Show Exploration of Vast Distances Fascinates Men By BRUCE CATTON There is a dark and md shivery n nation tion about tho those infinite empty spaces out beyond the stars A full lull understanding of Jf the science of astronomy astronomy as Is too much for most of us us but we can listen to the things the astronomers say and now and then we discover that these scientific gentlemen gen tiemen are arc pl playing with the raw materials ma ma- of great poetry 1 Consider fo nce the Chicago astronomers astronomer's recent discovery of at the high winds that sweep the stars stars- stars stars- winds that reach a velocity of miles an m hour howling and swirling through everlasting emptiness above the lifeless plain plains of far o off far planets Or listen to the Harvard astronomer I who has gone exploring via the telescope tele telescope scope in in that incomprehensibly distant dis tant patch of at light known as the I clouds These clouds first reported by Ferdinand Fer Per d dinand Dand Magellan are so far away that it takes takes' their light years to reach the earth yet they are so large that the ring ring like formation o of one oneo o of them is clearly visible in the thc telescope telescope tele tele- scope and it is estimated that they give off ott more marc light than all the naked naked- eye stars put together Meditating on on things like these these- cosmic hurricanes of unimaginable force and rings gas so vast and so dist distant mt that the mind staggers trying to them them them-is is probably a n averl verl r 1 Impractical pursuit Our lives ong just about as they truy would s iS ric ie phenomena never cx- cx d v 4 7 to have trouble enough tOUr ces cs s to earthly horizons It onvY n vy s profitless to wice of r these e worldly other-worldly bits c ft Lh unspeakably the w wW a thought of these the stuff of which poetry ic c wild swept gale poetry of that t blows small considers r J clear out of a mans man's heart and andes ande's leaves es s Ii lm Blinking at the Immensity and n the mystery of the forces which surround round human life Far Fr away from us on desolate landscapes landscapes land land- capes where no life Ufe is or has been since the thc world was made there blows hurricane A ring of flame lame big enough to encircle our sun and andall andall andall all our planets planets' burns alone so distant dis ds- ds tant that we see it Jt only as a faint light cloud on the thc blackness of ot the sky And what of that Nothing perhaps perhaps perhaps per per- haps except that these facts haunt our minds and stand as symbols of the titanic miracles miracles amid amid which our lives arc are cradled |