Gegenschein is German for “counter shine.” The mystery covered in the article below is the reflection of the sun’s light against meteoric material. This reflection occurs opposite of the sun and had led to a lot of speculation in the newspapers in the early 1900s.
Mystery Of Heavenly Body
Professor Pickering’s Explanation of Peculiar Light That Long Has Puzzled Astronomers
There is visible in the night sky, under favorable circumstances, a faint light, rounded in outline, and situated always exactly opposite to the place of the sun. It is called the “gegenschien,” and is one of the most inexplicable objects known to astronomers.
Professor Pickering has suggested a new explanation of the gegenschein. According to him it may be a sort of cometary or meteoric satellite, attending the earth. He supposed it to be composed of a cloud of meteors, situated about 1,000,000 miles from the earth, and revolving around it in a period of just one year, so that the sun and the meteors are always on opposite sides of the earth.
He estimates that the size of this ghostly satellite may be nearly the same as that of the planet Jupiter, viz: about 86,000 miles in diameter. [This is pretty much accurate. Jupiter’s diameter is 86,881.4 miles.]
The Tucumcari News. Newspaper. June 27, 1908.
