THE SPLENDOUR OF THE HEAVENS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1680, 11 May 1904, Page 81 (Supplement)

THE SPLENDOUR OF THE HEAVENS

Mr Robert Kerr, E.G-.5., P.R.A.S., lias been lecturing . eloquently on The .Splleaidour of. the. Heavens. The. subject, said the lecturer at - the/outset, was a very; wonderful one; it was, indeed, <allmost.presumption oil ... the paid of any human; being to. describe the .'splendour of tho heavens, and ho did not think that the greatest • living astroniom er could • possibly imdeistand aill that was meant by, or' included in, the simplest statement m the science. In /his youthful days the most elementary • statement made was that this earth of ours, with, its attendant inoom —'its junior partner —flew round the sun, at a distance of 93,000,000 -miles, once -a year. But, what did miles convey when they went out to, millions? If they travelled by train at the rate of a mile a minute, day and flight, it would take about 23 weeks and 3 days to get to the moon, 237,600 miles away ; and at tho same speed it AvouLd -take 174 years-to reach the sun. Last /ybar/a; huge cannon .was made .in America-/ and was fired by electricity. The Initial velocity of the proa e otil e was measured, and-wasrfound to be over 2000 feet per second; whieh, . if maintained, woqld carry it over a distance of 1363 miles an 'hour. But the huge ball cm

which Ave lived, 25,000 miles in circumference.. with its oceans, its cities, its continents and its atmosphere, fleAv 50 times faster than that projectile. If they could not conceive the speed uf that projectile, how was it possible they could imagine the velocity of the earth. During GO of the 90 minutes of his lecture they would alll have travelled 68,QOO miles in space. The- lecturer went on to show the great increase in the number of, the Pleiades with increasing telescopic poAver, and remarked that photography showed the greatest number of ail. Whereas jowly some six or seven couild be seen with till© naked eye, fully 2000 Avere recorded by photography. One of them, Alcyone, Avas a thousand times larger than our. ' sun. He also incidentally mentioned that no one could tell the distance 'of the Pleiades, there being no displacement <of them Avhen the earth was at the extremities of its orbit. He AVent on to speak of Alpha Centauri, supposed to be the nearest of the stars to us, but from which' 1 the light took three and a quarter years to travel, and said that if the light of ; Giant Sirius were 'extinguished at that inomeint, we should not know of the fact 'until sixteen years had - elapsed. Supposing, too, that Arcturusi went out this week end it would still! shine to us for 35 years, and astronomers Avoiddsay after the lapse of that time -that its light must have been extinguished in the early part of the year 1904.