such heavy elements as gold in the frame of the planet. But more recent, and probably more correct, computations place Mercury third in the order of density among the members of the solar system, the earth ranking as first and Venus as second. Mercury's density is now believed to be less than the earth's in the ratio of 85 to 100. Accepting this estimate, we find that the force of gravity upon the surface of Mercury is only one third as great as upon the surface of the earth—i.e., a body weighing 300 pounds on the earth would weigh only 100 pounds on Mercury.
This is an important matter, because not only the weight of bodies, but the density of the atmosphere and even the nature of its gaseous constituents, are affected by the force of gravity, and if we could journey from world to world, in our bodily form, it would make a great difference to us to find gravity considerably greater or less upon other planets than it is upon our own. This alone might suffice to render some of the planets impossible places of abode for us, unless a decided change were effected in our present physical organization.
One of the first questions that we should ask about a foreign world to which we proposed to pay a visit, would relate to its atmosphere. We should wish to know in advance if it had air and water, and in what proportions and quantities. However its own peculiar inhabitants might be supposed able to dispense with these things, to us their presence would be essential, and if we did not find them, even a planet that blazed with gold and diamonds only waiting to be seized would remain perfectly safe from our invasion. Now, in the case of Mercury, some doubt on this point exists.
Messrs. Huggins, Vogel, and others have believed that they found spectroscopic proof of the existence of both air and the vapor of water on Mercury. But the necessary observations are of a very delicate nature, and difficult to make, and some astronomers doubt whether we possess sufficient proof that Mercury has an atmosphere. At any rate, its atmosphere is very rare as compared with the earth's, but we need not, on that account, conclude that Mercury is lifeless. Possibly, in view of certain other peculiarities soon to be explained, a rare atmosphere would be decidedly advantageous.
Being much nearer the sun than the earth is, Mercury can be seen by us only in the same quarter of the sky where the sun itself appears. As it revolves in its orbit about the sun it is visible, alternately, in the evening for a short time after sunset and in the morning for a short time before sunrise, but it can never be seen, as the outer planets are seen, in the mid-heaven or late at night. When seen low in the twilight, at evening or morning, it glows with the brilliance of a bright first-magnitude star, and is a beautiful object, though few casual watchers of the stars ever catch sight of it. When it is nearest the earth and is about to pass between the earth and the sun, it temporarily disappears in the glare of the sunlight; and likewise, when it it is farthest from the earth and passing around in its orbit on the opposite side of the sun, it is concealed by the blinding solar rays. Consequently, except with the instruments of an observatory, which are able to show it in broad day, Mercury is never visible save during the comparatively brief periods of time when it is near its greatest apparent distance east or west from the sun.
The nearer a planet is to the sun the more rapidly it is compelled to move in its orbit, and Mercury, being the nearest to the sun of all the planets, is by far the swiftest footed among them. But its velocity is subject to remarkable variation, owing to the peculiar form of the orbit in which the planet travels. This is more eccentric than the orbit of any other planet, except some of the asteroids. The sun being situated in one focus of the elliptical orbit, when Mercury is at perihelion, or nearest to the sun, its distance from that body is 28,500,000 miles, but when it is at aphelion, or farthest from the sun, its distance is 43,500,000 miles. The difference is no less than 14,000,000 miles! When nearest the sun Mercury darts forward in its orbit at the rate of twenty-nine miles in a second, while when farthest from the sun the speed is reduced to twenty-three miles.
Now, let us return for a moment to the consideration of the wonderful variations in Mercury's distance from the sun, for we shall find that their effects are absolutely startling, and that they alone suffice to mark a wide difference between Mercury and the earth, considered as the abodes of sentient creatures. The total change of distance amounts, as already remarked, to 14,000,000 miles, which is almost half the entire distance separating the planet from the sun at perihelion. This immense variation of distance is emphasized by the rapidity with which it takes place. Mercury's periodic time, i.e., the period required for it to make a single revolution about the sun—or, in other words, the length of its year—is eighty-eight of our days. In just one half of that time, or in about six weeks, it passes from aphelion to perihelion; that is to say, in six weeks the whole change in its distance from the sun takes place. In six weeks Mercury falls 14,000,000 miles—for it is a fall, though in a curve instead of a straight line—falls 14,000,000 miles toward the sun! And, as it falls, like any other falling body it gains in speed, until, having reached the perihelion point, its terrific velocity counteracts its approach and it begins to recede. At the end of the next six weeks it once more attains its greatest distance, and turns again to plunge sunward.
Of course it may be said of every planet having an elliptical orbit that between aphelion and perihelion it is falling toward the sun, but no other planet than Mercury travels in an orbit sufficiently eccentric, and approaches sufficiently near to the sun, to give to the mind so vivid an impression of an actual, stupendous fall!
Next let us consider the effects of this rapid fall, or approach, toward the sun, which is so foreign to our terrestrial experience, and so appalling to the imagination.
First, we must remember that the nearer a planet is to the sun the greater is the amount of heat and light that it receives, the variation being proportional to the inverse square of the distance. The earth's distance from the sun being 93,000,000 miles, while Mercury's is only 36,000,000, it follows, to begin with, that Mercury gets, on the average, more than six and a half times as much heat from the sun as the earth does. That alone is enough to make it seem impossible that Mercury can be the home of living forms resembling those of the earth, for imagine the heat of the sun in the middle of a summer's day increased six or seven fold! If there were no mitigating influences, the face of the earth would shrivel as in the blast of a furnace, the very stones would become incandescent, and the oceans would turn into steam.
Still, notwithstanding the tremendous heat poured upon Mercury as compared with that which our planet receives, we can possibly, and for the sake of a clearer understanding of the effects of the varying distance, which is the object of our present inquiry, find a loophole to admit the chance that yet there may be living beings there. We might, for instance, suppose that, owing to the rarity of its atmosphere, the excessive heat was quickly radiated away, or that there was something in the constitution of the atmosphere that greatly modified the effective temperature of the sun's rays. But, having satisfied our imagination on this point, and placed our supposititious inhabitants in the hot world of Mercury, how are we going to meet the conditions imposed by the rapid changes of distance—the swift fall of the planet toward the sun, followed by the equally swift rush away from it? For change of distance implies change of heat and temperature.
It is true that we have a slight effect of this kind on the earth. Between midsummer (of the northern hemisphere) and midwinter our planet draws 3,000,000 miles nearer the sun, but the change occupies six months, and, at the earth's great average distance, the effect of this change is too slight to be ordinarily observable, and only the astronomer is aware of the consequent increase in the apparent size of the sun. It is not to this variation of the sun's distance, but rather to the changes of the seasons, depending on the inclination of the earth's axis, that we owe the differences of temperature that we experience. In other words, the total supply of heat from the sun is not far from uniform at all times of the year, and the variations of temperature depend upon the distribution of that supply between the northern and southern hemispheres, which are alternately inclined sunward.
But on Mercury the supply of solar heat is itself variable to an enormous extent. In six weeks, as we have seen, Mercury diminishes its distance from the sun about one third, which is proportionally ten times as great a change of distance as the earth experiences in six months. The inhabitants of Mercury in those six pregnant weeks see the sun expand in the sky to more than two and a half times its former magnitude, while the solar heat poured upon them swiftly augments from something more than four and a half times to above eleven times the amount received upon the earth! Then, immediately, the retreat of the planet begins, the sun visibly shrinks, as a receding balloon becomes smaller in the eyes of its watchers, the heat falls off as rapidly as it had previously increased, until, the aphelion point being reached, the process is again reversed. And thus it goes on unceasingly, the sun growing and diminishing in the sky, and the heat increasing and decreasing by enormous amounts with astonishing rapidity. It is difficult to imagine any way in which atmospheric influences could equalize the effects of such violent changes, or any adjustments in the physical organization of living beings that could make such changes endurable.
But we have only just begun the story of Mercury's peculiarities. We come next to an even more remarkable contrast between that planet and our own. During the Paris Exposition of 1889 a little company of astronomers was assembled at the Juvisy observatory of M. Flammarion, near the French capital, listening to one of the most surprising disclosures of a secret of nature that any savant ever confided to a few trustworthy friends while awaiting a suitable time to make it public. It was a secret as full of significance as that which Galileo concealed for a time in his celebrated anagram, which, when at length he furnished the key, still remained a riddle, for then it read: "The Mother of the Loves imitates the Shapes of Cynthia," meaning that the planet Venus, when viewed with a telescope, shows phases like those of the moon. The secret imparted in confidence to the knot of astronomers at Juvisy came from a countryman of Galileo's, Signor G. V. Schiaparelli, the Director of the Observatory of Milan, and its purport was that the planet Mercury always keeps the same face directed toward the sun. Schiaparelli had satisfied himself, by a careful series of observations, of the truth of his strange announcement, but before giving it to the world he determined to make doubly sure. Early in 1890 he withdrew the pledge of secrecy from his friends and published his discovery.
No one can wonder that the statement was generally received with incredulity, for it was in direct contradiction to the conclusions of other astronomers, who had long believed that Mercury rotated on its axis in a period closely corresponding with that of the earth's rotation—that is to say, once every twenty-four hours. Schiaparelli's discovery, if it were received as correct, would put Mercury, as a planet, in a class by itself, and would distinguish it by a peculiarity which had always been recognized as a special feature of the moon, viz., that of rotating on its axis in the same period of time required to perform a revolution in its orbit, and, while this seemed natural enough for a satellite, almost nobody was prepared for the ascription of such eccentric conduct to a planet.
The Italian astronomer based his discovery upon the observation that certain markings visible on the disk of Mercury remained in such a position with reference to the direction of the sun as to prove that the planet's rotation was extremely slow, and he finally satisfied himself that there was but one rotation in the course of a revolution about the sun. That, of course, means that one side of Mercury always faces toward the sun while the opposite side always faces away from it, and neither side experiences the alternation of day and night, one having perpetual day and the other perpetual night. The older observations, from which had been deduced the long accepted opinion that Mercury rotated, like the earth, once in about twenty-four hours, had also been made upon the markings on the planet's disk, but these are not easily seen, and their appearances had evidently been misinterpreted.
The very fact of the difficulty of seeing any details on Mercury tended to prevent or delay corroboration of Schiaparelli's discovery. But there were two circumstances that contributed to the final acceptance of his results. One of these was his well-known experience as an observer and the high reputation that he enjoyed among astronomers, and the other was the development by Prof. George Darwin of the theory of tidal friction in its application to planetary evolution, for this furnished a satisfactory explanation of the manner in which a body, situated as near the sun as Mercury is, could have its axial rotation gradually reduced by the tidal attraction of the sun until it coincided in period with its orbital revolution.
Accepting the accuracy of Schiaparelli's discovery, which was corroborated in every particular in 1896 by Percival Lowell in a special series of observations on Mercury made with his 24-inch telescope at Flagstaff, Arizona, and which has also been corroborated by others, we see at once how important is its bearing on the habitability of the planet. It adds another difficulty to that offered by the remarkable changes of distance from the sun, and consequent variations of heat, which we have already discussed. In order to bring the situation home to our experience, let us, for a moment, imagine the earth fallen into Mercury's dilemma. There would then be no succession of day and night, such as we at present enjoy, and upon which not alone our comfort but perhaps our very existence depends, but, instead, one side of our globe—it might be the Asiatic or the American half—would be continually in the sunlight, and the other side would lie buried in endless night. And this condition, so suggestive of the play of pure imagination, this plight of being a two-faced world, like the god Janus, one face light and the other face dark, must be the actual state of things on Mercury.
There is one interesting qualification. In the case just imagined for the earth, supposing it to retain the present inclination of its axis while parting with its differential rotation, there would be an interchange of day and night once a year in the polar regions. On Mercury, whose axis appears to be perpendicular, a similar phenomenon, affecting not the polar regions but the eastern and western sides of the planet, is produced by the extraordinary eccentricity of its orbit. As the planet alternately approaches and recedes from the sun its orbital velocity, as we have already remarked, varies between the limits of twenty-three and thirty-five miles per second, being most rapid at the point nearest the sun. But this variation in the speed of its revolution about the sun does not, in any manner, affect the rate of rotation on its axis. The latter is perfectly uniform and just fast enough to complete one axial turn in the course of a single revolution about the sun. The accompanying figure may assist the explanation.
Let us start with Mercury in perihelion at the point A. The little cross on the planet stands exactly under the sun and in the center of the illuminated hemisphere. The large arrows show the direction in which the planet travels in its revolution about the sun, and the small curved arrows the direction in which it rotates on its axis. Now, in moving along its orbit from A to B the planet, partly because of its swifter motion when near the sun, and partly because of the elliptical nature of the orbit, traverses a greater angular interval with reference to the sun than the cross, moving with the uniform rotation of the planet on its axis, is able to traverse in the same time. As drawn in the diagram, the cross has moved through exactly ninety degrees, or one right angle, while the planet in its orbit has moved through considerably more than a right angle. In consequence of this gain of the angle of revolution upon the angle of rotation, the cross at B is no longer exactly under the sun, nor in the center of the illuminated hemisphere. It appears to have shifted its position toward the west, while the hemispherical cap of sunshine has slipped eastward over the globe of the planet.
In the next following section of the orbit the planet rotates through another right angle, but, owing to increased distance from the sun, the motion in the orbit now becomes slower until, when the planet arrives at aphelion, C, the angular difference disappears and the cross is once more just under the sun. On returning from aphelion to perihelion the same phenomena recur in reverse order and the line between day and night on the planet first shifts westward, attaining its limit in that respect at D, and then, at perihelion, returns to its original position.
Now, if we could stand on the sunward hemisphere of Mercury what, to our eyes, would be the effect of this shifting of the sun's position with regard to a fixed point on the planet's surface? Manifestly it would cause the sun to describe a great arc in the sky, swinging to and fro, in an east and west line, like a pendulum bob, the angular extent of the swing being a little more than forty-seven degrees, and the time required for the sun to pass from its extreme eastern to its extreme western position and back again being eighty-eight days. But, owing to the eccentricity of the orbit, the sun swings much faster toward the east than toward the west, the eastward motion occupying about thirty-seven days and the westward motion about fifty-one days.
Another effect of the libratory motion of the sun as seen from Mercury is represented in the next figure, where we have a view of the planet showing both the day and the night hemisphere, and where we see that between the two there is a region upon which the sun rises and sets once every eighty-eight days. There are, in reality, two of these lune-shaped regions, one at the east and the other at the west, each between 1,200 and 1,300 miles broad at the equator. At the sunward edge of these regions, once in eighty-eight days, or once in a Mercurial year, the sun rises to an elevation of forty-seven degrees, and then descends again straight to the horizon from which it rose; at the nightward edge, once in eighty-eight days, the sun peeps above the horizon and quickly sinks from sight again. The result is that, neglecting the effects of atmospheric refraction, which would tend to expand the borders of the domain of sunlight, about one quarter of the entire surface of Mercury is, with regard to day and night, in a condition resembling that of our polar regions, where there is but one day and one night in the course of a year—and on Mercury a year is eighty-eight days. One half of the remaining three quarters of the planet's surface is bathed in perpetual sunshine and the other half is a region of eternal night.
And now again, what of life in such a world as that? On the night side, where no sunshine ever penetrates, the temperature must be extremely low, hardly greater than the fearful cold of open space, unless modifying influences beyond our ken exist. It is certain that if life flourishes there, it must be in such forms as can endure continual darkness and excessive cold. Some heat would be carried around by atmospheric circulation from the sunward side, but not enough, it would seem, to keep water from being perpetually frozen, or the ground from being baked with unrelaxing frost. It is for the imagination to picture underground dwellings, artificial sources of heat, and living forms suited to unearthlike environment.
What would be the mental effects of perpetual night upon a race of intelligent creatures doomed to that condition? Perhaps not quite so grievous as we are apt to think. The constellations in all their splendor would circle before their eyes with the revolution of their planet about the sun, and with the exception of the sun itself—which they could see by making a journey to the opposite hemisphere—all the members of the solar system would pass in succession through their mid-heaven, and two of them would present themselves with a magnificence of planetary display unknown on the earth. Venus, when in opposition under the most favorable circumstances, is scarcely more than 24,000,000 miles from Mercury, and, showing herself at such times with a fully illuminated disk—as, owing to her position within the orbit of the earth, she never can do when at her least distance from us—she must be a phenomenon of unparalleled beauty, at least four times brighter than we ever see her, and capable, of course, of casting a strong shadow.
The earth, also, is a splendid star in the midnight sky of Mercury, and the moon may be visible to the naked eye as a little attendant circling about its brilliant master. The outer planets are slightly less conspicuous than they are to us, owing to increase of distance.
The revolution of the heavens as seen from the night side of Mercury is quite different in period from that which we are accustomed to, although the apparent motion is in the same direction, viz., from east to west. The same constellations remain above the horizon for weeks at a time, slowly moving westward, with the planets drifting yet more slowly, but at different rates, among them; the nearer planets, Venus and the earth, showing the most decided tendency to loiter behind the stars.
On the side where eternal sunlight shines the sky of Mercury contains no stars. Forever the pitiless blaze of day; forever,
"All in a hot and copper sky The bloody sun at noon."
As it is difficult to understand how water can exist on the night hemisphere, except in the shape of perpetual snow and ice, so it is hard to imagine that on the day hemisphere water can ever be precipitated from the vaporous form. In truth, there can be very little water on Mercury even in the form of vapor, else the spectroscope would have given unquestionable evidence of its presence. Those who think that Mercury is entirely waterless and almost, if not quite, airless may be right. In these respects it would then resemble the moon, and, according to some observers, it possesses another characteristic lunar feature in the roughening of its surface by what seem to be innumerable volcanic craters.
But if we suppose Mercury to possess an atmosphere much rarer than that of the earth, we may perceive therein a possible provision against the excessive solar heat to which it is subjected, since, as we see on high mountains, a light air permits a ready radiation of heat, which does not become stored up as in a denser atmosphere.
As the sun pours its heat without cessation upon the day hemisphere the warmed air must rise and flow off on all sides into the night hemisphere, while cold air rushes in below, to take its place, from the region of frost and darkness. The intermediate areas, which see the sun part of the time, as explained above, are perhaps the scene of contending winds and tempests, where the moisture, if there be any, is precipitated, through the rapid cooling of the air, in whelming floods and wild snow-storms driven by hurrying blasts from the realm of endless night.
Enough seems now to have been said to indicate clearly the hopelessness of looking for any analogies between Mercury and the earth which would warrant the conclusion that the former planet is capable of supporting inhabitants or forms of life resembling those that swarm upon the latter. If we would still believe that Mercury is a habitable globe we must depend entirely upon the imagination for pictures of creatures able to endure its extremes of heat and cold, of light and darkness, of instability, swift vicissitude, and violent contrast.
In the next chapter we shall study a more peaceful and even-going world, yet one of great brilliancy, which possesses some remarkable resemblances to the earth, as well as some surprising divergences from it.
CHAPTER III
VENUS, THE TWIN OF THE EARTH
We come now to a planet which seems, at the first glance, to afford a far more promising outlook than Mercury does for the presence of organic life forms bearing some resemblance to those of the earth. One of the strongest arguments for regarding Venus as a world much like ours is based upon its remarkable similarity to the earth in size and mass, because thus we are assured that the force of gravity is practically the same upon the two planets, and the force of gravity governs numberless physical phenomena of essential importance to both animal and vegetable life. The mean diameter of the earth is 7,918 miles; that of Venus is 7,700 miles. The difference is so slight that if the two planets were suspended side by side in the sky, at such a distance that their disks resembled that of the full moon, the eye would notice no inequality between them.
The mean density of Venus is about nine tenths of that of the earth, and the force of gravity upon its surface is in the ratio of about 85 to 100 as compared to its force on the surface of the earth. A man removed to Venus would, consequently, find himself perceptibly lighter than he was at home, and would be able to exert his strength with considerably greater effect than on his own planet. But the difference would amount only to an agreeable variation from accustomed conditions, and would not be productive of fundamental changes in the order of nature.
Being, like Mercury, nearer to the sun than the earth is, Venus also is visible to us only in the morning or the evening sky. But her distance from the sun, slightly exceeding 67,000,000 miles, is nearly double that of Mercury, so that, when favorably situated, she becomes a very conspicuous object, and, instead of being known almost exclusively by astronomers, she is, perhaps, the most popular and most admired of all the members of the planetary system, especially when she appears in the charming role of the "evening star." As she emerges periodically from the blinding glare of the sun's immediate neighborhood and begins to soar, bright as an electric balloon, in the twilight, she commands all eyes and calls forth exclamations of astonishment and admiration by her singular beauty. The intervals between her successive reappearances in the evening sky, measured by her synodic period of 584 days, are sufficiently long to give an element of surprise and novelty to every return of so dazzling a phenomenon.
Even the light of the full moon silvering the tree tops does not exercise greater enchantment over the mind of the contemplative observer. In either of her roles, as morning or as evening star, Venus has no rival. No fixed star can for an instant bear comparison with her. What she lacks in vivacity of light—none of the planets twinkles, as do all of the true stars—is more than compensated by the imposing size of her gleaming disk and the striking beauty of her clear lamplike rays. Her color is silvery or golden, according to the state of the atmosphere, while the distinction of her appearance in a dark sky is so great that no eye can resist its attraction, and I have known an unexpected glimpse of Venus to put an end to an animated conversation and distract, for a long time, the attention of a party of ladies and gentlemen from the social occupation that had brought them together.
As a telescopic object Venus is exceedingly attractive, even when considered merely from the point of view of simple beauty. Both Mercury and Venus, as they travel about the sun, exhibit phases like those of the moon, but Venus, being much larger and much nearer to the earth than Mercury, shows her successive phases more effectively, and when she shines as a thin crescent in the morning or evening twilight, only a very slight magnifying power is required to show the sickle form of her disk.
A remarkable difference between Venus and Mercury comes out as soon as we examine the shape of the former's orbit. Venus's mean distance from the sun is 67,200,000 miles, and her orbit is so nearly a circle, much more nearly than that of any other planet, that in the course of a revolution her distance from the sun varies less than a million miles. The distance of the earth varies 3,000,000 miles, and that of Mercury 14,000,000. Her period of revolution, or the length of her year, is 225 of our days. When she comes between the sun and the earth she approaches us nearer than any other planet ever gets, except the asteroid Eros, her distance at such times being 26,000,000 miles, or about one hundred and ten times the distance of the moon.
Being nearer to the sun in the ratio of 67 to 93, Venus receives almost twice as much solar light and heat as we get, but less than one third as much as Mercury gets. There is reason to believe that her axis, instead of being considerably inclined, like that of the earth, is perpendicular to the plane of her orbit. Thus Venus introduces to us another novelty in the economy of worlds, for with a perpendicular axis of rotation she can have no succession of seasons, no winter and summer flitting, one upon the other's heels, to and fro between the northern and southern hemispheres; but, on the contrary, her climatic conditions must be unchangeable, and, on any particular part of her surface, except for local causes of variation, the weather remains the same the year around. So, as far as temperature is concerned, Venus may have two regions of perpetual winter, one around each pole; two belts of perpetual spring in the upper middle latitudes, one on each side of the equator; and one zone of perpetual summer occupying the equatorial portion of the planet. But, of course, these seasonal terms do not strictly apply to Venus, in the sense in which we employ them on the earth, for with us spring is characterized rather by the change in the quantity of heat and other atmospheric conditions that it witnesses than by a certain fixed and invariable temperature.
To some minds it may appear very undesirable, from the point of view of animate existences, that there should be no alternation of seasons on the surface of a planet, but, instead, fixed conditions of climate; yet it is not clear that such a state of affairs might not be preferable to that with which we are familiar. Even on the earth, we find that tropical regions, where the seasonal changes are comparatively moderate, present many attractions and advantages in contrast with the violent and often destructive vicissitudes of the temperate zones, and nature has shown us, within the pale of our own planet, that she is capable of bringing forth harvests of fruit and grain without the stimulus of alternate frost and sunshine.
Even under the reign of perpetual summer the fields and trees find time and opportunity to rest and restore their productive forces.
The circularity of Venus's orbit, and the consequently insignificant change in the sun's distance and heating effect, are other elements to be considered in estimating the singular constancy in the operation of natural agencies upon that interesting planet, which, twin of the earth though it be in stature, is evidently not its twin in temperament.
And next as to the all-important question of atmosphere. In what precedes, the presence of an atmosphere has been assumed, and, fortunately, there is very convincing evidence, both visual and spectroscopic, that Venus is well and abundantly supplied with air, by which it is not meant that Venus's air is precisely like the mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, with a few other gases, which we breathe and call by that name. In fact, there are excellent reasons for thinking that the atmosphere of Venus differs from the earth's quite as much as some of her other characteristics differ from those of our planet. But, however it may vary from ours in constitution, the atmosphere of Venus contains water vapor, and is exceedingly abundant. Listen to Professor Young:
"Its [Venus's] atmosphere is probably from one and a half to two times as extensive and as dense as our own, and the spectroscope shows evidence of the presence of water vapor in it."
And Prof. William C. Pickering, basing his statement on the result of observations at the mountain observatory of Arequipa, says: "We may feel reasonably certain that at the planet's [Venus's] surface the density of its atmosphere is many times that of our own."
We do not have to depend upon the spectroscope for evidence that Venus has a dense atmosphere, for we can, in a manner, see her atmosphere, in consequence of its refractive action upon the sunlight that strikes into it near the edge of the planet's globe. This illumination of Venus's atmosphere is witnessed both when she is nearly between the sun and the earth, and when, being exactly between them, she appears in silhouette against the solar disk. During a transit of this kind, in 1882, many observers, and the present writer was one, saw a bright atmospheric bow edging a part of the circumference of Venus when the planet was moving upon the face of the sun—a most beautiful and impressive spectacle.
Even more curious is an observation made in 1866 by Prof. C.S. Lyman, of Yale College, who, when Venus was very near the sun, saw her atmosphere in the form of a luminous ring. A little fuller explanation of this appearance may be of interest.
When approaching inferior conjunction—i.e., passing between the earth and sun—Venus appears, with a telescope, in the shape of a very thin crescent. Professor Lyman watched this crescent, becoming narrower day after day as it approached the sun, and noticed that its extremities gradually extended themselves beyond the limits of a semicircle, bending to meet one another on the opposite side of the invisible disk of the planet, until, at length, they did meet, and he beheld a complete ring of silvery light, all that remained visible of the planet Venus! The ring was, of course, the illuminated atmosphere of the planet refracting the sunlight on all sides around the opaque globe.
In 1874 M. Flammarion witnessed the same phenomenon in similar circumstances. One may well envy those who have had the good fortune to behold this spectacle—to actually see, as it were, the air that the inhabitants of another world are breathing and making resonant with all the multitudinous sounds and voices that accompany intelligent life. But perhaps some readers will prefer to think that even though an atmosphere is there, there is no one to breathe it.
As the visibility of Venus's atmosphere is unparalleled elsewhere in the solar system, it may be worth while to give a graphic illustration of it. In the accompanying figure the planet is represented at three successive points in its advance toward inferior conjunction. As it approaches conjunction it slowly draws nearer the earth, and its apparent diameter consequently increases. At A a large part of the luminous crescent is composed of the planet's surface reflecting the sunshine; at B the ratio of the reflecting surface to the illuminated atmosphere has diminished, and the latter has extended, like the curved arms of a pair of calipers, far around the unilluminated side of the disk; at C the atmosphere is illuminated all around by the sunlight coming through it from behind, while the surface of the planet has passed entirely out of the light—that is to say, Venus has become an invisible globe embraced by a circle of refracted sunshine.
We return to the question of life. With almost twice as much solar heat and light as we have, and with a deeper and denser atmosphere than ours, it is evident, without seeking other causes of variation, that the conditions of life upon Venus are notably different from those with which we are acquainted. At first sight it would seem that a dense atmosphere, together with a more copious supply of heat, might render the surface temperature of Venus unsuitable for organic life as we understand it. But so much depends upon the precise composition of the atmosphere and upon the relative quantities of its constituents, that it will not do to pronounce a positive judgment in such a case, because we lack information on too many essential points.
Experiment has shown that the temperature of the air varies with changes in the amount of carbonic acid and of water vapor that it contains. It has been suggested that in past geologic ages the earth's atmosphere was denser and more heavily charged with vapors than it is at present; yet even then forms of life suited to their environment existed, and from those forms the present inhabitants of our globe have been developed. There are several lines of reasoning which may be followed to the conclusion that Venus, as a life-bearing world, is younger than the earth, and, according to that view, we are at liberty to imagine our beautiful sister planet as now passing through some such period in its history as that at which the earth had arrived in the age of the carboniferous forests, or the age of the gigantic reptiles who ruled both land and sea.
But, without making any assumptions as to the phase of evolution which life may have attained on Venus, it is also possible to think that the planet's thick shell of air, with its abundant vapors, may serve as a shield against the excessive solar radiation. Venus is extraordinarily brilliant, its reflective power being greatly in excess of Mercury's, and it has often been suggested that this may be due to the fact that a large share of the sunlight falling upon it is turned back before reaching the planet's surface, being reflected both from the atmosphere itself and from vast layers of clouds.
Even when viewed with the most powerful telescopes and in the most favoring circumstances, the features of Venus's surface are difficult to see, and generally extremely difficult. They consist of faint shadowy markings, indefinite in outline, and so close to the limit of visibility that great uncertainty exists not only as to their shape and their precise location upon the planet, but even as to their actual existence. No two observers have represented them exactly alike in drawings of the planet, and, unfortunately, photography is as yet utterly unable to deal with them. Mr. Percival Lowell, in his special studies of Venus in 1896, using a 24-inch telescope of great excellence, in the clear and steady air of Arizona, found delicate spokelike streaks radiating from a rounded spot like a hub, and all of which, in his opinion, were genuine and definite markings on the planet's surface. But others, using larger telescopes, have failed to perceive the shapes and details depicted by Mr. Lowell, and some are disposed to ascribe their appearances to Venus's atmosphere. Mr. Lowell himself noticed that the markings seemed to have a kind of obscuring veil over them.
In short, all observers of Venus agree in thinking that her atmosphere, to a greater or less extent, serves as a mask to conceal her real features, and the possibilities of so extensive an atmosphere with reference to an adjustment of the peculiar conditions of the planet to the requirements of life upon it, are almost unlimited. If we could accurately analyze that atmosphere we would have a basis for more exact conclusions concerning Venus's habitability.
But the mere existence of the atmosphere is, in itself, a strong argument for the habitability of the planet, and as to the temperature, we are really not compelled to imagine special adaptations by means of which it may be brought into accord with that prevailing upon the earth. As long as the temperature does not rise to the destructive point, beyond which our experience teaches that no organic life can exist, it may very well attain an elevation that would mean extreme discomfort from our point of view, without precluding the existence of life even in its terrestrial sense.
And would it not be unreasonable to assume that vital phenomena on other planets must be subject to exactly the same limitations that we find circumscribing them in our world? That kind of assumption has more than once led us far astray even in dealing with terrestrial conditions.
It is not so long ago, for instance, since life in the depths of the sea was deemed to be demonstrably impossible. The bottom of the ocean, we were assured, was a region of eternal darkness and of frightful pressure, wherein no living creatures could exist. Yet the first dip of the deep-sea trawl brought up animals of marvelous delicacy of organization, which, although curiously and wonderfully adapted to live in a compressed liquid, collapsed when lifted into a lighter medium, and which, despite the assumed perpetual darkness of their profound abode, were adorned with variegated colors and furnished with organs of phosphorescence whereby they could create for themselves all the light they needed.
Even the fixed animals of the sea, growing, like plants, fast to the rocks, are frequently vivid with living light, and there is a splendid suggestion of nature's powers of adaptation, which may not be entirely inapplicable to the problems of life on strange planets, in Alexander Agassiz's statement that species of sea animals, living below the depths to which sunlight penetrates, "may dwell in total darkness and be illuminated at times merely by the movements of abyssal fishes through the forests of phosphorescent alcyonarians."
In attempting to judge the habitability of a planet such as Venus we must first, as far as possible, generalize the conditions that govern life and restrict its boundaries.
On the earth we find animated existence confined to the surface of the crust of the globe, to the lower and denser strata of the atmosphere, and to the film of water that constitutes the oceans. It does not exist in the heart of the rocks forming the body of the planet nor in the void of space surrounding it outside the atmosphere. As the earth condensed from the original nebula, and cooled and solidified, a certain quantity of matter remained at its surface in the form of free gases and unstable compounds, and, within the narrow precincts where these things were, lying like a thin shell between the huge inert globe of permanently combined elements below, and the equally unchanging realm of the ether above, life, a phenomenon depending upon ceaseless changes, combinations and recombinations of chemical elements in unstable and temporary union, made its appearance, and there only we find it at the present time.
It is because air and water furnish the means for the continual transformations by which the bodies of animals and plants are built up and afterward disintegrated and dispersed, that we are compelled to regard their presence as prerequisites to the existence, on any planet, of life in any of the forms in which we are acquainted with it. But if we perceive that another world has an atmosphere, and that there is water vapor in its atmosphere—both of which conditions are fulfilled by Venus—and if we find that that world is bathed in the same sunshine that stimulates the living forces of our planet, even though its quantity or intensity may be different, then it would seem that we are justified in averring that the burden of proof rests upon those who would deny the capability of such a world to support inhabitants.
The generally accepted hypothesis of the origin of the solar system leads us to believe that Venus has experienced the same process of evolution as that which brought the earth into its present condition, and we may fairly argue that upon the rocky shell of Venus exists a region where chemical combinations and recombinations like those on the surface of the earth are taking place. It is surely not essential that the life-forming elements should exist in exactly the same states and proportions as upon the earth; it is enough if some of them are manifestly present. Even on the earth these things have undergone much variation in the course of geological history, coincidently with the development of various species of life. Just at present the earth appears to have reached a stage where everything contributes to the maintenance of a very high organization in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms.
So each planet that has attained the habitable stage may have a typical adjustment of temperature and atmospheric constitution, rendering life possible within certain limits peculiar to that planet, and to the special conditions prevailing there. Admitting, as there is reason for doing, that different planets may be at different stages of development in the geological and biological sense, we should, of course, not expect to find them inhabited by the same living species. And, since there is also reason to believe that no two planets upon arriving at the same stage of evolution as globes would possess identical gaseous surroundings, there would naturally be differences between their organic life forms notwithstanding the similarity of their common phase of development in other respects. Thus a departure from the terrestrial type in the envelope of gases covering a planet, instead of precluding life, would only tend to vary its manifestations.
After all, why should the intensity of the solar radiation upon Venus be regarded as inimical to life? The sunbeams awaken life.
It is not impossible that relative nearness to the sun may be an advantage to Venus from the biologic point of view. She gets less than one third as much heat as Mercury receives on the average, and she gets it with almost absolute uniformity. At aphelion Mercury is about two and four tenths times hotter than Venus; then it rushes sunward, and within forty-four days becomes six times hotter than Venus. In the meantime the temperature of the latter, while high as compared with the earth's, remains practically unchanged. Not only may Mercury's temperature reach the destructive point, and thus be too high for organic life, but Mercury gets nothing with either moderation or constancy. It is a world both of excessive heat and of violent contrasts of temperature. Venus, on the other hand, presents an unparalleled instance of invariableness and uniformity. She may well be called the favorite of the sun, and, through the advantages of her situation, may be stimulated by him to more intense vitality than falls to the lot of the earth.
It is open, at least to the writers of the interplanetary romances now so popular, to imagine that on Venus, life, while encompassed with the serenity that results from the circular form of her orbit, and the unchangeableness of her climates, is richer, warmer, more passionate, more exquisite in its forms and more fascinating in its experiences, keener of sense, capable of more delicious joys, than is possible to it amid the manifold inclemencies of the colder earth.
We have seen that there is excellent authority for saying that Venus's atmosphere is from one and a half to two times as dense and as extensive as ours. Here is an interesting suggestion of aerial possibilities for her inhabitants. If man could but fly, how would he take to himself wings and widen his horizons along with the birds! Give him an atmosphere the double in density of that which now envelopes him, take off a little of his weight, thereby increasing the ratio of his strength and activity, put into his nervous system a more puissant stimulus from the life-giving sun, and perchance he would fly.
Well, on Venus, apparently, these very conditions actually exist. How, then, do intellectual creatures in the world of Venus take wing when they choose? Upon what spectacle of fluttering pinions afloat in iridescent air, like a Raphael dream of heaven and its angels, might we not look down if we could get near enough to our brilliant evening star to behold the intimate splendors of its life?
As Venus herself would be the most brilliant member of the celestial host to an observer stationed on the night side of Mercury, so the earth takes precedence in the midnight sky of Venus. For the inhabitants of Venus Mercury is a splendid evening and morning star only, while the earth, being an outer planet, is visible at times in that part of the sky which is directly opposite to the place of the sun. The light reflected from our planet is probably less dazzling than that which Venus sends to us, both because, at our greater distance, the sunlight is less intense, and because our rarer atmosphere reflects a smaller proportion of the rays incident upon it. But the earth is, after all, a more brilliant phenomenon seen from Venus than the latter is seen from the earth, for the reason that the entire illuminated disk of the earth is presented toward our sister planet when the two are at their nearest point of approach, whereas, at that time, the larger part of the surface of Venus that is turned earthward has no illumination, while the illuminated portion is a mere crescent.
Owing, again, to the comparative rarity of the terrestrial atmosphere, it is probable that the inhabitants of Venus—assuming their existence—enjoy a superb view of the continents, oceans, polar snows, and passing clouds that color and variegate the face of the earth. Our astronomers can study the full disk of Venus only when she is at her greatest distance, and on the opposite side of the sun from us, where she is half concealed in the glare. The astronomers of Venus, on the other hand, can study the earth under the most favorable conditions of observation—that is to say, when it is nearest to them and when, being in opposition to the sun, its whole disk is fully illuminated. In fact, there is no planet in the entire system which enjoys an outlook toward a sister world comparable with that which Venus enjoys with regard to the earth. If there be astronomers upon Venus, armed with telescopes, it is safe to guess that they possess a knowledge of the surface of the earth far exceeding in minuteness and accuracy the knowledge that we possess of the features of any heavenly body except the moon. They must long ago have been able to form definite conclusions concerning the meteorology and the probable habitability of our planet.
It certainly tends to increase our interest in Venus when, granting that she is inhabited, we reflect upon the penetrating scrutiny of which the earth may be the object whenever Venus—as happens once every 584 days—passes between us and the sun. The spectacle of our great planet, glowing in its fullest splendor in the midnight sky, pied and streaked with water, land, cloud, and snow, is one that might well excite among the astronomers of another world, so fortunately placed to observe it, an interest even greater than that which the recurrence of total solar eclipses occasions upon the earth. For the inhabitants of Venus the study of the earth must be the most absorbing branch of observational astronomy, and the subject, we may imagine, of numberless volumes of learned memoirs, far exceeding in the definiteness of their conclusions the books that we have written about the physical characteristics of other members of the solar system. And, if we are to look for attempts on the part of the inhabitants of other worlds to communicate with us by signals across the ether, it would certainly seem that Venus is the most likely source of such efforts, for from no other planet can those features of the earth that give evidence of its habitability be so clearly discerned. Of one thing it would seem we may be certain: if Venus has intellectual inhabitants they possess far more convincing evidence of our existence than we are likely ever to have of theirs.
In referring to the view of the earth from Mercury it was remarked that the moon is probably visible to the naked eye. From Venus the moon is not only visible, but conspicuous, to the naked eye, circling about the earth, and appearing at times to recede from it to a distance of about half a degree—equal to the diameter of the full moon as we see it. The disk of the earth is not quite four times greater in diameter than that of the moon, and nowhere else in the solar system is there an instance in which two bodies, no more widely different in size than are the moon and the earth, are closely linked together. The moons of the other planets that possess satellites are relatively so small that they appear in the telescope as mere specks beside their primaries, but the moon is so large as compared with the earth that the two must appear, as viewed from Venus, like a double planet. To the naked eye they may look like a very wide and brilliant double star, probably of contrasted colors, the moon being silvery white and the earth, perhaps, now of a golden or reddish tinge and now green or blue, according to the part of its surface turned toward Venus, and according, also, to the season that chances to be reigning over that part.
Such a spectacle could not fail to be of absorbing interest, and we can not admit the possibility of intelligent inhabitants on Venus without supposing them to watch the motions of the moon and the earth with the utmost intentness. The passage of the moon behind and in front of the earth, and its eclipses when it goes into the earth's shadow, could be seen without the aid of telescopes, while, with such instruments, these phenomena would possess the highest scientific interest and importance.
Because the earth has a satellite so easily observable, the astronomers of Venus could not remain ignorant of the exact mass of our planet, and in that respect they would outstrip us in the race for knowledge, since, on account of the lack of a satellite attending Venus, we have been able to do no more than make an approximate estimate of her mass.
With telescopes, too, in the case of a solar eclipse occurring at the time of the earth's opposition, they could see the black spot formed by the shadow of the moon, where the end of its cone moved across the earth like the point of an invisible pencil, and could watch it traversing continents and oceans, or thrown out in bold contrast upon the white background of a great area of clouds. Indeed, the phenomena which our globe and its satellite present to Venus must be so varied and wonderful that one might well wish to visit that planet merely for the sake of beholding them.
Thus far we have found so much of brilliant promise in the earth's twin sister that I almost hesitate to approach another phase of the subject which may tend to weaken the faith of some readers in the habitability of Venus. It may have been observed that heretofore nothing has been said as to the planet's rotation period, but, without specifically mentioning it, I have tacitly assumed the correctness of the generally accepted period of about twenty-four hours, determined by De Vico and other observers. This period, closely accordant with the earth's, is, as far as it goes, another argument for the habitability of Venus.
But now it must be stated that no less eminent an authority than Schiaparelli holds that Venus, as well as Mercury, makes but a single turn on its axis in the course of a revolution about the sun, and, consequently, is a two-faced world, one side staring eternally at the sun and the other side wearing the black mask of endless night.
Schiaparelli made this announcement concerning Venus but a few weeks after publishing his discovery of Mercury's peculiar rotation. He himself appears to be equally confident in both cases of the correctness of his conclusions and the certainty of his observation. As with Mercury, several other observers have corroborated him, and particularly Percival Lowell in this country. Mr. Lowell, indeed, seems unwilling to admit that any doubt can be entertained. Nevertheless, very grave doubt is entertained, and that by many, and probably by the majority, of the leading professional astronomers and observers. In fact, some observers of great ability, equipped with powerful instruments, have directly contradicted the results of Schiaparelli and his supporters.
The reader may ask: "Why so readily accept Schiaparelli's conclusions with regard to Mercury while rejecting them in the case of Venus?"
The reply is twofold. In the first place the markings on Venus, although Mr. Lowell sketched them with perfect confidence in 1896, are, by the almost unanimous testimony of those who have searched for them with telescopes, both large and small, extremely difficult to see, indistinct in outline, and perhaps evanescent in character. The sketches of no two observers agree, and often they are remarkably unlike. The fact has already been mentioned that Mr. Lowell noticed a kind of veil partially obscuring the markings, and which he ascribed, no doubt correctly, to the planet's atmosphere. But he thinks that, notwithstanding the atmospheric veil, the markings noted by him were unquestionably permanent features of the planet's real surface. Inasmuch, however, as his drawings represent things entirely different from what others have seen, there seems to be weight in the suggestion that the radiating bands and shadings noticed by him were in some manner illusory, and perhaps of atmospheric origin. |
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