"Perihelium" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... variations in solar heat must in themselves exercise a profound effect on the habitability of Mercury. Mr. Ledger well remarks, in his interesting work,[14] that if there be inhabitants on Mercury the notions of "perihelion" and "aphelion," which are here often regarded as expressing ideas of an intricate or recondite character, must on the surface of that planet be familiar to everybody. The words imply "near the sun," and "away from the sun;" but we do not associate these expressions ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... the strange orb were immediately calculated, and it was at once conceded by all observers that its path, at perihelion would bring it into very close proximity with the earth. There were two or three astronomers of secondary note who resolutely maintained that a contact was inevitable. I cannot very well express to you the effect of this intelligence upon the people. For a few short days they would not believe ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... from remote space, and will never return. But are they rightly classed as parabolic? Observations on a comet moving in an extremely eccentric ellipse, which are possible only when it is comparatively near perihelion, must fail to distinguish its orbit from a parabola. Evidently, then, it is not safe to class it as a parabola because of inability to detect the elements of an ellipse. But if extreme eccentricity of an orbit necessitates such ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... that a number of comets are associated with meteoric matter, travelling in nearly the same orbits, suggests the inquiry whether an enormous meteorite following in the comet's train, and having a somewhat less perihelion distance, may not have been precipitated upon the sun, thus producing the great disturbance observed so shortly after ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... became an inspiration for the mathematical astronomer. Clairaut, assisted by Lalande, found that Saturn would retard the comet 100 days, Jupiter 518 days, and predicted its return to perihelion on April 13th, 1759. In his communication to the French Academy, he said that a comet travelling into such distant regions might be exposed to the influence of forces totally unknown, and "even of some planet too far removed from the sun ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... Jasmine that she must not see much of him alone. Still there was some new cause to provoke his interest and draw him to herself. The Jigger episode had done much, had altered the latitudes of their association, but the perihelion of their natures was still far off; and she ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... shews in this month that our season will soon be past its perihelion: soirees, whether scientific, exquisite, or political, take place almost too frequently for the comfort and wellbeing of the invited; and loungers and legislators are alike beginning to dream of leafy woods and babbling brooks. Our learned societies have brought ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... of this discussion. I have spoken of the excentricity of the earth's orbit as decreasing. Was it always decreasing? and if so, how far back was it so excentric that at perihelion the earth passed quite near the sun? If it ever did thus pass near the sun, the inference is manifest—the earth must at one time have been thrown off, or been separated off, ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... augmented by the decay of local vegetation. The adjacent high lands, being elevated above the action of the fresh water, were no doubt marine formations, created by the flowing of the sea during the four thousand years when the earth was last in its perihelion during our summer months; which was between twelve and seven thousand years since. The Flat or fresh-water formation, on which I was walking, still only approaches its completion; and the desiccated ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips |
