TO SEE STARS

Taranaki Daily News, 22 July 1929, Page 16

TO SEE STARS

THE GREATEST TELESCOPE

TWO SEXTILLION" MILES AWAY.

NOW IN MAKING

Funds have been appropriated for making the largest telescope in the wor ld—a clear pool of glass or, better, of quartz, 200 inches in diameter,, to catch perfect images of the stars (writes N. R. Clarke). This monster eye will collect four times as much light as the 100-inch reflecting telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory and will see at least twice as far out into the universe. The California Institute of Technology will erect a concave reflector which will bring stars too distant for us to see within range of our vision. Man has never been satisfied to be earthbound. He has learned to tunnel beneath its surface, to travel beneath the water and to fly above it. Now he is talking about travelling in a rocket out beyond the earth’s atmosphere and perhaps to the moon or Mars. He wants to see the celestial bodies at close range. But the astronomer, realising that this dream will not be fulfilled in his life-time, has set about to make himself a better peepshow” for examining the vagaries of the stars* What is man going to be able to do with this new eye for seeing the stars ? For the person with a practical turn of mind, one. result stands out. Astronomers will be able to do as much work in one hour with the new telescope as they are now able to .do in four hours with the largest in the world to-day.

THE SPIRAL GROUPS.

First, the gian 1 eye will be trained on blurs of light in the distant heavens. It is believed that these nebulae and other types of star clusters will be resolved into their component stars by the new telescope, as many similar groups were resolved by the Mount Wilson telescope. For years astronomers had disputed among themselves as to the real nature of the spiral groups, such as Andromeda and Ursa Major, until the more powerful telescopes began to tell secrets of their true identity as nebulae. There are still hundreds of thousands ’of such nebulae. which might yield further interesting information about their composition. Photographs will be taken of the new stars, and probably they will be counted to get some idea of the number of stars in the visible universe as it widens under the eye of the telescope. A conservative estimate of the new stars that will swing into our ken is almost a billion. At the present time we can see with the telescopes in existence to-day celestial objects which are more than 800 million million miles away. The light that we see from them to-day started coming toward the earth long before the time fixed by the evolutionists for the appearance of man on the earth. With the new telescope astronomers will be able to see at least twice as far as we now. are able to see, or nearly two sextillion miles away—2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles. But this increase in the number of stars found and in the distance we will be able to see will be minor results from the new telescope, according to Dr. Charles G. Abbot, secretary of° the Smithsonian Institution and foremost authority in the world on solar radiation, who has been chosen as a member of the committee of scientists placed in charge of the entire project.

PICTURES OF MOON AND MARS.

“We will not be able to get better pictures of the moon or Mars with the new telescope. We will not be able to see the canals on Mars any plainer, nor will we get a glimpse of the people on Mars,” he added, with a twinkle. “In fact, it is doubtful whether any telescope will give us clearer pictures of these two bodies than the sixty-inch telescopes already have done, because, as would be expected, the enlarged area of the new reflector will collect a larger number of atmospheric disturbances than a smaller one would do.

“The most interesting result will probably be obtained through an analysis, by means of the spectroscope, of the light from distant stars collected by the giant new reflector. More powerful spectroscopes than any now in existence will be used with the new reflector to find out various kinds of information about stars of which we now know little or nothing. “It is the spectroscope, used in connection with the telescope, that lm>s really been responsible for the great advances in the knowledge of the stars within recent years.”

Through the spectroscope and the new reflector, the temperature and the distance of some of the new stars and many of the old, familiar ones will be measured. At the present time, only the temperatures of stars of the first, second and third, magnitudes can be measured. It is hoped that the new telescope will enable astronomers to measure the heat of all stars the eye can sei;—up to those of the sixth magnitude.

The spectroscope will reveal the chemical elements in the composition of the new stars which will come into vision by means of the new telescope. Such a study of the spectrum of the sun first gave man his knowledge of helium gas. And there are other things to be learned beyond the comprehension of the layman. Perhaps as a result of what the astronomers find out. we may have to change our entire ideas of the universe in which we live, as Galileo and Copernicus did. Perhaps .we may find out that the earth is just a cold fragment of a star that milions of years ago shot it forth. But above all stands out the fact that the astronomers will have a chance to study celestial fire at closer range, in an attempt to learn some of the mysterious secrets.