Other Worlds Than Ours Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Contents
- ILLUSTRATIONS
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAP. I WHAT THE EARTH TEACHES US
- CHAP. II WHAT WE LEARN FROM THE SUN
- CHAP. III THE INFERIOR PLANETS
- CHAP. IV MARS, THE MINIATURE OF OUR EARTH
- CHAP. V JUPITER, THE GIANT OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
- CHAP. VI SATURN, THE RINGED WORLD
- CHAP. VII URANUS AND NEPTUNE, THE ARCTIC PLANETS
- CHAP. VIII THE MOON AND OTHER SATELLITES
- CHAP. IX METEORS AND COMETS; THEIR OFFICE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
- CHAP. X OTHER SUNS THAN OURS
- CHAP. XI OF MINOR STARS, AND OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF STARS IN SPACE
- CHAP. XII THE NEBULÆ, ARE THEY EXTERNAL GALAXIES?
- CHAP. XIII SUPERVISION AND CONTROL
- Plate section
CHAP. VII - URANUS AND NEPTUNE, THE ARCTIC PLANETS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Contents
- ILLUSTRATIONS
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAP. I WHAT THE EARTH TEACHES US
- CHAP. II WHAT WE LEARN FROM THE SUN
- CHAP. III THE INFERIOR PLANETS
- CHAP. IV MARS, THE MINIATURE OF OUR EARTH
- CHAP. V JUPITER, THE GIANT OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
- CHAP. VI SATURN, THE RINGED WORLD
- CHAP. VII URANUS AND NEPTUNE, THE ARCTIC PLANETS
- CHAP. VIII THE MOON AND OTHER SATELLITES
- CHAP. IX METEORS AND COMETS; THEIR OFFICE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM
- CHAP. X OTHER SUNS THAN OURS
- CHAP. XI OF MINOR STARS, AND OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF STARS IN SPACE
- CHAP. XII THE NEBULÆ, ARE THEY EXTERNAL GALAXIES?
- CHAP. XIII SUPERVISION AND CONTROL
- Plate section
Summary
A circumstance which is of great importance in considering the relations of the outer planets is apt to be lost sight of, owing to the unsatisfactory manner in which in nearly all books on astronomy the planetary orbits are represented. To look at the series of equidistant and concentric circles representing the orbits of the planets, who would suppose that in passing from the orbit of Jupiter to that of Saturn, a distance five times as great as that which separates our earth from the sun has to be traversed? But the distance separating Uranus from Saturn is twice as great even as this tremendous gap, while Neptune travels as far beyond Uranus as Uranus beyond Saturn. Nine hundred millions of miles in width is the enormous gap by which the path of Uranus is separated from that of the ringed planet on the inner side, and from that of distant Neptune on the outer, so that a line equal to the diameter of Jupiter's orbit would barely suffice to reach from Saturn to Uranus, or from Uranus to Neptune, even when either pair of planets are in conjunction.
We know so little of the physical aspect of Uranus and Neptune that it is extremely difficult to form any opinion as to their condition.
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- Other Worlds Than OursThe Plurality of Worlds Studied under the Light of Recent Scientific Researches, pp. 164 - 174Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1870