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Simon Newcomb was directed to the solution of this question, and he arrived at the conclusion that the planetary perturbations could not explain the actual situation of the asteroidal orbits. But afterward it was pointed out that the difficulty could be avoided by supposing that not one but a series of explosions had produced the asteroids as they now are.
The ether resumed its habitual darkness; the stars, for one moment eclipsed, shone in the firmament, and the disc, of which scarcely a glimpse had been caught, was lost in the impenetrable night. The projectile had just escaped a terrible danger, a danger quite unforeseen. Who would have imagined such a meeting of asteroids? These wandering bodies might prove serious perils to the travellers.
Since there were no way stations, in the shape of planets or asteroids, between Jupiter and Saturn, they kept the maximum repulsion on Jupiter as long as possible, and moved at tremendous speed. Saturn was somewhat in advance of Jupiter in its orbit, so that their course from the earth had been along two sides of a triangle with an obtuse angle between.
But it is about 9,500,000,000, so that there is a gap between Neptune and Cassandra, as between Mars and Jupiter, except that in Cassandra's case there are no asteroids to show where any planet was; we must, then, suppose it is an exception to Bode's law, or that there was a planet that has completely disappeared.
Having determined to devote my life to the prosecution of exact astronomy, the first important problem which I took up, while at Cambridge, was that of the zone of minor planets, frequently called asteroids, revolving between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was formerly supposed that these small bodies might be fragments of a large planet which had been shattered by a collision or explosion.
One of the strongest objections to Olbers' hypothesis is that only a few of the first asteroids discovered travel in orbits which measurably satisfy the requirement that they should all intersect at the point where the explosion occurred.
These are the first four, all comparatively small; beyond them there is a vast gap, in which we find the asteroids, and after this we come to four larger planets, mighty indeed as regards ourselves, for if our earth were a greengage plum, the first of these, Jupiter, would have to be the size of a football at least, and the next, Saturn, a smaller football, while Uranus and Neptune, the two furthest out, would be about the size of the toy balloons children play with.
For my part I prefer to be told one of those simple comparisons that I find in the old almanacs: The Sun is a globe two feet in diameter; Jupiter, a good sized orange; Saturn, a smaller orange; Neptune, a plum; Uranus, a good sized cherry; the Earth, a pea; Venus, also a pea but somewhat smaller; Mars, a large pin's head; Mercury, a mustard seed; Juno, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and the other asteroids so many grains of sand.
By God, I'll put the chemicals on him torture him illegal or not!" We had no time for further discussion. The asteroid was rapidly approaching. Already, under the glass, it was a magnificent sight. I had never seen this tiny world before asteroids are not numerous between the Earth and Mars, or in toward Venus. At a speed of nearly a hundred miles a second the asteroid swept into view.
It has been positively proved that they cannot be made of continuous matter, either liquid or solid, for the force of gravity acting on them from the planet would tear them to pieces. What, then, can they be? It is now pretty generally believed that they are composed of multitudes of tiny bodies, each separate, and circling separately round the great planet, as the asteroids circle round the sun.
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