The satellite nearest to the planet Jupiter must be a
singular place of residence, if there be any possibility of residents at all resembling human beings. In the first place, though it is bigger than our own moon, the substance of which it is com- posed is less than half as light as cork, so that it is not a very solid place of residence. In the next place, though the sun appears very dim from it as compared with what it appears from the earth, it has a moon—namely, Jupiter itself—whose surface appears many hundreds of times larger than our moon. In the third place, the recent observations made of this satellite by Mr. Barnard in the great Lick Observatory, make it not im- probable that this satellite is really cut in two, and that there- fore there may be two separate little worlds, probably not separated by any very great distance (for the total diameter of the two together, if there be two divisions of the satellite which was always supposed till quite recently to be single, is not above 2,300 miles across), revolving together through space, some even of the details of one of which worlds must be visible from the other, if there be anything like telescopes on either half. If the satellite is not cut in two, Mr. Barnard holds that there must be a light belt round it, very like the light belt on Jupiter itself, and that this light belt produces the impression of division under certain circumstances of the orbit. We may hope that the Lick Observatory will at length solve the problem. Perhaps the residents of the two halves of the planet, if it be in halves, can really telegraph to each other.
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