THE “COUNTLESS STARS”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20110, 31 March 1928, Page 14 (Supplement)

THE “COUNTLESS STARS”

WONDERFUL OBJECTS. Although the stars in the heavens cally are countless, the “countless f.ars ” actually number only about 12,51)0, Professor Charles E. Rogers, of Trinity College, Hartford (U.S.A.), I told Dean Edward L. Troxell, of the same institution, in a radio dialogue. “Were it possible to see at onc time all stars that are visible to the unaid*c I eye the number would be less than 6,000,” said Professor Rogers. “Careful estimates indicate that no one individual at any one place is able to sec ;riiore than 2,500 distinct stars, or points of light.” However, he explained, with the aid of the most powerful telescopes the hazy mass of the “Milky Way” becomes a galaxy of countless billions of Fars, of which tho world’s sun is one of the smallest. The distance across this starry expanse, which centres in the broad, double-convex stream of stars known as the Milky Way, is 200,000,000 light years, or the distance a ray of light, travelling 186,000 miles a second, would progress in 200,000,000 years. While the diameter of the c.uth. is about 8000 miles, Professor IRogcrs said, that of our sun is 860,000 miles, and the diameter of the stars Y’.nge from 24,000 miles to as much as 500,000,000 miles.