Category: Astronomy

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2783

I came upon these three papers while doing some research on the bookstore part of this blog and thought to share them here. Three papers touching different and unusual aspects of Mars.

The first belongs to Henri Jules A. Perrotin (1845-1904 and with Louis Thollon, 1829-1887), “Observation des canaux de Mars; “Lettre de M. Perrotin à M. Faye.” found in Comptes rendus¹. Perrotin’s (mostly remembered I think because of his excellent use of the Cornu apparatus in establishing the best speed of light numbers until Michelson) communication establishes that the great canals (“canaux”) he observed and reported to the Academy in 1886 were still there, as expected and as hoped for and celebrated by Schiaparelli. There were also three other rather significant observational findings:

• First, a continent had disappeared. “Clearly visible two years ago, it no longer exists today” he wrote ( “Nettement visible, il y a deux ans, il n’existe plus aujourd’hui.”). A flood, “or something else” (“Cette inondation ou autre chose…”) could well be a periodic occurrence that did away with the land mass.
• Second, there is a new arrival of a canal 20-degrees in size just north of the disappeared/extinct continent (“…au nord du continent disparu…”).
• Third, there was a sort of canal that suddenly appeared on the North Pole ice cap, connecting the two seas on either side of the pole. (“…sur la tache blanche du pôle nord, d’une sorte de canal qui semble relier, en ligne droite, à travers les glaces polaires, deux mers voisines du pôle”).

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2783

I’ve written a number of posts on poetry found in unusual places: title pages of antiquarian books, technical manuals, unruly translations of commonplace literature, and so on. Here’s another, found in the table of contents for chapter 13 of a translation of Jean-Pierer’s Rambosson’s Histoire des Astres, Astronomie pour Tous. The edition I’m working from here is the illustrated edition of Paris, (1874) with its table of contents printed after the index at the rear of the text; the English translation’s table appears up front, and is pretty much the same as the French original (though the French sounds better).  I’ve got to say that there are some beautiful illustrations in this volume, not the least of which is a bright cross section of the Earth–it has exaggerated surface features out of scale to the rest of the planet to make a point in the text. (If this scale was correct then Vesuvius would be 500 miles in height.)

So, the poetized chapter contents (and the original, at left):

THE STARS. 

Fixed stars, Wandering stars, Number of stars;
The stars seen 
through the telescope, Illusion,
caused by the aspect of the celestial vault.
 
Distance of the stars from the Earth,
Bewildering calculation.
The stars nearest to the Earth, Stars of different 
sizes 
The method of classifying and calculating them;
Number of stars of each order.

The Milky Way,
Its nature and shape from one surprise to another.
The rank occupied by our Sun 
in the creation Incalculable number of suns,
Ideas formerly entertained concerning fixed stars,
General-motion of the whole 
solar system in space.

The laws of attraction in the most remote 
regions of the sky,
Planetary system of the stars,
Double and 
treble stars.
Splendid revelation of spectrum analysis,
Elements of which the stars are composed;
Types to which they appertain Ideas concerning immensity, 
and the stellar bodies which it 
contains. 

Division of the stars into 
constellations 
the constellations in ancient times,
Historical and legendary ideas
Northern constellations situated above the zodiac
Constellations of the 
zodiac, 
Constellations situated below the zodiac ....  

--Full text in English available from the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/stream/astronomy00rambiala/astronomy00rambiala_djvu.txt

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2762

I am not sure of when it was that the first view of the Earth from another planet appeared in print. They are certainly rare prior to 1900, so that when I saw (the following) 19th century images of extraterrestrial landscapes in Scientific American (November 23, 1877) with the Earth in the background I was stopped by their unexpectedness–how unusual that unusualness is I don’t know.  I remember that the very busy and gifted Camille Flammarion’s published views of the Earth like these in his Astronomie Populaire in 1880, though the images that follow were published several years earlier in the SA. 

The extraterrestrial landscapes are a leap of faith based on available observations, and no doubt that the readers of the late 19th century seeing these images for the first time would have been transported by their ingenuity and depth of understanding i n representing the Earth as just another bit in the sky when it is seen from other locations. 

These images also led to a note about a paper that Flammarion wrote for La Nature¹ in 1873 on what turns out to be the similarities of the atmospheres on Mars and Earth–and that led me to a somewhat earlier paper that he wrote for the Comptes Rednus that seems to have a little more punch than the later one. 

In the short paper in the CR² Flammarion observes that the Earth is mostly covered by water, and on Mars there is more “land/continental surface than maritime/sea surface”. “ L’étude détaillée de la planète montre que sa surface est bien différente de la surface terrestre, au point de vue du partage des terres et des mers. Chez nous, les trois quarts du globe sont couverts d’eau; sur Mars, au contraire, il y a plus de surface continentale que de surface maritime.”

He then notes that according to spectrum analysis the Martian atmosphere and seas and snows are made of water just as they are on Earth. “…l’analyse spectrale montre que l’atmosphère de Mars est chargée de vapeur d’eau comme la nôtre, et que ces mers, ces neiges, ces nuages sont réellement composés de la même eau que nos mers et nos météores aqueux”. And at the end of the article, saying that the atmosphere of the Earth and Mars are very similar: “ La météorologie de Mars est à peu près la même que celle de la Terre; l’eau y est dans le même état physique et chimique que sur notre propre globe…”

Also, there is vegetation on Mars which is very different from that of Earth, and that is what gives the planet its red color, as the plants growing there must be red. “…comme ce n’est pas l’intérieur du sol que nous voyons, mais la surface, la coloration rouge doit être celle de la végétation de Mars, quelle que soit d’ailleurs l’espèce de végétation qui s’y produise.”

In his last summary point, Flammarion makes a case for the possibility of life on Mars, saying that conditions for necessary for life on Earth and life on Mars are familiar and similar for both planets (“…organic conditions there are not very different from those that have presided over manifestations of life on the surface of the Earth.”)“Enfin les raisons d’analogie nous montrent sur cette planète, mieux que sur toute autre, des conditions organiques peu différentes de celles qui ont présidé aux manifestations de la vie à la surface de la Terre.”

And so some pretty strong observations about water and snow and life on Mars, all coming before the Schiaparelli developments and the canals four years later. 

That was a long digression–the Earth from afar images follow the footnotes. 

Notes:

1. Camille Flammarion, “La Planète Mars d’après les dernières observations astronomiques” in La Nature – Revue des sciences, n° 10, page 145. (August, 1873) and is translated soon after for Popular Science https://todayinsci.com/F/Flammarion_Camille/FlammarionCamille-Mars.htm

2. _____. “Sur la planete Mars”, in Comptes Rendus, vol 77 no 4, p. 278, July 28, 1873.

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2760

I wanted to amend a post from last week, “The Found-Poetry in Erasing Straight Lines from Maps of Mars (1909)”, which described the work of Eugene Michele Antoniadi and his superb observational and theoretical work of 1909 in describing the planet Mars. He had a very writerly way about him, more creative and conversational than most people who were writing on scientific subjects. In particular he was very gentlemanly in public and private correspondents who held opinions different from his observation facts about what was going on on Mars.

In this 1913 paper¹ in the journal Popular Astronomy, Antoniadi drives a very good-natured but very sharp spike into whatever it was that was left of the quivering heart of the collective who believed in (1) canals on Mars and (2) well, Martians. He gets to it right away, addressing the “wonderful phenomena” of overnight growth and decline in the numbers and dimensions of canals, the explanation for which escaped reason; for the Mars/canals believers “…the vast powers of Nature were found totally inadequate…” and so had to resort to more colorful and dramatic explanations to suit their needs:

“Canals scores of miles wide, and hundreds of miles long, were observed in a few days, or even hours, to double, either by the formation of a parallel band, or by the disappearance of the original canal, and by the formation of two new parallel streaks separated by hundreds of miles. Nor were hesitations in these doublings neglected to be put on record, since canals were seen to be alternately single and double on the same night.

“To account for these wonderful phenomena, the vast powers of Nature were found totally inadequate; and thus it was that Schiaparelli was led to enunciate the idea of the artificial origin of the canals, conceiving the larger of them to be composed of six different watercourses, whose dykes would be opened now and then by the Martian minister of agriculture.”–pg 417

Antoniadi announced that these “speculations” of life and canals on Mars “have failed to do the utmost with their cherished idea”, and that on the face of it in order to accommodate one difficult aspect disagreeing with their theories—the appearance and disappearance of canals that “the Martian engineers would be constantly digging and destroying their watercourses”.

“Speculations of such a character were eagerly embraced by M. Flammarion and other popular Continental writers. Yet it is to be regretted that the originator of this artificial theory, and his imitatore failed to do the utmost with their cherished idea. For, inasmuch as the canals appear straight about the central meridian, and also when carried by rotation near the limb, it is obvious that the Martian engineers would be constantly engaged in rapidly digging and destroying their watercourses, so as to make them look always straight to the observers on the earth. “pp 417-418

He then discusses that the canals disappear under more powerful telescopes than those less-powerful preferred by the Canal people, and then devastates the idea of the “deceitful” nature of the discoveries by showing the imagery of the two instruments side-by-side, announcing at the end that the canal outlook “has been defeated, both by theory and by observation”:

“The student who passes many consecutive hours in the study of Mars with medium-sized instruments, is liable to catch rare glimpses of straight lines, single or double, generally lasting about one quarter of a second …Here we have a vindication of Schiaparelli’s discoveries. But their deceitful character will obtrude itself on
the observer using a large telescope, when, in the place of the lines, he will hold steadily, either a winding, knotted, irregular band, or the jagged edge of a half-tone, or some other complex detail… In their anxiety to prop their views against natural law, believers in the reality of the linear canals have presumed to champion the alleged superiority of small over large telescopes; and this either in revealing planetary detail, or in separating close double stars. But the attempt has been defeated, both by theory and observation…”–p 420

And finally, the epitaph is inscribed:

 “Some observers will continue proclaiming the superiority of small telescopes. Ponderous volumes will still be written to record the discovery of new canals. But the astronomer of the future will sneer at these wonders; and the canal fallacy, after retarding progress for a third of a century, is doomed to be relegated into the myths of the past.”–p 424

There was no room for a side-door escape for the Canal-believers in this paper as was the more mellow and accommodating paper of 1909. No prisoners in 1913.

Notes:

1. E.M. Antoniadi, “considerations on the Physical Appearance of the Planet Mars”, in Popular Astronomy, 1913, volume 21, pp 416-424. 

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

Here we have another example of Found-Art in a scientific paper–this one looking Duchampian (again, especially if it were spiraling), or perhaps Dadaist, or Futurist.  In actuality it is something both “harder and simpler if you think about it) (referencing not-Duchamp) and “harder but simpler if you don’t think about it” (referencing not-Yogi Berra): it is an article meant for the general masses of pop science reading in the Scientific American Supplement for September 11, 1886 and it is trying to make sense of the famous and mysterious behavior of the star Algol. This is star B Persei, in Perseus, the constellation’s second brightest star, and as it would turn out it is an eclipsing binary star. The image below tries to make sense of the behavior of the star–the observation of which was published in 1671 (though the true first accounts may well be ancient.) The variability of the star would only be confirmed 60 years later, and then 50 years later until the remarkable John Goodricke determined the periodicity of the star.