Richland beacon. [volume] (Rayville, La.) 1869-1890, 1888-12-22
AstrOnOnomical Facts.

The Crunomcti'ia Nova. af Arec-
lamda. gavc the positions If the lucid
star, of the northern sky. and i, has
been supplemented hy the Cranomc-
iria Argentina of DIR. Gould. which
covers the southern sky. With the
stellar statistic of the whole sky he
fore him. ni. Gould was in Il position
10 draw sOmc extremely Interesting
conclusions with respect to the arrange
mcnt of the brighter star. in space ..aud
Ia the situation of our solar system in
relation to them. The outline of his
reasoning is given by Il writer in >ci'ib-
ucr-. In the FIRST place il il fairly
proved that in general the StIr- that
are visible to the naked eye tthc lucid
otal-S) are distributed al approximately
equal distances one from another and
that. ou the average. they are of ap
proXimaiely equal brillian"': II we
make Il table of the 'Iuiibrf ol Stars oi
each separate magnitude IN ihc Whole
sky We shall find that there arr propor-
tionatcly many more Of the brighter
one, (flom first 10 fourth magni-
tudes) than of the Gdntcr GrOm fourth
to seventh magnilutics). That l., there
Is an unialllng ana --1--rr-0f the biitih5,,2s
0l.. o. u "iyVc Cannot suppose, taking one
star with another. that the difference
between their apparent brightness
arises simply from real difference in
size. but We must conclude that the
stars from thc first tO fourth magnltudcs
(somc j0O) AR really nearer To Us than
thstfaintcr stars. Il therefore follows
that these bright stars from Il system
whose separation from that of those OF
| the fainter stars i marked by the
change of relative numerical Frequency.
What. then. j. the shape of this -ys-
| tenn? and have we any dependent proof
| of its existence? Sir NOhn llerschcl
and DR.. Gould have pointed out that
thcyc i, in the Sky II belt of brighter
stars, which is very nearly Il great err
| Gle Of the sphere. This belt Is plainly
marked. and il il inclined about 80 de-
grees To the milky way. which il cross
Is near Cassiopa and the Southern
Gross. Taking all The stars down I"
the fourth magnitude DIR. Gould shows
that they are with reference 10 the
! milky way. In fact. The belt has ~
stars on one sidc-Uf il and 263 on the
other. while the corresponding numbers
for the milky way are 10 and -.
From this and other reasons ii l. CON
cIudcd that this belt contains brighter
stars because il contains the ncarcs'
stars. and that this set of nearer aDo
brighter stars i di-tinctivcly the clus
ter to which our sun belongs. LC Ia
out the brighter stars. which may 1t
accidentally projected among the tru'
stars belonging 10 this cluster, DR.
Gould concludes that oar sun belong
to Il cluster of about TOO stars; that !
lies in the principal plane Of the cluSte
(sincc the belt of stars Is II great. not ;
small, circle), and that this solar clus
ter is independent Of the vast congcrie:
of stars, which We call the milky way
We know thatdhc sun l. moving l.
space. II becomes Il question whcthc
this motion il one common tU the sola
cluster and To the sun. or only the me
ton of the sun in the solar cluster. Bu
ii very important research will be to II
vestigatc the solar motion without en-
: ploying these 400 stars ~ data.