Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1870-09-16

will be multitudes Of stars In various
stages Of dimness, and the brilliancy of
any orb, It's magnitude" In fact, will
therefore depend on It's age, quite as much
as on It's size or distance On this view,
Sir w. Herschel's method of "star gaug-
ingp cannot be relied on for. correct de-
termination of the actual shape of the
cluster called the "Milky- Way" az, in
stead of taking the average of brightness
only as an indication of the average of
distance, we have 70 superadd the average
OF age. Now, the smaller the star the
more quickly will its light die out, and,
therefore, the necessary extent of our
GALAXY Is immensely reduced; in other
words, II appears that while the space
separating US from the nearer stArs, for
which parallax has been obtained,
remains of course unchanged, the com.
puted distances of those hitherto con.
sidered to be farthest OF win be much
| for concluding that telescopic stars are
| necessarily more distant than bright ones
for which we cannot obtain parailax, but
simply that they are older, or smaller, or
both, and therefore DINNER.
II will be readily allowed that, If the
light of the stars be fading away, q vast
number may have already become extinct,
and that IL is indeed possible that the orbs
now visible may be but small surviving
| remnant of far greater mrltitudes which
once illumined the heavens. If our clus.
ter then be much reduced In extent. and
| its constituents be largely increased in
number, It would follow that the chances
against collision would be much reduced,
Let US suppose that collisions are possible,
and that their frequency is merely ques-
tion of chances. What would be the
consequences of such an event ? Il is
| possible that they would depend chiefly
on the relative momenta of the colliding
bodies; that if one were much larger
than the other, and the velocities high,
the temperature would be raised suffi.
ciently to dissipate the smaller into gas,
while merely heating or, possibly, liquefy.
ing the larger. II the bodies were nearly
OF size, and their momenta were great,
| possibly both would be reduced to gas.
eous condition in either case their ten
denCy would be TO form ultimately bcdy
equal in weight to the Bum OF its two con
stituents. Either the larger body would
annex the smaller, or, if both became
nebulous, the fervid gases would radiate
their heat and contract anew into q sys.
TEN possibly containing a sun and plan
| cts.
Again, supposing that two bodies sp-
proach each other in such manner as to
avoid collision, that is, 30 that their mu.
tual gravity causes them to leave their
paths and revolve round each other, we
should have the explanation of the exist.
ence OF double, treble, multiple stars !, we
should also understand how it happens
that some stars (Sirius, for instance) are
accompanied by non-luminous orbs. Also,
1t would seem that if extinct stars are
really far more numerous than is general
| ly supposed, the theory which regards the
revolution of attendant dark bodies as
one cause of the variability of certain
stars receives fresh support
Thus, in the course of time, nebuIa
would form suns, suns would grow cold,
or, while yet glowing, would come into
contact with other suns, till gradually
space would be psopled with suns, larger
and larger, but less and less thickly
strewn. Pursuing the idea, we arrive at
q period when all the stars of each galaxy
shall become agglomerated into one
mighty globe-nsy, when all these vast
galactic suns shall come together and
form one solitary orb, in which all the
matter once scattered through space shall
be collected, accomplishing its successive
fates as sun without system-a world
without a sun-a cold and naked ball
Harper's Weekly.