Amazing Astronomical Problem.

Lake County Press, Issue 2115, 26 April 1906, Page 2

Amazing Astronomical Problem.

w " .ire \\ 11 a.-Mir- <1 iim’.v that tii.; I j <■!!• ! a - L j 1.1: .1! I r KI < it: | ii:; • i b i,.; msi Tii.it silt | 11. '.' I>• •«!n-:i ii,-. vi• i i<■/)••.i I lii'ir |i i*- . i i-i kiil i ( j.ins and C"la I I (ms i>\ a I 11; • u-i• -;s i'i growth inking million;'. > i 1 | m■ s. r||. f suin' factors ih;il ha\* 1 i ii-i'll .'irt i\ e in ihr pa.M are slil^, ■ j .-I »"I'.l l i \ [li (i./ni'i ng ia iij.;i 'S ill mag ■ ~ !mi n ilisla iK".-. in 11 -1111 > 'i'll Ime and ! lie iike. Tin' imnni. once a cor |( i« » I'll I'■ |UI'l i. I I il" i'l( !'l hj , has l-'ft i I I i 1 11 * i»11 i i : 'dal anion. a:; d wt!i mo-.,' Mill fmi her a waV-Aoi' M-met ilin.K ill" iifiy million aiiiT which ii will I'alnrn. 1 Tin' sun is a mass of mis, 'TT -njfi by ils i-oiil I'uct ion 1 In - ! n * ri ” r'ii' i:. i ■ (ion has h.'coini' exceed i in, ly hot. ai- I ■ is i'iid ia I i ini' iis energy away a i a d«‘Unite and known rail-. As it is limiii'd in size and amount of nia("fial. mu' iiia\' witlioul didienlly calcu- ' lam i hat ih" supply of limit from it will last about Ini million years. I' will cease to shine and heroine cold unless something like a ca 1 asl roph" shall re-endow il with a high mm perature and larger volume. when ii may repeal, the history of these millions of years past. The same conflit ions of contraction and rise of temperature are observable in tlions- ' amis of t lie heavenU bodies, am! in all s( aces from thin gaswous masses i lo cold noii-1 inninous solid bodies , \fiw that we know so much of the past history of the solar system, and in addition that our nearest neigh hour is more than OOO.nuo times the distance to the sun. also that tinwhole system is itself moving in space at the rate of about 100 million miles a year in the direction of the star Vega. we yet need to know whether this motion is a drift repaid of an orbit. At present no one knows. The direction and the rate of motion of a number of stars have been very well determined, hut such measures are not numerous enough to enable us to say whether there is more order in the movement of tinstars than there is among the molecules of a gas, where molecular collisions are constantly taking place. SUDDEN' BLAZING OF A STAR. Such phenomena as that of lint new star which suddenly blazed mu. in Perseus are now explained only by assuming stellar collisions wherein the masses are so large and have such velocity (hat impact at once reduces (.hem t.o incandescent gas. This means the possibility of such a disaster to the solar system, hut it is a present comfort lo know that if we. were (o collide with our nearest > neighbour, at the present rate. Id miles a second, it would take nearly 50.000 years to reach it. * ******** Though limited, one can get some, idea of the magnitude of the universe when it appears that some of the. remote stars are so far away as to require something like a million of years for their light to reach us. though light travels at the rate o( 150.000 miles a second—a distance so great that, it would take billions of years to reach them at the rate we are now moving in space, namely ahold 100 millions of miles a year. Space seems illimitable, time is long, and if matter is indestructible. yet the solar system as we know il will have gone through all its phases of growth, maturity, old age and d<‘ath. long enough before the general aspect of the heavens will have been greatly changed from what they am to-day. This is astronomical work of importance awaiting research.