Abstract
THE lecturer introduced his subject by drawing attention to the circumstance that the idea of the sun being an exceedingly hot body was of very modern date, that both ancient and modern writers up to the early portion of the present century attributed to him a glorious and supernatural faculty of endowing us with light and heat of the degree necessary for our wellbeing, whilst even Sir William Herschel had attempted to find an explanation to account for his idea that the body of the sun might be at a low temperature, and inhabitable by beings similar to ourselves, which he did in surrounding the inhabitable surface by a nonconducting atmosphere—the penumbra—to separate it from the scorching influence of the exterior photosphere.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Solar Physics 1 . Nature 28, 19–21 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/028019a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/028019a0