Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1883-02-05
.leSamQria Gazrtte.
MONDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY ;. 1888.
THE GREAT NEBULA IN ORION

\ reporter of the New York .Snn who
recently looked through the great telescope
at Princeton on the Great Ncbula writes:
Below the wcll-known belt of Orion
everybody who watches the brilliant skies
OF our winter nights must have noticed u
hazy-looking star. 1t is the famous Great
Ncbula. Very little telescope power is re-
qulrcd to show il, as luminous cloud
through which stars are shining. But ii is
difficult to convey to one who has not be-
held it with his own eyes an idea of the
magnificent appearance Of this ncbul; when
seen with such telescope as that at Prince
ton. The whole field of view with the
higher powers, is filled with II shining green
haze broken up into flocculcut masses
delicate clouds of light, sprays and wisps.
1t is sprinkled with stars that glitter like dia-
monds in brides veil 1t looks as though
you could scatter it with breath, but it
fills a space in comparison with which the
solar system is a mere point. Many astron-
Omers believe ii consists Of the stuff Of
which suns and worlds are made and some
think appearances can he detected i'm il
which indicate that it. is ut this moment be-
ing nodded into suns. There is black gap
ut one point in the nebula. and in this cap
shine the four stars constituting the we'll
known trapczium. There are two other
stars near these which small telescopes do
not show. This is the central point of in
terest in the nebula. 1t seems clear that
those stars are not there by accident, but
that there is real connection between them
and the nebula They appear as Professor
Young remarked to be feeding upon the
nebula
From the Great Nebula we turned to
Sirius, or the Dog Star, the brightest Of all
the stars. 1t is easy to believe that the
stars are suns when one looks at Sirius
through q two-foot object glass. 1t dazzes
the eye like ten thousand stars combined
into one. Yet man must have faith in
mathematics to believe that Sirius is a sun
at least q thousand times ITS great as oursun.
If the earth were as near to Sirius as it is to
the sun it would be burned to q cinder in n
moment But, TO me, the most interesting
thing about this great star was its mystic
rious companion, the discovery of whose cx-
istence is one of the triumphs Of modern
telescopes. There it shonc with dull, pale,
ghostly light, almost hidden in the over
poWering rays of the star. In bulk it almost
equals Sirius himself, and they swing around
one another like two giants who have crap.
pied upon an icy footing. Professor Young
says the companion is rapidly approaching
Sirius. But what is it? We can hardly
call it sun, for it has not the light
of a sun. 1t may be the ember Of a sun
that is dying out. 1t may be one Of those
strange dark bodies with which space il is be
licvcd. abounds, and which having fallen within
the attraction Of Sirius, is DIGGING it through the
sky. You know that the stars arc all in motion
Sirius, As the spcctroscopc shows is moving away
from us ut the rate of twenty miles 4 second--so
that it is easy to conceive that the star may have
come across its duSky companion in this way
The laws of %ravitation will never let them part
though the distance between them may vary and
50 the greatest sun of which we have any knowl.
edge must go swinging through space with lis
skeleton comradc until it itself becomes cold and
dark The greatest interest for lis in all this lies
in the possibility that our own sun may at some
time, as journeys on, fall within the attraction of
one of these dark cosmical bodies and so come t.
have a companion like Sirius. The disturbing
force of body, having mass equal to, or greater
than that of the sun.and brought into the ncghbor.
hood Of the solar system would produce changes
in the motions of the planets which might render
the earth uninhahitahle.