Abstract
THE earth is rapidly nearing the band of cosmical bodies to which the November star-showers owe their occurrence. Whether we are to witness a display or not depends wholly on the nature of that portion of the band through which we are to pass this year. The portion which gave the great display of 1866 has now passed many millions of miles away on its course towards the orbit of the distant planet Uranus. Nearer to us, but still many millions of miles away, is the part which we traversed in 1867, when (in America) there was a short but brilliant display of meteors, which would have afforded a yet more striking exhibition but for the full moon which dimmed their splendour. In 1868 meteors were seen in every part of the earth, and even, in America, on two successive nights. It is clear, therefore, that the portion of the band then traversed was very much wider than the part through which the earth had passed in the two former years. But even the part traversed in 1868 is more than five hundred millions of miles away from us now; and it is difficult indeed to say what may be the character of the portion we are approaching. Most probably it is even wider than the part we passed through in 1868; in which case we are sure (if the weather be but fine) to see a display of the November shooting-stars, though the same process of wide-spreading would of course tend to make the display so much the less brilliant.
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PROCTOR, R. The November Shooting-Stars . Nature 1, 56–57 (1869). https://doi.org/10.1038/001056b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001056b0