Supposing the
latter to have had the same intrinsic brilliance, surface for surface,
as the sun, it would have radiated one hundred times less light than the
sun. A difference of one hundredfold between the light of two stars
means that they are six magnitudes apart; or, in other words, from a
point in space where the sun appeared as bright as what we call a
first-magnitude star, its companion, Jupiter, would have shone as a
sixth-magnitude star. Many stars have companions proportionally much
fainter than that. The companion of Sirius, for instance, is at least
ten thousand times less bright than its great comrade.
Looking at Jupiter in this way, it interests us not as the probable
abode of intelligent life, but as a world in the making, a world,
moreover, which, when it is completed--if it ever shall be after the
terrestrial pattern--will dwarf our globe into insignificance. That
stupendous miracle of world-making which is dimly painted in the grand
figures employed by the writers of Genesis, and the composers of other
cosmogonic legends, is here actually going on before our eyes. The
telescope shows us in the cloudy face of Jupiter the moving of the
spirit upon the face of the great deep. What the final result will be we
can not tell, but clearly the end of the grand processes there in
operation has not yet been reached.
The interesting suggestion was made and urged by Mr. Proctor that if
Jupiter itself is in no condition at present to bear life, its
satellites may be, in that respect, more happily circumstanced.
Pages:
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135