THE COMET,

Wellington Independent, Volume XIX, Issue 2165, 9 February 1865, Page 3

THE COMET,

TnE beautiful comet, which for many an evening has been visible in the western sky is now invisible from the bright moonlight. It was first seen in the constellation Microscopium and is now in Grus. It has passed close to many bright stars, affording a very ettsy test of its change of position from night to night, and of its rapid motion. Tho next English mail will probably tell us what tho astronomers of that hemisphere, with their magnificent instruments,- have made of it. It is fast leaving the sun, and will remain visible forprobably amonthlonger. The comet was perhaps at its brightest on the first Sunday evening after its discovery. The nucleus was then as bright as a large star, and the tail very bright and well defined. The tail was never longer than IQ or 12 degrees, but the extreme end was so faint that itwas very difficult to say where it did end, and almost impossible to measure the length accurately. Comets in ancient days frightened people out of their senses, now they aro recognised as irregular visitants to our system, but of orderly habits when they do come, obeying the laws which govern the movoments of the, planets and stars. Very little is known about comets with any certainty. Some of them have been so thin that stars have bGen seen through the nucleus. One of them, Biela's, broke up into two pieces. Another ran into Jupiter and came to grief, for the comet's and not the planet's movements were altered. Another, which revolves around the sun in three years time, takes less and less time for each revolution, boing slightly retarded by something, by a thin ether it is said for want of a better phrase. This comet will, in the course of a few ages or so, tumble bodily into the sun. The queer thing about the comet is its tail. As it approaches the sun the tail is dragged after it, but when it leaves the sun the tail is pushed before it. If we fancy a very fast steamer's smoke on a very calm day preceding tho vessel, wo shall get a fair idea of this difficulty. The tail certainly surrounds tho comet as a cono of light for it is bright at the edges, and thin and dispersed in the middle, Donatis' comet four years ago, irresistibly compelled the | idea that the tail is luminous matter, pouring

out from the comet under tlle influence of the sun's heat, and driven back by a counter influence from the sun, perhaps by the magnetic action of the sun. Tho comet's movement ?! will have been, of course, carefully recorded atthe Cape and in Australia, by the excellent instruments oftb.e observatories of those places, so that any measurements taken by sextant in WeUington will not be of any value for home observers. The tail of the comet was slightly- bont, being concave towards the north*. This curving is always more or less noticeable in large comets. The taU of a comet is never visible until the nucleus approaches the sun. is brightest and longest just after it has passed round the sun, aud gradually fades away as the comet goes back iuto space. The large comet of March, 184*3, approached so m-av to tho sun, that it was exposed to a heat 47,000 times greater than we receive from the sun. I* was visible in the day time, just after its j perihelion passage. About six comets belong to our solar system. It is a tolerably safe conclusion that comets are not inhabited.