Science Art: Fig 61, A Voyage in Space, “Fragments from the Rings Falling into the Sun,” 1915.

10 July 2022 grant Featured, Science Art 0

Scientific illustration of saturn's rings sending meteors into the sun to cause sunspots (a theory since disproved).
Scientific illustration of saturn's rings sending meteors into the sun to cause sunspots (a theory since disproved).

This is an illustration of a defunct theory. The idea being put forward explains sunspots as the impacts of meteors, which come from the rings of Saturn but are knocked out at regular intervals by the Leonid meteor shower.

This illustration originally ran in Illustrated London News, but was reprinted (enthusiastically) by Oxford professor H.H. Turner, the author of A Voyage in Space: a course of six lectures “adapted to a juvenile auditory” delivered at the Royal Institution at Xmas 1913. The book is available in all its illustrated glory on archive.org.