THE LARGEST TELESCOPE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 110, 9 April 1926, Page 10

THE LARGEST TELESCOPE.

SAN FRANCISCO, March IQ,

According to a telegram received in Sail Francisco the iirooklyn Daily Eagle received a despatch saying a telescope more than twice as large as any in existence is being built by Professor George Willis ilitchcy, the noted astronomer, in Paris. With it Professor ltitchey hopes to observe stars 15,000 times more distant than any at present visible through the largest instruments. Througn it the moon would appear only ten miles away, and the -observable universe would be increased 1,500,000 times in volumo, ho estimates.

Tho now reflector is to bo 19 feet 8 inches in diametor. It is almost ready tor tho critical baking process, upon which its success is expected to depend, and it will be finished during the summer if all goes smoothly. Professor llitehey was superintendent of instrument construction at tho solar observatory at the Carnegie Institute at Pasadena, California. It had - been believed by scientists that the limit of size of telescope construction had been reached because of the differences of expansion and contraction of the parts of a large, solid reflect mirror. In tho new parabolic mirror Professor Ritchey believes he has overcome this difficulty, by making the mirror in cells, resembling those of a honeycomb. Nearly twenty years of research in tho “rare earth” group of the chemical field finally has resulted in tho discovery of one of the five unknown but supposedly existent elements which make up all known compounds. The discovery, the first ever mad© in America was announced by the University of Illinois at Urbanas as the work of Dr B. S. Hopkins, president of the Inorganic Chemistry, assisted by L. Lyntema and J. A. Harris, of the chemistry staff*