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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
Views of Newton on the formation of the tails of cornets–Action of heat and rarefaction of the cometary matter–The ethereal medium, losing its specific weight, rises opposite the sun, and carries with it the matter of the tail–Objections which have been made to the hypothesis of a resisting and ponderable medium.
Newton, in order to explain the formation of the tails of comets, had recourse to no other causes than the ordinary action of the calorific rays on the one hand, and that of gravitation on the other. But, although he does not introduce any new force, he is obliged to suppose that the comet during the whole time that its tail is developing is traversing a medium subject to the force of gravitation and tending towards the sun.
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