Science: Sky News

Sky news of last week included:

Jupiter's Spot. Abbe Moreux. director of Bourges Observatory at Bourges, France, after looking at Jupiter for a month, announced that he had found another red spot on the planet. The patch is slowly growing bigger. He thinks it may be an immense frozen continent, 30,000 mi. long, 7,000 mi. wide. Other astronomers have seen these spots before, have not been able to find out what they were because they did not possess strong enough telescopes to study them. Just before the War a vivid spot was noted, was interpreted by the superstitious as a sign of bloodshed. Sometimes the patches remain motionless for months, at other times they appear to be rolling about, chasing one another over Jupiter's surface. Why they act in this way has never been determined.

Perkins Reflector. Six years ago a new electrically operated telescope, one of the most costly in the world, was installed at the Perkins Observatory, Delaware, Ohio. The telescope required a 69-in. reflector, third largest in the world. The reflector required more than five years to make. Until it was finished the Perkins astronomers got along as best they could with a small reflector loaned by Harvard University. Last week, after being polished for two years, the large mirror was ready to be installed. Director Harlan True Stetson, onetime Harvard astronomer, watched the installation, summed up in his mind two problems he wants to solve with it: the causes of solar storms, which have a great effect upon terrestrial weather and radio reception; the cosmic clouds which he thinks may surround the earth and sun, may influence the intensity of solar radiation. Perkins Observatory was founded at Ohio Wesleyan University by one of its teachers of mathematics and astronomy, Hiram Mills Perkins. For 50 years, lie saved and invested his $1,800 salary. Before he died he turned back to the university all the money he had, $300,000, instructed them to build an astronomical laboratory with it.