Papers of John Guy Porter

Two copies of Porter's script for 'The Night Sky in August' on meteors originating in outer space, rather than as an atmospheric phenomenon, and Thomas Jefferson's opinion on this idea; Venus being at inferior conjunction on 1 September, Mars being also at conjunction, Jupiter and Saturn being visible in the evenings, and Mercury being visible in the mornings at the end of the month; Pegasus, Andromeda, the Pleiades and Aldebaran; Perseus and the Perseids, and the shift in the date of the Perseid shower - an ancient meteor stream traced back over 830 years; the relation to Comet Tuttle of 1862 and the assumption of direct relationships between comets and meteor streams; the showers caused by Comet Giacobini, the recent recovery of this comet by Dr Roemer at Flagstaff, dust in space falling on the Earth and detection of meteors by photography and radar; and the possible risk to space craft from meteors, the density of meteors and the probability that meteorites are debris from the asteroid belt.

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