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This was Herr Encke's position when the curtain rises on our story at Potsdam, and shows us Wilhelmine, an unattractive maid of ten, the Cinderella of her family, for whom there seemed no better prospect than a soldier-husband, if indeed she were lucky enough to capture him.
The computed and observed places on both sides of the sun fitted harmoniously together. The effect, if any were produced, was too small to be perceptible. This result is, in itself, a memorable one. It seems to give the coup de grâce to Encke's theory discredited, in addition, by Backlund's investigation of a resisting medium growing rapidly denser inwards.
The physical transformations of comets are among the most wonderful of unexplained phenomena in the heavens. But, for physical astronomers, the greatest interest attaches to the reduction of radius vector of Encke's comet, the splitting of Biela's comet into two comets in 1846, and the somewhat similar behaviour of other comets.
But, in addition to what I have already urged in regard to Encke's comet and the zodiacal light, I had been strengthened in my opinion by certain observations of Mr. Schroeter, of Lilienthal. He observed the moon when two days and a half old, in the evening soon after sunset, before the dark part was visible, and continued to watch it until it became visible.
A question of immense importance, since the whole theory of light and colours and the resistance of Encke's comet depends upon that hypothesis. The question is still in abeyance, but I have no doubt that it will be decided in the affirmative, and that even the cause of gravitation will be known eventually. At this time I had the pleasure of a visit from Mr.
They confirmed Encke's results for the period covered by them, but exhibited the acceleration as having suddenly diminished by nearly one-half in 1868. The reality and permanence of this change were fully established by observations of the ensuing return in March, 1885. Some physical alteration of the retarded body seems indicated; but visual evidence countenances no such assumption.
But M. von Haerdtl's subsequent investigation, the materials for which included numerous observations of the body in question at its return to the sun in 1886, decisively negatived the presence of any such effect. Moreover, the researches of Von Asten and Backlund into the movements of Encke's comet revealed a perplexing circumstance.
On comparing the intervals between the successive arrivals of Encke's comet at its perihelion, after giving credit, in the most exact manner, for all the disturbances due to the attractions of the planets, it appears that the periods are gradually diminishing; that is to say, the major axis of the comet's ellipse is growing shorter, in a slow but perfectly regular decrease.
Escape from such proximity might, indeed, very well have been judged beforehand to be impossible. Even admitting no other kind of opposition than that dubiously supposed to have affected Encke's comet, the result in shortening the period ought to be of the most marked kind.
It will thus be seen that issues of the most momentous character hang on the time-keeping of comets; for plainly all must in some degree suffer the same kind of hindrance as Encke's, if the cause of that hindrance be the one suggested. None of its congeners, however, show any trace of similar symptoms.
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