Independently of the increased and increasing heat, there was another
very conclusive demonstration that the earth had thus suddenly
approximated towards the sun. The diameter of the solar disc
was now exactly twice what it ordinarily looks to the naked eye;
in fact, it was precisely such as it would appear to an observer
on the surface of the planet Venus. The most obvious inference
would therefore be that the earth's distance from the sun
had been diminished from 91,000,000 to 66,000,000 miles.
If the just equilibrium of the earth had thus been destroyed,
and should this diminution of distance still continue,
would there not be reason to fear that the terrestrial world
would be carried onwards to actual contact with the sun,
which must result in its total annihilation?

The continuance of the splendid weather afforded Servadac
every facility for observing the heavens. Night after night,
constellations in their beauty lay stretched before his eyes--
an alphabet which, to his mortification, not to say his rage,
he was unable to decipher. In the apparent dimensions of
the fixed stars, in their distance, in their relative position
with regard to each other, he could observe no change.
Although it is established that our sun is approaching the
constellation of Hercules at the rate of more than 126,000,000
miles a year, and although Arcturus is traveling through space
at the rate of fifty-four miles a second--three times faster
than the earth goes round the sun,--yet such is the remoteness
of those stars that no appreciable change is evident to the senses.
The fixed stars taught him nothing.

Far otherwise was it with the planets. The orbits of Venus and Mercury