THE IMMENSITY OF SPACE.

Progress, Volume II, Issue 2, 1 December 1906, Page 60

THE IMMENSITY OF SPACE.

The first thing to realise about the stars is the immensity of the distances which separate them from one another. If we attempt to express such distances as those of the stars m ordinary units of measurement, we have to deal in numbers which are quite beyond any power of mental realisation. In order to get over this difficulty astronomers have introduced a new unit for the measurement of stellar distances. This is known as the light-year, or the distance which light, travelling at 186,000 miles per second, would traverse in a year. One very curious consequence follows from this way of measuring stellar distances. When we look at the star-strewn sky we are fathoming the depths, not merely of space, but of time. We do not see any star as it was when the light which affects our retma set out upon its journey. And, as almost all visible stars are set at very various distances from the earth, we see them all at different periods. If we look at the constellation of Orion, we see the bright star Bertelguex at the head of the constellation as it was 126 years ago, whilst Rigel at the foot is visible by light which must have started at least three centuries before it reaches us. Sinus, however, which " bickers " into red and emerald to the southeast of Orion, we see by light which only started eight or nine years ago. It is plausibly suggested that some of the faintest stars visible in our largest telescopes may be as much as 30,000 light-years

away The new star which recently displayed itself in Perseus was shown by an ingenious tram of reasoning to be 300 light-years distant, so that in 1902 we were able to watch the progress of a stellar conflagration which really occurred about the time of the Spanish Armada An ingenious French astronomer has based on this fact the pleasant phantasy in which he imagines that a disembodied spirit, able to move with the speed of thought, and endowed with supernatural powers of vision, may at will behold any incident which had ever taken place on the earth under an open sky by transporting itself through space to the point which the light waves emitted by that incident have reached in their endless journey. Such a being, placed at the distance of Canopus, might now be watching the massacre of St. Bartholomew , and by travelling thence 111 a straight line towards the earth it would be able to pass in panoramic view the whole subsequent course of the world's history. Of course, there would be considerable gaps, due to clouds, to the rotation of the earth, and to the fact that a great part ot the earth's history has been conducted indoors But the geneial idea is perfectly sound The old superstition of the Recording Angel might be replaced by this modern discovery of lightwaves which travel for ever out into boundless space with their story of human actions and suffeimgs.

The Hamburg- American liner " Kaisenn Auguste Victoria " has just made a record in giving notice

of her whereabouts over 700 miles. Being due at Plymouth early on a Friday morning she was in communication with her port on Wednesday at mid-day The French liner "La Provence " lately was in communication with Poldhu and Cape Cod at the same time, being 1800 miles distant from England and 1700 from America.