OCR Text |
Show precludes all possibility of a boundary. boun-dary. But the number of stars visible vis-ible with our largest telescopes io far from infinite; for we should greatly overestimate "their number in allowing ten star3 to every human hu-man being alive this moment upon our little planet. Are, then, the inconceivable in-conceivable vastnessos of space tenanted ten-anted with other universes than tho ones our telescopes unfold? We are driven to conclude that in all probability they are. Just as ou. planetary system is 'everywhere surrounded sur-rounded by a roomy, starless void, so, doubtless, our. huge, " sidereal cluster rests deep in an out space everywhere, enveloping illimkabii-ity. illimkabii-ity. So remote must b these eceina1. galaxies that unextinguished light irom them, although it speed3 eigh. times round the earth. in a single second, cannot reach us in millions of years. .. Verily infinite space transcends apprehension by finite intelligence. Tt us end with Newtoa as we be-an. Since his day wrote one of England's Eng-land's greatest astronomers in' hi3 Cardiff address, "our knowledge o the phenomena of nature has wonderfully won-derfully increased; but man ask.,, perhaps more earnestly now- thau then: What i3 the .ultimate reality behind the reality of the percept.ons i Are they only the pebbles of ths beach with which we have been playing? play-ing? Does not the o?an of "ul.i-mate "ul.i-mate reality and truth lie beyond?" (The End.) jist you in finding your bearings. OTHER SUNS The enormous distance and fixed appearance of these stars is conclusive con-clusive that they are not dark, o-paque o-paque bodies like our earth, but are suns like our own. Even Neptune can scarcely be distinguished with largest telescopes, because its light is not self-created, but reflected. But Neptune's distance, compared with the stars or suns, i3 an inch to 100 miles. . There is good reason to believe that. There are systems of planets . revolving re-volving rounds these many suns, similar to our own. "Dark companions" compan-ions" have been detected. "How many suns are there?" "Go, ask the Milky Way.'! - Every diamond point in the glit-ering glit-ering galaxy is a distant sun, with alarming magnitude and boundless scope; all are in motion and average aver-age 20 miles per second in" their various. courses. Yet their vast distance dis-tance gives ' them the appearanc of being set in the sky. This is not fiction, but scientific fact. . Binary stars (suns) are very in-eresting in-eresting constellations, often mov ! ng in pairs and groups of four or nore. Some of their annual per ods are 1500 years. Sirius is o' he binary type. Some revolve sc :losely together, like jazz dancers that there is no daylight between them. Many scientists studiously avoid speculation as to the origin of mat ter. They seem loath to acknow ledge the hand of the Almighty God They call a certain force, gravitation gravita-tion and the law of attraction; bul they don't explain what it is, nor who, how, when, nor why it was created. They explain the motion of the machinery of the universe but they are dumb when it come? o telling us how it came into existence, exis-tence, or who pressed the butten tc start it in the beginning. In this brief article on a subject so stupendous I can do little more Mian draw aside the curtain and bid you look and wonder. To David Todd, to whom I am indebted in-debted for the data herein used, I yield the honor of closing this the seventh and last serial of these studies. stu-dies. . , OTHER UNIVERSES? "When considering known stellar distances, we found stars immense-, ly remote from the solar system in all directions; and everywhere scat tered among myriads remoter still, whose distances we can see no prospect pros-pect of ever ascertaining. What is beyond? Outside the realm of fact, imagination alone can answer. We cannot think of space, except unlimited. unlim-ited. The concept of infinite space ij" A STUDY OF THE :j jj STARS .- . jj jj . .. By MrMTsmith. : (In seven parts Part 7) THE UNIVERSE "Thus the heavens and the 'earth were finished and all the host Oi. whem." Gen. 2-1. Now we learn that "although the sun. in its relation to the pianetar. system, is stationary, he, too, mui. obey a greater law of mo. ion oi.thw universe. Like a drum major leading lead-ing his band, "our . lum.nary L guiu ing his hundreds of planets, command comm-and satellites thru s.eliar space a the rate of twelve miles p?r Scco.... around an orb;t wno.se circie u vast that he appears ior. a Ccu.u. to move in a s.raigh liae. While studying the iun and cii. ' large planets, it seemed a if" thji sizes and distances were inconceivably inconceiv-ably great, but great as they ara, even the solar sys.em itself is as a mere drop to the ocean, when compared com-pared with the vastness of the universe uni-verse of stars. Heretofore, distance" , has been stated in miles. Hereafter, our unit of measurement will be in i light years. Our "yard stick" will ; equal the time it requires a ray of i light to reach the earth from the ; sun. Hence a year of light would travel 5 7-8 trillion miles. According to this method the distances dis-tances of most of the principal stars so far known have been measured. meas-ured. Sirius, one of the nearest stars in stellar space, is 50.trill.on, with the great star Arcturus 950 trillion, and is possibly 100 times our sun's diameter. Some of these estimates are now conjectural. Polaris, our pole star easily located lo-cated in the northern sky, on any starry, moonless night, midway between bet-ween the Dipper and the Zenith, was hanging directly overhead, when Robert E. Peary reached the north Pole in 1909. If for some reason, Polaris should "go out" today, it would still shine to us for 47 years to come. Get familiar with Polaris and the Dipper. You might get lost some right and their position might as |