A SECOND UNIVERSE

Evening Star, Issue 19198, 15 March 1926, Page 4

A SECOND UNIVERSE

ISOLATES} SYSTEM 700,000 LIGHT YEARS AWAY For years astronomers have speculated on whether various nebulous formations in the heavens belonged to this universe or were “island” universes of their own, illimitable distances away. Some of the while patches were known to be true nebulae composed of luminous gases or star clusters that dissolved before the telescope. But others puzzled, no telescope being strong enough to separate them into their component parts, some astronomers suggesting that they were universes of suns so far away that they appeared as ono mass. Evidence that another universe really exists is offered by Dr Edwin P. Hubble in a study published by the University of Chicago in the ‘ Astro-Physical Journal.’ Dr Hubble describes this universe as containing bright and dim stars and nebuhe in a heaven like our own, and oilers photographs and definite measurements of the mass of celestial bodies that compo.se it. “ ISLAND ” UNIVEKSE. Ho found that this external galaxy, similar in many ways to onr own, although entirely outside of the earth’* galactic system, is 700,000 light years away. According to his computation it is 4,000 light years across. The galaxy’s general appearance was described as like that of the Magellanic clouds, a mass of nebuhe like the Milky Way in the skies of the Southern Hemisphere. “The present investigation identities N.G.C. 6,822 (the numerical classification of the galaxy) ns an isolated system of stars and nebula* of the same type ns the Magellanic clouds, although somewhat smaller and much more distant,” said Dr Hubble. “ The dimensions , and densities, both of the system ns a whole and of its separate numbers, are of orders of magnitude which arc thoroughly familiar. The distance is the only rmantity of a new- order. “Tlio principle of the uniformity Nature seems to rule undisturbed ~i this remote region of space. It is a matter of considerable importance that familiar relations arc found to he consistent when applied to the first system definitely assigned to the regions outside the galactic system.”

Dr Hubble made his observations at Mount Wilson Observatory, where many important astronomical researches have been carried on.