The Weekly Kansas chief. [volume] (Troy, Kan.) 1872-1918, 1882-01-05
THE DoG-STAR.
What Has Been Pound Out e. ueerning siriss
aud the Worlds that Circle Round Him.

Daring the winter months, one star can he
seen, To the right of the glorious Orion but low
CT down, which shines more splendidly than any
other star in the heavens-though not quite
equal in brightness to either of the two planets
Jupiter and Venus. 1t is Sirins, the Dog-star,
and has i'll all ages excited the admiration of all
observers. 1t is supposed by some that this
| splendid star has changed in color during the
last two Thousand years, for ancient Greek and
Roman writers spoke of it as a red star and
Seneca even said that Sirius ruddier than
Mars. But, most probably, the red light referred
| To by those older writers, simply that Occa-
sional flashing of red light from the star which
you can whenever Sirius is close TO the hori-
zon, when, as Tennyson writes,
The fiery Sirius alters hue
And bickers into rid and emerald
When You have learned what Sirius really is.
| you will see how unlikely il is that he have
changed in color within 1900 years-a period
/ which seems long TO Us, but is really nothing
| in the lifetime of star.
| But what is Srius' Docs the telescope which
1 seems To bring far objects near, tell anything
| about him, as it does about Jupiter Saturn and
I the other planetsi The telescope scarcely tells
us anything. The largest yet made by man only
| shows Sirirs as n very bright star Sir William
HeTSchel tells us that when his great telescope
with its four-foot mirror turned toward Sri-
Us, the approach of the star to the field Of view
reminded him of the approach of daybreak.
| Hut when the star was fairly in view il showed
no globe like that of the sun. II was still
mere star, though, of course, very much bright
| or than any star in the sky. And it is pretty
| certain that men will never he able to make n
telescope which will show the real body of this
/ splendid star.
Yet, for all this We know quite well what
Sirius is. He is a sun like ours, only very much
| larger. He lies about eight hundred thousand
times farther from us than the sun and We
| know that If the set eight hundred
Thousand times further away than he is, he
| would only look like n star, and not n very
| bright star, either. In fact he wonld only Just
| be fairly visible on n dark and clear night. He
would be very faint, indeed, compared with
| Sirius, shining only with about one two-hun-
dredth part of that stars light. Now, this does
not exactly tell how large Sirius il, because
his great brightness may be partly due to the
greater splendOr of his surface. A square inch
| of iron at a white heat gives out much more
| light than square inch of iron at n red heat,
and yet is not larger. So it may be that, though
| the surface of Sirius gives out so much more
light than the surface of the sun, it may yet not
| be much larger.
sun which is 81 much more Respondent than
/ own has much greater surface. do not think
we shall be very far wrong if suppose that
/ the surface of Sirins is not more than twice as
lustrous that of our sun. Now, in order that
| you may see how large Sirius is, compared with
] the great earth on which we live may mention
that the planet Jupiter is the giant of the solar
| system, exceeding our earth in size even more,
| ter. Suppose that Jupiter is represented by
ball inch III diameter, then the earth
which live woud be represented by ball
rather less than tenth of an inch in diameter,
the sun by bali some ten inches in diameter,
and SiriES by globe nearly three yards in d-
ameter according 10 the small size have given
him, but more than five aud one-half yards in
diameter, according to Sir John Hersehel's esti-
mate.
There is yet another way of forming an idea
s.f. hat
To its enormous distance, looks like bright
point in our skies The moon travels at dis
lance from the earth of nearly 2i0,O 600 miles, so
that the entire span of the moons orbit is about
4-0, 600 miles. Now, the diameter of the sun is
about $40, 600 miles; so that if the earth were
set at the centre of the sun, and the moon tray-
cling at its present distance from her the whole
of the moons orbit would be far within the
globe of the sun.
1t may seem surprising, but vet il is true, that
although astronomers have not been able to see,
still less to measure, the globe of Sirius, they
have yet learned what it is made of-at any
rate, they know some of its materials. For III
stance, they know quite certainly that there is
iron in it, lin the form of gas,) and sodium and
magnesium, and there also enormous quanti-
ties of the gas called hydrogen. How this has
been learned, could not very well explain here.
shall only say that the study of the light of
Sirius has shown that part of the light given out
by his glowing orb is cut open by certain vapor
much as part of the SIMS light is cut of by
vapOr in our own air, when the sun is rising or
setting. and just the ruddy color of the sun at
that time shows him to be shining through the
vapor of water in the air, do certain pecniiar-
tiles in the light of Sirius show that that light
has passed through the vapOr of iron, sodium
magnesium and hydrogen.
Ii has been learned, also that Sirius is rush.
ing through space ut the rate of from twenty to
thirty miles in every second of time. He carries
along with him. no dOubt, all the worlds which
travel around his globe. But it must not he
supposed that this rapid motion changes his
place among the stars IN a way we can easily
recognize. On the contrary, so enormous is this
suns distance that his change of place can only
he detected hy means Of very powerful telescopes,
or else after long periods of time.
And this leads me TO consider singular dis
covery which has been made about this glorious
sun. OF course il is to be supposed that Sirius,
like our sua. has family of worlds travelling
round him. This set observers looking for any
companion body which might travel round
Sirius. For they saw that any such body, to
explain the movements of Sirius, must be very
large. though, of course, they expected only TO
find il mueh fainter than Sirins himself. How
ever, for long time, they could find such
companion. At last. fine telescope, with a
glass Isl inches in diameter, made by the cele-
brated optieian, Alvin Clarke of Cambridge.
Mass, showed faint star close by Sirius-that
is, seemingly close. for in reality, it was found
TO be- at the very least 1900 millions of miles
from him. Later, the French astronomer Gold
schmidt, with much smaller telescope, claimed
to have detected five other companion stars, and
/ was recently told by Professor Pritchett, of
Glasgow, No., that, with a fine twelve-inch tel
escope, made by Alvin Clark, he had seen two
of these. He could not understand, however,
how Goldschmdt could have seen them with q
smaller telescope, they were among the faint
est stars he had been able to detect with his
powerful instrument. If These companion stars
are really worlds attending Sirius, and shining
only by reflected light, they must be enormous
bodies The system Of Sirius must, in that case,
rs far snrpass in size and magnificence the sys-
TEN travelling around the snn himself
is surpassed in glory and in might by the spleu-
did san call the Dog-star.-RieAard 4. Proc