PUZZLE OF THE HEAVENS

Waikato Times, Volume 103, Issue 17365, 29 March 1928, Page 7

PUZZLE OF THE HEAVENS

COLLISION BETWEEN STARS. REMARKABLE OBSERVATION. (Australian and N.Z. Cable Assn.) CAPETOWN, .March 27. The staff of the Union Observatory al. Johannesburg record a remarkable observation made last week. Mr Bernard Dawson, at the La Plata Observatory, Argentina, reported that 'the star Nova Pictoris was looking strange, and he could not properly study il with his small telescope. He therefore asked the officials at Johannesburg to make an examination of the star through their 26Jin instrument. This was done by various members of the staff, who claim to have, discovered that the star was spjit in 'two. Mr Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal, at the Capetown Observatory, says, however, that it is wrong to say that the star is split in two. There are two stars now, and there were two stars before, although they diet nol know it. Nova Pic-Loris belongs to a class of stars .which blaze up rapidly in the course of a few days from below the naked eye visibility to a very brilliant state. The two stars nowvisible seem to show that 'they are due to a collision between two stars, or t-o a grazing impact of two stars. Mr Jones says he judges the distance between the two stars to be 1-5 of a second of an arc. He thinks it is possible that this is the first direct evidence of a collision or of a grazing impact of shirs. The origin of the solar system is the direct result of an incidentally similar occurrence. The nebula consequent -on the outburst in the Pictoris constellation may condense into planets and form another solar system where life may evolve.