Abstract
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MASSES AND DISTANCES OF THE PLANETS.—In a previous number of NATURE (vol. lv. No. 1433) Mr. G. E. Sutcliffe, writing from Bombay, suggested a relationship between the masses and distances of the four superior planets. He found that when the masses and distance of each of the planets were multiplied together, the resulting numbers formed a series in geometrical progression having a common ratio of 1˙8391, this latter number being nearly equal to the mean distance of Saturn (1˙8338) when the mean distance of Jupiter is taken as unity. In a recent communication to us he has worked out the case of the inferior planets, with the result that the relationship of these planets to one another is not the same as obtained in the previous investigation. The ratios are still, however, in powers of the same value of R (the common ratio), namely 1˙8391; and for this reason Mr. Sutcliffe suggests that this number is perhaps one of the constants of the solar system. In the same communication he gives a formula which expresses the mass of the sun in terms of the masses and distances of Venus, the earth and the moon, and from this he investigates the question of whether there is a planet which bears the same relationship to Jupiter that the earth and moon do to Venus. The mass, distance, and period of this hypothetical planet are given, but we doubt considerably its actual existence.
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Our Astronomical Column. Nature 56, 424 (1897). https://doi.org/10.1038/056424a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/056424a0