Identifier: astronomyforamat00flam (find matches)
Title: Astronomy for amateurs
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Flammarion, Camille, 1842-1925 Welby, Frances A. (Frances Alice) tr
Subjects: Astronomy
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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an immense variety in the brilliancy of theshooting stars, from the weak telescopic sparks thatvanish like a flash of lightning, to the incandescentbolides or fire-balls that explode in the atmosphere. Fig. 56 shows an example of these, and it representsa fire-ball observed at the Observatory of Juvisy on thenight of August 10, 1899. It arrived from Cassiopeia,and burst in Cepheus. This phenomenon may occur by day as well as bynight: It is often accompanied by one or several ex-plosions, the report of which is sometimes perceptibleto a considerable distance, and by a shower of meteorites.The globe of fire bursts, and splits up into luminous frag-ments, scattered in all directions. The different parts ofthe fire-ball fall to the surface of the Earth, under thename of aerolites, or rather of uranoliths, since theyarrive from the depths of space, and not from ouratmosphere. 198 THE COMETS From the most ancient times we hear of showersof uranoliths to which popular superstitions were at-
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FiG. 56.—Fire-Ball seen from the Observatory at Juvisy,August 10, 1899. tached; and the Greeks even gave the name of Siderosto iron, the first iron used having been sidereal. 199 ASTRONOMY FOR AMATEURS No year passes without the announcement of severalshowers of uranoHths, and the phenomenon sometimes

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