Astronomers make these calculations with mathematical certainty, calculating also exactly when eclipses of the sun and moon will take place.

This earth compared with the sun is about the size of a pea, the sun being as large as a ghura, or water vessel.

A cannon shot in travelling from the sun to the earth would be more than 19 years in reaching us!

The apparent smallness of the Sun, Moon, and Planets, explained.

THE reason why the sun, the moon, and the planets, though vast worlds, appear so small to us is this; that the farther objects are moved from the eye, the smaller they appear; as a very simple illustration of this, look at the picture of the balloon. When close to us see what an immense thing it is! towering above the crowds which have assembled to see it rise; two men sit in the car attached to it, and it lifts them up with ease into the sky!

See it again, when it has ascended some height from the earth, how small it appears! The two men in it can scarcely be seen waving their flags ! Look once more! the vast balloon is a mere speck in the blue firmament far above the clouds !

Now you can easily imagine how those vast worlds, the sun, moon, and planets, appear so