Mars has in recent years received much more attention than any other planet and the newspapers have announced marvelous things concerning it.

If the earth is exactly at the node at the time of new moon, the moons shadow will fall centrally upon it and will produce an eclipse visible within the torrid zone, since this is that part of the earths surface nearest the plane of its orbit. If the earth is near but not at the node, the new moon will stand a little north or south of the plane of the earths orbit, and its shadow will strike the earth farther north or south than before, producing an eclipse in the temperate or frigid zones.

The zodiacal light is an effect probably due to the sunlight from the myriads of these tiny meteors which occupy the space inside the earths orbit. It is a faint and diffuse stream of light, something that is quite similar to the Milky Way.

Uranus has four satellites, all of them very faint, which present only one feature of special importance. Instead of moving in orbits which are approximately parallel to the plane of the ecliptic, as do the satellites of the inner planets, their orbit planes are tipped up nearly perpendicular to the planes of the orbits of both Uranus and the earth. The one satellite which Neptune possesses has the same peculiarity in even greater degree, for its motion around the planet takes place in the direction opposite to that in which all the planets move around the sun, much as if the orbit of the satellite had been tipped over through an angle of one hundred fifty degrees. Turn a watch face down and note how the hands go round in the direction opposite to that in which they moved before the face was turned through 180 degrees.

A particular meteor is a local phenomenon seen over only a small part of the earths surface, although occasionally a very big and bright one may travel and be visible for a relatively short time over a considerable territory.

Another effect of the atmosphere is the twilight. As at sunrise the mountain top catches the rays of the coming sun before they reach the lowland, and at sunset it keeps them after they have faded from the regions below, so the particles of dust and vapor, which always float in the atmosphere, catch the sunlight and radiates it back to the surface of the earth while the sun is still below the horizon, giving at the beginning and end of day that diffuse light which we call twilight.

There is evident among meteors a distinct tendency for individuals, to the number of hundreds or even hundreds of millions, to travel together swarms.

The true corona appears to be a triple phenomenon. First, there are the polar rays, nearly straight throughout their visible extent. Gradually, as these rays start out from points on the solar disc farther and farther removed from the poles, they acquire increasing curvature, and very probably extend into the equatorial regions, but are with great difficulty traceable there, because projected upon and confused with the filaments having their origin remote from the poles.