Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- Part I PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
- Part II RECENT PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY
- CHAPTER I FOUNDATION OF ASTRONOMICAL PHYSICS
- CHAPTER II SOLAR OBSERVATIONS AND THEORIES
- CHAPTER III RECENT SOLAR ECLIPSES
- CHAPTER IV SPECTROSCOPIC WORK ON THE SUN
- CHAPTER V TEMPERATURE OF THE SUN
- CHAPTER VI THE SUN'S DISTANCE
- CHAPTER VII PLANETS AND SATELLITES
- CHAPTER VIII PLANETS AND SATELLITES (continued)
- CHAPTER IX THEORIES OF PLANETARY EVOLUTION
- CHAPTER X RECENT COMETS
- CHAPTER XI RECENT COMETS (continued)
- CHAPTER XII STARS AND NEBULÆ
- CHAPTER XIII METHODS OF RESEARCH
- INDEX
CHAPTER XII - STARS AND NEBULÆ
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- Part I PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
- Part II RECENT PROGRESS OF ASTRONOMY
- CHAPTER I FOUNDATION OF ASTRONOMICAL PHYSICS
- CHAPTER II SOLAR OBSERVATIONS AND THEORIES
- CHAPTER III RECENT SOLAR ECLIPSES
- CHAPTER IV SPECTROSCOPIC WORK ON THE SUN
- CHAPTER V TEMPERATURE OF THE SUN
- CHAPTER VI THE SUN'S DISTANCE
- CHAPTER VII PLANETS AND SATELLITES
- CHAPTER VIII PLANETS AND SATELLITES (continued)
- CHAPTER IX THEORIES OF PLANETARY EVOLUTION
- CHAPTER X RECENT COMETS
- CHAPTER XI RECENT COMETS (continued)
- CHAPTER XII STARS AND NEBULÆ
- CHAPTER XIII METHODS OF RESEARCH
- INDEX
Summary
That a science of stellar chemistry should not only have become possible, but should already have made material advances, is assuredly one of the most amazing features in the swift progress of knowledge our age has witnessed. Custom can never blunt the wonder with which we must regard the achievement of compelling rays emanating from a source devoid of sensible magnitude through immeasurable distance, to reveal, by its peculiarities, the composition of that source. The discovery of revolving double stars assured us that the great governing force of the planetary movements, and of our own material existence, sways equally the courses of the farthest suns in space; the application of prismatic analysis certified to the presence in the stars of the familiar materials, no less of the earth we tread, than of the bodies built up out of its dust and circumambient vapours.
We have seen that, as early as 1823, Fraunhofer ascertained the generic participation of stellar light in the peculiarity by which sunlight, spread out by transmission through a prism, shows numerous transverse rulings of interrupting darkness. No sooner had Kirchhoff supplied the key to the hidden meaning of those ciphered characters, than it was eagerly turned to the interpretation of the dim scrolls unfolded in the spectra of the stars. Donati made at Florence, in 1860, the first efforts in this direction; but with little result, owing to the imperfections of the instrumental means at his command.
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- A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century , pp. 411 - 439Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1885