Pleasant Ways in Science. Richard Anthony Proctor
that substance in the voltaic arc, we obtain a spectrum including all the bright lines of the various elements contained in the substance; and if some element is contained in it in exceedingly small quantity, we may yet perceive its distinctive bright lines among the others (many of them far brighter) belonging to the elements present in greater quantities. But if we have (for example) a great mass of molten iron, the rainbow-tinted spectrum of whose light we examine from a great distance, and if a small quantity of sodium, or other substance which vaporizes at moderate temperatures, be cast into the molten iron so that the vapour of the added element presently rises above the glowing surface of the iron, no trace of the presence of this vapour would be shown in the spectrum observed from a distance. The part of the spectrum where the dark lines of sodium usually appear would, undoubtedly, be less brilliant than before, in the same sense that the sun may be said to be less brilliant when the air is in the least degree moist than when it is perfectly dry; but the loss of brilliancy is as utterly imperceptible in the one case as it is in the other. In like manner, a vapour might exist in the atmosphere of the sun (above the photosphere, that is), of whose presence not a trace would be afforded in the spectroscope, for the simple reason that the absorptive action of the vapour, though exerted to reduce the brightness of particular solar rays or tints, would not affect those rays sufficiently for the spectroscopist to recognize any diminution of their lustre.
There is another consideration, which, so far as I know, has not hitherto received much attention, but should certainly be taken into account in the attempt to interpret the real meaning of the solar spectrum. Some of the metals which are vaporized by the sun’s heat below the photosphere may become liquid or even solid at or near the level of the photosphere. Even though the heat at the level of the photosphere may be such that, under ordinary conditions of pressure and so forth, such metals would be vaporous, the enormous pressure which must exist not far below the level of the photosphere may make the heat necessary for complete vaporization far greater than the actual heat at that level. In that case the vapour will in part condense into liquid globules, or, if the heat is considerably less than is necessary to keep the substance in the form of vapour, then it may in part be solidified, the tiny globules of liquid metal becoming tiny crystals of solid metal. We see both conditions fulfilled within the limits of our own air in the case of the vapour of water. Low down the water is present in the air (ordinarily) in the form of pure vapour; at a higher level the vapour is condensed by cold into liquid drops forming visible clouds (cumulus clouds), and yet higher, where the cold is still greater, the minute water-drops turn into ice-crystals, forming those light fleecy clouds called cirrus clouds by the meteorologist. Now true clouds of either sort may exist in the solar atmosphere even above that photospheric level which forms the boundary of the sun we see. It may be said that the spectroscope, applied to examine matter outside the photosphere, has given evidence only of vaporous cloud masses. The ruddy prominences which tower tens of thousands of miles above the surface of the sun, and the sierra (or as it is sometimes unclassically called, the chromosphere) which covers usually the whole of the photosphere to a depth of about eight thousand miles, show only, under spectroscopic scrutiny, the bright lines indicating gaseity. But though this is perfectly true, it is also true that we have not here a particle of evidence to show that clouds of liquid particles, and of tiny crystals, may not float over the sun’s surface, or even that the ruddy clouds shown by the spectroscope to shine with light indicative of gaseity may not also contain liquid and crystalline particles. For in point of fact, the very principle on which our recognition of the bright lines depends involves the inference that matter whose light would not be resolved into bright lines would not be recognizable at all. The bright lines are seen, because by means of a spectroscope we can throw them far apart, without reducing their lustre, while the background of rainbow-tinted spectrum has its various portions similarly thrown further apart and correspondingly weakened. One may compare the process (the comparison, I believe, has not hitherto been employed) to the dilution of a dense liquid in which solid masses have been floating: the more we increase the quantity of the liquid in diluting it with water, the more transparent it becomes, but the solid masses in it are not changed, so that we only have to dilute the liquid sufficiently to see these masses. But if there were in the interstices of the solid masses particles of some substance which dissolved in the water, we should not recognize the presence of this substance by any increase in its visibility; for the very same process which thinned the liquid would thin this soluble substance in the same degree. In like manner, by dispersing and correspondingly weakening the sun’s light more and more, we can recognize the light of the gaseous matter in the prominences, for this is not weakened; but if the prominences also contain matter in the solid or liquid form (that is, drops or crystals), the spectroscopic method will not indicate the presence of such matter, for the spectrum of matter of this sort will be weakened by dispersion in precisely the same degree that the solar spectrum itself is weakened.
It is easy to see how the evidence of the presence of any element which behaved in this way would be weakened, if we consider what would happen in the case of our own earth, according as the air were simply moist but without clouds, or loaded with cumulus masses but without cirrus clouds, or loaded with cirrus clouds. For although there is not in the case of the earth a central glowing mass like the sun’s, on whose rainbow-tinted spectrum the dark lines caused by the absorptive action of our atmosphere could be seen by the inhabitant of some distant planet studying the earth from without, yet the sun’s light reflected from the surface of the earth plays in reality a similar part. It does not give a simple rainbow-tinted spectrum; for, being sunlight, it shows all the dark lines of the solar spectrum: but the addition of new dark lines to these, in consequence of the absorptive action of the earth’s atmosphere, could very readily be determined. In fact, we do thus recognize in the spectra of Mars, Venus, and other planets, the presence of aqueous vapour in their atmosphere, despite the fact that our own air, containing also aqueous vapour, naturally renders so much the more difficult the detection of that vapour in the atmosphere of remote planets necessarily seen through our own air. Now, a distant observer examining the light of our own earth on a day when, though the air was moist, there were no clouds, would have ample evidence of the presence of the vapour of water; for the light which he examined would have gone twice through our earth’s atmosphere, from its outermost thinnest parts to the densest layers close to the surface, then back again through the entire thickness of the air. But if the air were heavily laden with cumulus clouds (without any cirrus clouds at a higher layer), although we should know that there was abundant moisture in the air, and indeed much more moisture then there had been when there had been no clouds, our imagined observer would either perceive no traces at all of this moisture, or he would perceive traces so much fainter than when the air was clear that he would be apt to infer that the air was either quite dry, or at least very much drier than it had been in that case. For the light which he would receive from the earth would not in this case have passed through the entire depth of moisture-laden air twice, but twice only through that portion of the air which lay above the clouds, at whose surface the sun’s light would be reflected. The whole of the moisture-laden layer of the air would be snugly concealed under the cloud-layer, and would exercise no absorptive action whatever on the light which the remote observer would examine. If from the upper surface of the layer of cumulus clouds aqueous vapour rose still higher, and were converted in the cold upper regions of the atmosphere into clouds of ice-crystals, the distant observer would have still less chance of recognizing the presence of moisture in our atmosphere. For the layer of air between the cumulus clouds and the cirrus clouds would be unable to exert any absorptive action on the light which reached the observer. All such light would come to him after reflection from the layer of cirrus clouds. He would be apt to infer that there was no moisture at all in the air of our planet, at the very time when in fact there was so much moisture that not one layer only, but two layers of clouds enveloped the earth, the innermost layer consisting of particles of liquid water, the outermost of particles of frozen water. Using the words ice, water, and steam, to represent the solid, liquid, and vaporous states of water, we may fairly say that ice and water, by hiding steam, would persuade the remote observer that there was no water at all on the earth—at least if he trusted solely to the spectroscopic evidence then obtained.2
We might in like manner fail to obtain any spectroscopic evidence of the presence of particular elements in the sun, because they do not exist in sufficient quantity in the vaporous form in those outer layers which the spectroscope can alone deal with.