Burr and Burton Academy - Burtonian Yearbook (Manchester, VT)

Page 15 text:

THE BUPTONIAN llfe would be lmposslble here as It IS on the moon because we have to have alr to breathe However t111S atmosphere also ple erves lxfe on the earth ln other ways such as protectlng us from the mtense heat of the sun 1n the day whxch would probalbly be 2 2 or 242 degrees Bahre Ihext at noon and pro ectmg us from the mtense cold of the nlght whlch vsould reach mmus .J75 degrees It also protects us from the eternal ram of meteors large and small Wh1Ch fire a bombardment on us that would make l1fe lmposslble The axr protects us from these meteors by causlnfr fr1ct1on as they pass throueh It thereby consumxng the greatest part of them Meteors are belleved to be dlsmtegrated comets the best proof of th1s bexnff that the well known Leonld shower oceurrmg 1n November and the Persexd shower ln August move ln the Onblts once followed by Tempel s and Tuttle s comets Some now fbeheve that many of the meteors that have struck the earth and have caused great C3V1tl9S ln lt such as the Arxzona Crater are made by swarms of meteors and not slngle ones Although many shafts have been sunk down at the Slde of thls crater as yet no great meteor has been found Not a great deal can be saxd of comets here They travel m three courses whxch are the elhptlc paralbohc and hypexbollc orbxts only those Most of them have orbxts outslde of that of Juplter and are sometmmes affected by that body It also may be noted here that whlchever way the comet may be going toward the sun or away from It the tall IS turned away from the sun The sun IS our nearest star and IS roughly 93000000 mlles from us It IS the center of gravlty of the solar system and IS one of the most mterest mg and 1ntr1cate objects of the heavens Many Astronomers have taken up the study of tne sun as a spec al y Lrttle or nothlng IS knorwn about the true ball of the sun itself because It IS enveloped ln many layers of gas The three most nnportant layers are 1 The reversxng layer 2 The Chromosphere 3 The corona The corona IS the layer about whxch httle IS known If can only be seen duung a total echpse and there have been only about a thousand seconds slnce the comlng of good apparatus that astronomers nave been able to see the corona It so happens that the next total ecllpse wlll have 1ts path of totallty through the New England States strlkmg across the northern part of thxs state 1n August 1932 The dlameter of the sun IS 866000 mlles and xt IS 1 300000 tlmes larger than the earth The temperature of 1t has been a lon dlsputed quest1on but one of the :best authorltles on the subject glves xt as 7000 degrees Centlgrade or 12 000 degrees Fahrenhelt The sun glves off two hundred and fifty m1lhon tons of welght ln radxatlon a rnlnute Of thls the earth recewes only one 2 200 000 000th part The revolution of the sun that IS the outer layer varxes It takes about twenty five days at the equator twenty seven days m1dway and thlrty one days at the poles where an electrlcal wxnd IS blowmg at the rate of 1200 mlles an hour Perhaps the most xmportant of the sun s phenomena to the earth are the . Q N 9 I. A' ' 1 ' , ' 1 u i R l , 1 t . . : . y . 0 f ' I . A - a DA F I ' . D . . . , -' Y . traveling in an elliptic onbit ever returning to our sun. 1 1 ' ' l ' i tr. 1 . . U . . ' D 1 1 I v ' - , f - . ' - - ,