Hide Article Text (OCR)
FAMOUS BIELA COMET.Fragments of It Are Soon to Bombard the Earth.Seventy-three years ago, when the Bohemian astronomer Biela discovered the great comet that has boon named after him. he and the other astronomers of the world agreed, after making long and careful calculu'ibus, that the course of ttie heavenly body was] such that some tLme it would strike the earth. The exact date set for this catastrophe theu was November, 1891), says the New York Tress. And it would have happened according to schedule , had there not been another vast ca-tastrophe In the heavens before thou. ■ In 1843 the astronomers who were ; watching for the reappearance of the Biela comet saw a tremendous thing In space. The comet appeared and burst in two before their eyes. What a mighty explosion this was—an explosion which human minds really can- \ not grasp— may be Just vaguely guessed from the fact that within a few months after the smash up the two j parts of the comet were 40,000 miles apart from each other and wore still beiug hurried madly through the universe, Impelled by the force of the ter- 1 rlble convulsion which had torn the comet apart. That was 33 years ago, more than onc-h:tlf n century, and still the fragments have not ceased living, lu 183- the two parts, now appearing as two separate comets, were 330.000 miles apart. They were due again in 1S39 and again in 1S«M5. but not one of the tens of thousands of instruments that were pointed anxiously toward that quarter of the heavens where the two bodies should appear sighted even | n spark from them.Astronomers were puzzled. They ' could not explain It. and all that they could even guess was that tlie separat-1 ed parts had struck something and ; been disintegrated. This guess was correct. The two comets had struck something—wluit no otie knows to tills day. But It must have been such I a disaster as wiped out whole worlds somewhere in the universe, for In 1872 tie* earth passed into the course of what was left of at least one of the parts of the comet.It was on the night of Nov. 27 that the question of what had become of at least part of the Biela comet was answered. On that night there suddenly began raining from the constellation lt;f Andromeda thousands and thousands of meteors, some exploding near the earth. «Qhcrs flying in huge trails of tiro far over It. The first astronomer i*» arrive at the correct conclusion was Kllnkerfue*. Ho telegraphed to the observatory In Madrid: “Biola's comet has touched the earth. Search for It In the constellation of the Centaur. Unfortunately the weather was bad, and the Madrid astronomer could not follow instructions until Doc. 2. Then lie j did iind a small comet near the con-StellatIon named, but It Is not certain I that it had anything to do with the : Biela cornet.| The next time that the earth passed I through tills path of tiro was on Nov.• 27. is.83; tint, though the display was | even more wonderful than that of 1X72 | had been, no trace of a comet could he discovered. In 1890. though the path of the fragments could not be seen. It was known that It lay close to the course of the planet Jupiter, and It j was calculated that this would hasten the disintegration. On Nov. 23. 1S92. : the earth passed through the train of ' fire again. In this year, 1899. the earth will be nt the polut on Nov. 23 where her course and that of the comet parts cross.Ilad that unknown and tremendous catastrophe not occurred long ago we i would be looking toward this meeting with decidedly more serious apprehensions than Is the case now. for. while it Is almost certain that the poor remnants of Blela’s comet will be the only things to suffer, the ease would be vastly different were the huge comet1 still Intact.
Newspaper Details
Little Falls Weekly Transcript
Little Falls, Minnesota, US
Tue, Nov 21, 1899
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 11 Oct 2022
Other Publications Near Little Falls, Minnesota
Little Falls Weekly Transcript
Little Falls Transcript
Little Falls Herald
