Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECTION V. Lunar Theory—Periodic Perturbations of the Moon—Equation of Centre— ETection—Variation—Annual Equation—Direct and Indirect Action of Planets—The Moon's Action on the Earth disturbs her own Motion— Exeentricity and Inclination of Lunar Orbit invariable—Acceleration— Secular Variation in Nodes and Perigee—Motion of Nodes and Perigee inseparably connected with the Acceleration—Nutation of Lunar Orbit— Form and Internal Structure of the Earth determined from it—Lunar, Solar, and Planetary Eclipses—Occultations and Lunar Distances—Mean Distance of the Sun from the Earth obtained from Lunar Theory— Absolute Distances of the Planets, how found. Ouk constant companion, the moon,next claims ourattention. Several circumstances concur to render her motions the most interesting, and at the same time the most difficult to investigate, of all the bodies of our system. In the solar system, planet troubles planet; but, in the lunar theory, the sun is the great disturbing cause, his vast distance being compensated by his enormous magnitude, so that the motions of the moon are more irregular than those of the planets; and, on account of the great ellipticity of her orbit, and the size of the sun, the approximations to her motions are tedious and difficult, beyond what those unaccustomed to such investigations could imagine. The average distance of the moon from the centre of the earth is only 237,360 miles, so that her motion among the stars is perceptible in a few hours. She completes a circuit of the heavens in 27d 7h 43™ 4S'7, moving in an orbit whose excentricity is about 12,985 miles. The moon is about four hundred times nearer to the earth than the sun. The proximity of the moon to the earth keeps them together. For so great is the attraction of the sun, that, if the moon wer...