ROMANCE OF HELIUM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 22 October 1924, Page 9

ROMANCE OF HELIUM.

GAS WAS DETECTED IN -SUN. SPECTROSCOPE DISCOVERY". STARS AND THE EARTJI. r Iboiesivor H. H. Turner. F.R g 5n John o’ London’s Veekiy,' tens' mariy strange facts about the stars , A century ago. h e writes, it seemed ini 1 .0.,.u, e ue siiouni ever Know ol wiiat the stars were made, or even now far away they might be, though u e knew that they must be very remote. In the largest telescopes thev appeared as mere specks of light; we could watch then- tmv movements, dwarfed by their great distances, and ue could see, of course, that one speck seemed brighter than another; a ‘ e did not know whether the apparently fainter star of the two niight not he reallv brighter, if both were seen at the same distance

Blit then came the invention of the spectroscope, a wonderful instrument which analyses the light from a star (or other source of light) into rainbow colours; and it was gradually noneed that these colours were crossed by various line markings, different, in /+u rS ’ i Wblcb , lls in plain language (though a language only slowly and painfully Kirnt) what the stars am made of. how fast thev are mnvi,,, towards us or from us, and even how bright they really are, so that w© ran inter their distance away. ThC la«t niece of knowledge, however, could not have been gained without a parall-1 advance in other astronomical instwments, which;gave us the first, measure ot the distances of one or two special stars about the time when Queen Vic-tor-a ascended the throne. The stars have been found to bo made of the same materials as compose our earth. Before this was realised, it had seemed natural to suppose that these remote objects might contain quite different substances. and, indeed, the first revelations of the spectroscope seemed to support tins view. There were substances on our earth which could not he recomsed in the stars, and others in the stars which w e had not yet found m earth For instance, the oxvgen breathe, which seems so irdospensablo to most forms °f animal life 0 n tKearth, for a long time could not be traced in the distant -stars, or even in onr own sun. It seemed a R though we might lie exceptionally privileged in having oxygen for our*earthly use. At last ail Enelish amateur astronomer. Dr. Frank McClean, having examined all the bright stars in tbo northern hemisphere (without finding oxygen in them) took his telescope, nnd spectroscope to the Cape of Good Hope in order to examine the southern stars in the same way; and in the course of his survey traced the oxygen in one of _ the stars of the Southern Cross. This most important first step was soon followed up; oxygen has now been recognised in our sun and various stars, specially in combination with other elements so that we need no longer regard ourselves as separated from the rest of the universe by being the only possessors of oxygen.* MYSTERIOUS ELEMENT.

Again, there was a mysterious substance which showed a bright line in the spectrum of our sun, which could not be recognised as belonging to any substance we knew of. Being only, known through this one line of the ■Sun’s ( spectrum, the substance was given the name of helium, and we had utmost resigned ourselves to remaining for ever on terms of distant acquaintanceship with it when Professor Miers, of Oxford, one day suggested that a certain gas yeilded by the mineral deveite, which had been presumed to he nitrogen, should bo examined with the spectroscope; and on doing so Sir YVilliam Ramsay found to his astonishment that it gave that particular line—he had “run helium to earth.”

Tlie consequences of this discoA'evy were far-reaching in many ways. The single line recognised in the sun’s spectrum was now found to be onlv one of the number, through Avhich helium Avas recognised in many stars; and hot only this, hut Avas seen to play a leading part in' their life history. Again, it Avas found to lie almost the lightest gas known, nearly as light as hydrogen, but not inflammable like it; so that is was far more suitable for use in a Zenpelin. Though still A r ery difficult to procure, enough of it Avas obtained in the United States toAvards the end of the Avar for filling. an airship. Had the end of the Avar not come Avhen it did. and if this airship had attacked Germany with its oaa'u murderous weapons, it could not haA'e been destroyed Inflames. as Avere those which perished OAmr England. Possibly an airship of this kind may vet do the work of terrible destruction in the future. If so, it is curious t f think of such con sequences floAvingfrow the peaceful pursuit of astronomy. T' is pleasenter to turn for a moment to yet other results flowing from the discovery of helium. AA’liich was found J o ' occupy a very important pbvc in the structure' of chemical elements BREAKING THE ATOM We have seen that helium was gn'ei* off from the mineral eleveite. Further investigations showed that this was dm to the existence of a marvellous element called radium, from which part icles of helium are continually flyinf off; which represents the breaking up of the atoms of radium —those atoms which we had previously belived t/ be unbreakable, as their astral name signifies; A neAv chapter in science was thus opened; atoms Avere recognised as miniature systems of electrons flying round a central nucleus and in genera 1 retained by its attraction; but some, times they get away and .sometime as in the case of radium even the central nucleus breaks up To- fob low this new phvsics further wm-V take us too far f r om mr actual tonio but w° mav ayalu reflect how -muck do pended noon th™ identification o-f that single lino i.n th" sun’s rnpr-t'-'ii" whioh remained for so long an unsolved puzzle.