The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-01 00:00:00

RESULTS OF ASTRONOM Y.

According to a conjecture first made by. the great
Herschel', and afterwards furthcr developed and ren-
dered intelligible by Madler, the entire system of fixed
stars forms, if we may use the expression, a single
lens•shaped canopy. That is, we, with 'our sun, are
situated nearly in the middle of a space, having the
form of two watch-glasses, placed with the concave
surfaces towards each other. The surfaces of this
canopy are studded tolerably equally with fixed stars-
But as we are a thousand times nearer those situated
above and below than those at the edges of this hollow-
lens, so the distances between the stars immediately-
above us seem greater, whilst the legion of those dis-
tributed at the edge are seen in densely crowded masses.
IWe may consider the Milky Way asj the edge and
furthermost limit of this set of fixed stars, where the
infinitely distant crowds of stars are collected. in such
masses, that their light flgvs together into a whitish
cloud, and no longer perm, us to isolate one star from
another.
Beyond this our Its, Herschel and the most recent
astronomers imagine that the spots of clouds which
'appear lice oval flakes in the sky, are oqa r entirely dis-
tinct and independent systems, which float at such an
immeasurable distance from that• the light has to
wander millions of years in reaching to ug.
It is, however, as we before remarked, sufficient for
our purpose to take firm conslti:sration °ply the stars of
the twelfil, ruc^,nitudv, from which the light can travel
to us in four thousand years. From what we have al-
ready said, viz., that the ray of light meeting our eye is
not sent forth from the star at the same 'moment, but
arrives here according to the corresponding and. requisite
number jof steonds, minu'cs, or years, it 'follows that
we do not see the star as it is, bat as it was at the time
when the ray of light e-as emitted.
Thus we see the star in Centl.ur as it was three years
ago, Vega as it was twelve years and one mouth ago,
and so on to the star of the twelfth magnitude,e)which'
we look upon as it shone tour thousand years ago.
Hence follows the conclusion which has frequently been
made by astronomers, and which in its result haibecome
__popular, viz., that a star of the 12th magnitude may
have been extinguished, or set tour thousand years age,
whilst we, nevertheless, continue to see its light shining.
This conclusion, when applied to each of the former
positions, gives the following results.
We do not see the moon as it is, but as it was a second
and a quarter before; i. e., the moon may already have
been dispersed into atoms for more than a second, and
we should still see it entire and perfect.
We do not see the sun as it now is, but as it was eight
minutes before; Jupiter as it was fifty-two minutes;
Uranus as is was more dean two hours before; the star
in Centaur as it was three years ago; Vega as it was nine
and a quarter years; and a star of the 12th magnitude as
it was tour thousand years ago.
These propositions are well known, and have already
been published in popular works upon astronomy.
It is really marvellous that nobody has thought of
reversing them, and of drawing the very remarkable and
astonishing conclusions which pour upon us. in a full
stream from the converse; and it is our intention here to
examine the converse and the iuferences which may
thence be drawn.

The following is the relative view of the matter : as
we have before remarked, we s,,e the disc of the moon
not in the form in which it now is, but as it was five
quarters of a second before the time of observation.

- In exactly the same way an imaginary observer in the
moon would not see the earth as it was at the moment of
observation, but as it was five quarters of a second before.
An observer from the sun sees the earth as it was eight
minutes before. From Uranus the time between the
reality and the perception by the e3O being two hours
and a half apart ; if, for example, the summit of the
Alps on a certain morning was illumined by the first ray
of the sun at six o'clock, an observer in this planet, who
was provided either with the requisite power of vision,
or a sufficiently good telescope, would see this indication
of the rising of the sun at half-past eight of our time.
An observer in Centaur can of course never see the
northern hemisphere of the earth, because this constella-
tion never rises above our horizon.- But supposing it
possible, and that an observer were standing in this star
with such powerful vision as to be able to distinguish
all particulars upon our little ear h shining, but feebly
luminous in its borrowed light, he would see, in the
year 1843, the public illuminations which, in the year
1840, made the cities of our native country shine with
the brightness of day during the darkness of night. An
ebsener in Vega would see what happened with us
twelve years ago, and so on, until an inhabitant of a
star of the twelfth magnitude, if we imagine him with
unlimited power of vision contemplating the earth, sees
it as it was four thousand years ago, when Memphis
was founded, and the Patriarch Abraham wandered upon
its surface.

In the immeasurably great number of fixed stars
which-are scattered about in the universe, floating in
;ether at a distance of between fifteen and twenty bil-
lions of miles from us, reckoning backwards ally given
number of years, doubtless a star could be found which
sees the past epochs of our earth as if existing now, or
so nearly corresponding to the time, that the observer
need wait no longer time to see its condition at the re-
quired moment.