EXPLODING STARS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 122, 19 November 1927, Page 20

EXPLODING STARS

ENERGY SUDDENLY RELEASED.

A star of a type identical with our sun, but said to.be 30,000 times as large, has just exploded in the Bouthern sky half way up the zenith, according to a cable message f»om Germany to Professor E. B. frost, director of the Yerkcs Observatory at Williams Bay (U.S.A.). The explosion of the star,, known as Nova Acquilae, is the first reported in two years, Professor Frost said. No cause of the explosion can bo given. The expansion or explosion of the star was announced by Dr. Max WoolS, of Heidelberg University, and confirmed by photographs taken at Harvard University. "These actions," Professor Frost said, ."are believed to be due to sudden, trigger-like release of interatomic energy,-due, very likely, to the_ unbelievable heat of the suns' interior. Temperature inside the stars vary from. 500,000,000 to 100,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit." Illustrating energy contained in. ..atoms and what could be accomplished if it could be released and utilised, the professor said that a glass of water contained enough energy to send the Mauretania across the Atlantic Ocean and back. Or it would send all the motor-cars in the country from Chicago to New York and return. "This energy, suddenly released, drives from the stars the encircling gaseous Bhells which reach the planets in the wake of shrivelling heat. The stars are not -destroyed by the expansions, the nucleus remains, and in time acquires another gaseous shell," tho professor said.