STAR BETA CETI

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18802, 3 March 1923, Page 7

STAR BETA CETI

ENGLISH YOUTH’S DISCOVERY. ASTRONOMERS PUZZLED. Frcsi A«»ocialioo—By > Telegraph—Copyright PARIS, March 1. The sudden increase in brilliance of the star Beta Ceti to 17 times its usual extent was made by Mr Abbot, an English astronomer, aged 16, who is employed in the Athens Observatory. He immediately telegraphed the news to M. Camille Flamroanon, who checked the observation and then published the news. Astronomers are eagerly discussing the causes of this phenomenon. They are of opinion that if a similar conflagration occurred in our solar system the earth would be reduced to a cinder in a short time. The cataclysm possibly is due to' falling .(.stars of satellites. This strange modification of Beta in the constellation of the Whale is exciting the liveliest discussion.

Urgent telegrams are being sent to the obsei'vatories south of the Equator to study the star. Historians of astronomy state that in the year 127 before Christ the star was of the third magnitude. In Anno Domini 1600 it was of the second magnitude, but it dropped to the third magnitude by 1700, and then rose again. French astronomers attribute the present changes to the explosion of hydrogen on a large scale, or to a collision with a smaller star.—A. and N.Z. Cable.