Star-land: Being Talks With Young People About the Wonders of the Heavens

I am tempted to wish that I had Aladdin’s lamp for the moment, for I would rub it, and when the great genie appeared, I would bid him take the Royal Institution, and all of us h...

If we can only see Mercury so rarely, and if even then it is a very long way off, does it not seem strange that we can tell how heavy it is? Even if we had a pair of scales big...

Remembering these facts, you will, I think, look at the heavens with a new interest. There is a bright star, Vega or Alpha Lyræ, a beautiful gem, so far off that the light from...

The great majority of comets are only to be seen with a telescope, and hardly a year passes without the detection of at least a few of these faint objects. The number of really...

You must use a very good telescope to see the satellites of Uranus. They are four in number, bearing the names of Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. The innermost of these, Ar...

We are now about to take a good look at the moon and examine the different objects which are marked upon it. There is a peculiar interest attached to this particular orb, becaus...

If lines are necessary to save a railway train from destruction, how can we possibly escape when we have no similar assistance to keep us from flying away from the sun and off i...

But the marks on the planet, though very faint, are still sufficiently definite to have enabled some sharp-sighted astronomers to answer a question of much interest. They have m...

Many remarkable observations of Mars have been lately made by Mr. Percival Lowell. It seems very doubtful how far our former division of continents and oceans on Mars can be mai...

A comet is made of very unsubstantial material. This we can show in a very interesting manner, when we see it moving over the sky between the earth and the stars. Sometimes a co...

You may desire to know how we are able to measure the heights of mountains on the moon. That is what I am now going to show you; and for this purpose we shall look at our imitat...

Most of us must be content with acquiring the merest shred of information with regard even to our own earth. Perhaps a schoolboy will think it fortunate that we are so ignorant...

Let us see how we could encircle our earth with rings like those which surround Saturn. I shall ask you to be provided with a sufficiently large number of pebbles, and you must...

I am sure it will interest everybody to know that the elements which the stars contain are not altogether different from those of which the earth is made. It is true there may b...

I am sure each intelligent boy or girl will want to know how we are able to tell all this. We have never been at the moon, and how then can we say that it is nearly destitute of...

On two occasions, namely, in 1881 and in 1887, the Managers entrusted this honorable duty to me. The second course was in the main a repetition of the first; and on my notes and...

We may look a little further and find whence the clouds have come. It is certain that clouds are merely a form of steam or vapor of water, and as they are so continually sending...

We shall, therefore, prepare to make observations from that very particular spot on this earth--the North Pole. I suppose that eternal ice and snow abide there. I don’t think it...

Up till quite recently all the small planets which had been discovered confined themselves to the space lying between the paths of the major planets Mars and Jupiter. This invar...

There is a football on the table, shown in Fig. 11. We shall suppose it to represent the sun; we shall now choose something else to represent the earth. We must, however, exhibi...

An ordinary opera-glass or binocular is a very useful instrument for looking at the stars in the heavens. If you employ an instrument of this sort, you will be amazed to find th...

When ordinary steam is chilled it condenses into little drops of water. So, too, if iron be heated until it is transformed into vapor, and if that vapor be allowed to condense,...

During a shooting-star shower it is interesting to notice that all the meteors seem to diverge from a single point. In the adjoining figure (Fig. 81), which shows the directions...

The vicinity of Orion is also enriched with some of the most interesting stellar objects. Follow the line of the belt upwards to the right, and your eye is conducted to a ruddy...

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