Hide Article Text (OCR)
the /eat of Nebucbadnsmt*r'a image — win oil were partly of irou and partlyof eluy~the more “earthy” matterwould be broken off, as .n the forme? oaee, I earing the iron to fall a* a Dif-Uliic rnaaa to the earth, or to taka ao-L'ther excursion in apace, as determinedby the geometrical relatione above described. This appears to hare beenthe composition of the meteor of kn July. We remark bare that the tin dinguf an iron meteorite by no means prove?-Lhflt it was chiefly composed of iron before collision with the earth. Its Ureeralong bed off in its iwsaagee air, and reached the snr-oai. any uiatby white menper daring itsIt found fromWe do notenter upon ations made ; though many of those arlt; too vagu.» to be of value in detonmnmj position and distance, and only one o 1 two give precise information.* Fro m a com pariscm of the crude de Boriptiona given, we conclude tliat thlt;1 following is an approximate statemeD of the path pursued by the meteorit 1 while visible. From some point south west by west of Lawrence, Kan., h Miami county, on the eastern border o Lind State ; across Missouri, from Gas' to Marion counties; across QlinoisI from Adams to Iroquois counties; aoroai | Indiana, from the southern portion oNewton county to Fort Wayne (Alleicounty), from there across Ohio to th«' southern point of Iak© Erie, and ovathe northwestern corner of Pennsylvania into New York State. The dis [ which exist all arou tanoe was nearly 1.000 miles ; the time . vuuble when lightsat Chicago about 8h. 35m. p. m., of Our latest meteoriteDec. 21, 1876 ; the height above the I bly more (ban tweni earth’s surface some seventy-five miles i« bat one of a vastwhen over Kansas, to forty miles when — — — tanging all Iover Ohio. Its probable sis*—of that1 balk of a grab) of a we may have something to my anon. ^ that a my ofA line drawn upon the map through : three months to flasl the places above indicated will not be a i it to the opposite, i traight line; it will be slightly convex ' higher np in the sea toward the north, but scarcely bends out its, u the sparrow so much m would a great circle of the gxmt, but bothers Asphere if drawn through the eaat and i»wa, own a similarwest extremities of the line. The plane deatiny. Bouf the visible path, if produced, would original to sol pass some diatanoe north from the pose ■ mch destined earth’s center. The plane of the motion the work is perform!was inclined about fifteen degrees to the rsratsilplane of the ecliptic. The meteorite ti)Our celestial visitor came to us after through oareven a more extended travel than that of tire. It is not proba Hatau, when (see Job, L, 7) he presented beings are destroyedhimself before the Lord after going to Uon, because that lil and fro in the earth, and from walking «■« filled downup and down in it. Our meteorite which organized fore came to ns from the depths of spaoe ; »nrf^ But the eatwhere, for aught we know, it may have toward thst point, tc been pursuing an individual flight dor- pears to have aiming many millions of centuries. The when she hat teaedaccompanying diagram will enable our torn, too. will ««««,eons of death mayV collapse. Analogy iAz eooe that aa ourdifferentbelieved to have■nd toaboveUtions of our visitor, and similar bodies, to the world on which we dwell.The circle, of about 1.4 inches in diameter, represents the earth's orbit. The arrows indicate the direotiov of hermovement, the north pole being abovethe plane of the paper. The ellipserepresents the path of the “meteorite,the direction of motion being also indicated by arrows. Of course the reachrwill understand that the sine of the ellipse, a? compared with the earth'sorbit, and the proportion of Its longest to its shortest diameter, u rily those indicated byThe two orbits interthey do not necessarily intersect at any other point, though s represented in the diagram. It is evident that the meteorite may travel around the sun in its prolonged elhptio path, and the earth iu her mure nearly circular orbit, during countless agin,without once meeting ; just as two shipsmay cross and recrosa the Atlantic inopposite di ructions many time* without “sighting each other—much lews colliding. liut if when the earth is at thepoint A, the met* onto be also very nec.rthe emu nun point of intersection, thereis then danger of a collision. Whetherthey will really collide or not depends upon the circumstances of the case. The meteorite is traveling at the rate of (say) 20 miles per second, and the earth with a speed of lb‘ miles (at this time of the year tile eartl/s velocity is a tittle greater than that); and the earth is continually pulluig the stranger toward her by the force of attraction, at a rate whichcan be rigidly calculated through all the variations in their distance. If, now,wp should project (portions of) the twoorbits on paper, mark off upon them the place which each body would occupy at successive iustaiitn, if there was uu mutual attraction, and then set off from the meteorite path, toward the earth 'a plate*, the distances through which the body is ill a wn by the earth 's at rsction, weshould have the actual path of the meteorite with refen-nee to the earth; mil oould see by inspection whether the twowould collide, or pan each other. In , case the meteorite is found to pass into i the earth's hemisphere, a farther cor-; rection must be made for the retardationpf speed due to iesistsnoe of the air;I »\d the figure would then show the least distance between the two bodies.There is one fact which is involved in considering the question whether, under certain geometrical circa instances,the body would fall to the earth or *t—the character of tlio material of which it is oomposed. The friction of the atmosphere retards the motion, and thatarrested motion of the mans is converted into motion of Its constituent molecules or atoms—it is changed into heat.figure.to the point of incandescence, and may be, increased many thousands of degrees. The exterior portions are heatedmore rapidly than the interior, as theheat is generated from without; andthis unequal beating causes unequal expansion of the particles, so that there isa continued tendency to break up fromthe outside. The disjoined particles fall away, and are left behind, becausethe surface exposed to atmospheric* resistance is greater in proportion to thequantity of motion in the mass fez small b »die« than for large ones of the same material. If, now, a large meteorite w« re composed entirely of iron, the cohesive attraction of its particles mightbe (undoubtedly would be)greatenoughto withstand this strain ; and the ibvs*
Newspaper Details
Plymouth Marshall County Republican
Plymouth, Indiana, US
Thu, Jan 04, 1877
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 14 Oct 2022
Other Publications Near Plymouth, Indiana
Plymouth Republican
Plymouth Democrat
Plymouth Banner
Plymouth Marshall County Republican
Plymouth Semi Weekly Independent
