Our Nearest Sky Neighbours

Inangahua Times, 10 December 1929, Page 1

Our Nearest Sky Neighbours

H 3433 and MB3 The Universe Around Us \ (By Sir James Jeans). ' Not everyone will agree with Str ] James Jeans that the effect of the ( astonishing advances of astronomy, , since the first telescope was made in j 1608, has been to make man “ realise , his own insignificance in the uni- , verse.” ' No one, indeed, can fail to be ( awed by the knowledge that the firm earth on which we stand is but a . particle whirling round a minor star \ itself but one of millions of incredible ■night and majesty, and yet that even these are so scattered in space thaf “ six specks of dust in Waterloo Station about represent the extent to which it is occupied by stars in its most crowded parts.” But, quite apart from the philosophic reflection that the mind that is capable of comprehending these marvels, by that act proves itself a j greater marvel still, there is much in ' Sir James’s account of the universe that tends to reinstate man at its spiritual, if not its material, centre. Stupendous as the universe is. Sir James seems to bring it within calculable, if not comprehensible bounds. We can calculate that the radius of the universe must be- someihing like 80,000,000 light-years, or little more than half the distance of the farthest visible nebula. The journey of light round space and back to the starting point would take about 500,000,000 years, so that if we could see even three or four times as far into space as we now see the nebulae nearest to the sun ought to be visible by light which had travelled the long way round the universe. These are not the mere irresponsible reveries of a heated imagination. It has been quite seriously suggested that two faint nebulae (H 3433 and MB3) may actually be our two nearest neighbours in the sky, M 33 and M3l, seen the long way round space. The universe, thus limited in space, j is limited also in time, for it is all dissolving away into radiation, running down like a clock. But on the supreme question how it was first wound up, astronomy has nothing 10 say. i If we want a concrete picture of - * - • • creation,” says St. James, we may think of the finger of God aftitftflfig Use etbsti’ 1