They understood spherical trigonometry, and determined the motions of the sun and moon, involving an accurate definition of the year and a method of predicting eclipses; they ascertained that the earth was a sphere, and reduced the phenomena of the heavenly bodies to uniform movements of circular orbits.

Within this "skin" are all the planetsthe "gaseous" atmosphere of the etheric globe stretching millions of miles beyond the outermost planetary orbit.

Definitive orbits of comets Van Biesbroeck, 1935 d, and Barnard-Brooks, 1889 I. Vol.8, pt.4.

While the inclined position of the earth on its axis and its movement in its elliptical orbit influence the general amount of heat, it is rather to the consequences of these in detail that we are called when we speak of temperature.

The whole material universe was opened out before him; the sun with all his attending planets; the planets with all their satellites; the comets wheeling in every direction in their eccentric orbits; and the system of the fixed stars stretching to the remotest limits of space.

They move in their respective orbits in perfect harmony with the central head and with each other.

To be sure, I have only once in the time computed a parabolic orbit; but it seems to me that I know no more in general.

The aphelion of a woman's liberty is soon reached, the dark organic forces bind her to tread the narrow orbit of her sex, and if, at the farthest bound of her individual progress, the attraction could fail, and let her slip from the eternal circle, chaos would be the result.

The ingenious epicycles of Ptolemy prepared the way for the elliptic orbits and laws of Kepler, which in turn conducted Newton to the discovery of the law of gravitation,the grandest scientific discovery in the annals of our race.

These old observations of Flamsteed and those of Le Monnier, combined with those made after Herschel's discovery, were very useful in determining an exact orbit for the new planet, and its motion was considered thoroughly known.

And so, in that supremely future time, the world, dark and intensely silent, rode on its gloomy orbit around the ponderous mass of the dead sun.

It placed in the hollow orbits large eyes full of love; it hid the wasted cartillages under quivering nostrils, and upon that horrible jaw it laid rosy lips and a sweet mouth, like a maiden's first kiss.

By taking a more general view of the subject, Newton showed that a conic section was the only curve in which a body could move when acted upon by a force varying inversely as the square of the distance; and he established the conditions depending on the velocity and the primitive position of the body which were requisite to make it describe a circular, an elliptical, a parabolic, or a hyperbolic orbit.

PLANETS, bodies resembling the earth and of different sizes, which revolve in elliptical orbits round the sun, and at different distances, the chief of them eight in number, two of them, viz., Mercury and Venus, revolving in orbits interior to that of the earth, and five of them, viz., Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, exterior, the whole with the PLANETOIDS (q. v.) and comets constituting the solar system.

She was a great lode star that drew them together, and kept them circling contentedly in their little orbits; she was their oracle, their all-wise counsellor, their loving elder sister.

Comets, according to Sir Isaac Newton, are compact, solid, fixed, and durable bodies: in one word, a kind of planets, which move in very oblique orbits, every way, with the greatest freedom, persevering in their motions even against the course and direction of the planets; and their tail is a very thin, slender vapour, emitted by the head, or nucleus of the comet, ignited or heated by the sun.

Within this "skin" are all the planetsthe "gaseous" atmosphere of the etheric globe stretching millions of miles beyond the outermost planetary orbit.

To preserve this sacred distribution as originally settled, by coercing each to move in its prescribed orbit, is the great and difficult problem, on the solution of which the duration of our Constitution, of our union, and, in all probability, our liberty depends.

All about the sun there seemed to be bright, objects, moving in rapid orbits.

Even in the lower regions, where they have been closed for many a century, their rocky orbits are still discernible, filled in with the detritus of flood and avalanche.

It was a small sphere, but it was a conspicuous one; for there was much strong and energetic character, brought out by the aims and conditions of University life; and though moving in a separate orbit, the influence of the famous place over the outside England, though imperfectly understood, was recognised and great.

"Do you think," he said, "I am in such great terror of being shot,I, who am only waiting to shuffle off my corporeal jacket, to slip away into the back stars, and put diameters of the solar system and sidereal orbits between me and all souls,there to wear out ages in solitude, and forget memory itself, if it be possible?"

Why did he want St. George alive? 6: Battle Lines THE PIRATES' ASTEROID swung in a smooth, private orbit about a thousand miles beyond the farthest extremity of the Asteroid Belt.

Then, there is that dreadful, dark nebula (with its multitudes of red spheres) moving always within the shadow of the Dark Sun, sweeping along on its stupendous orbit, wrapped eternally in gloom.

" The old woman drew herself up, her eyes blazing in their sunken orbits.