Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-01
LARGEST Sun KNOWN.
What the Astronomers Say About the
Great Star Arcturus.
EQUAL IN SIZE TO $4,000 SUNS.
What Would Happen if Our Little Earth
Should Fall Into 1t.
THE TREMENDOUS BLAZE OF ITS HEAT

! New YORK, July 31.-Mr Garrett Ser
! viss is one of the few men qualified to supply
| us with news about other worlds than this.
With a view to getting some plain informa-
tion on a tar away but very interesting sub
| ject, good many questions were put 20
Mr.. Serviss.
"What do you think is the most interest
| ing thing in astronomy" was the startling
| one.
81 should say" he answered, 'that it was
| the recent discoveries in regard to the tre-
mendous size of some of the other suns IN
space. Take the star Arcturus. DR.. Elkin
has made a measurement of its distance
| from the earth, and if he has made no mis-
take it is no less than II 500, 900 times as far
away from us as the sun is.
HOW DISTANCES ARE RECKoNED.
''You, know that the light of a star or of
the sun varies inverely as the square of the
distance. If the sun were twice as far
away as it now is we should get one-quarter
as much light from it. Careful compari-
SONS have shown that Arcturus actually
ionth as much light as the sun. itself, but if
the sun were removed lao, 900 times as far as
it now is, it would shine as a star no brighter
than Arcturus.
Arcturus is II, 500, 600 times as far away
as the sun. Dividing that by 140, 600 we get
the number 49, which may be taken as a
measure of the diameter of Arcturus, as
compared with the diameter of the sun.
The suns diameter is S66,00Q miles, and,
therefore, the diameter of Arcturus must be
about II, 900, 900 miles, and its circumfer-
! ence 224, 900 900 miles! In bulk it is 551,-
600 times as great as the sun!
"Arcturus, having 50 times the diameter
of the sun, must shine, if every point on it
is as bright as a corresponding point on the
sun, 6724 times as brilliantly as the sun
does, because the surface of spheres vary as
the squares of their diameter. Such globe
as near to us as our sun is would fill half the
sky, but we could never exist in such prox-
unity to so tremendous a sun as that.
A STARTLING POSSIBILITY.
sIf the earth could be moved through
space toward Arcturus, or if it could fall to
Arcturus, as it would probably do but for
the protecting arm that is extended by our
own sun at close quarters, the spectacle that
would be presented to its Inhabitants as they
approached that great star would be of fnde-
scribable magnifcence.
"When we had arrived within something
less than 5000, ,OO0, 900 miles of Arcturus its
light and heat would be equal to that which
we get from our sun at distance of only
5000, 600 miles. When we got as close to
it as the distance of Neptune from the sun
the gush of its heat would begin to be un-
bearable; at the distance of Jupiter from the
sun it would smite the earth with the re-
sistless energy of its radiation. The forests
would burn, the oceans would rise from
their beds in vapor, the very ground would
smoke, and before we could approach as
close as the earth is to the sun the whole
globe would have been melted, if not dissi-
pated in vapor.
ITS GREAT ATTRACTIVE FORCE.
"Arcturus is truly king among stars, and
our sun, great and brilliant as it is, if
dropped into the blazing photosphere of
Arcturus, would be instantly swallowed up
and the. only visible evidence of its fate
would be q sudden flash, and then, perhaps,
quickly vanishing blot on the brilliant
surface of the great star, where the down.
rush of the doomed sun had swept in
breath of cooler vapor from above.
"But it is worth while stopping moment
to consider the effects of the gigantic at
traction of such body as Arcturus. On
the sun the force OF gravity is 81 times as
great as on the surface Of the earth, but on
Arcturus, supposing the same mean density,
it would be 200 times as great, so that
man weighing 200 pounds transported to
Arcturus would be crushed under his own
weight of 440, 600 pounds into flat speck of
protoplasmic nonentity almost before the
fierce fires of that mighty solar furnace
could lick him up and transform him into
sunbeam"
'eWhat sort of people would be found
walking around Arcturus? Rather large,
aren't they?"
eff we suppose that Arcturus could be
an inhabited world, it is natural to speculate |
on the tremendous size of its inhabitants.
'Voltaire, In his 'Micromegas,' tells
story of an inhabitant of planet belonging
to Sirius, or the Dog Star, who was so large
that when he visited the earth he was able
to wade through its oceans without wetting
his ankles, but the astronomers have shown
that the probability as to the size of the
inhabitants of these great orbs is just the
other way, that because they are large their
gravitation must be so great that their in
habitants, instead of being proportionately
large, would be exceedingly small.
MEN TEN MILES TALL.
eff, however, we suppose that the size of |
an inhabitant of Arcturus should corre- |
spond with that of the globe upon which he |
dwells, he would be upward of ten miles
tall, and if he were, on the other hand, |
small in proportion to the size of the globe,
and the general opinion Of astronomers is
that he would be small rather than large, |
then he would be only eight one-thousandths
of an inch tall.
'sBut, unless we are to agree with
Herschel, who thought that even the sun
might have living inhabitants under the /
crust of blazing clouds by which it is sur
we must assume that it would not |
be possible for any living being to dwell
upon the star Arcturus."
doesn't Arcturus have a great many
planets to which ours is very small |
afair?'' +
"Arcturus may have a great family of
planets proportioned in size to the tremen-
dous size of the star ITSELF If that gigantic
sun has its planets on the same proportion
ate scale as our solar system, then planet
belonging to Arcturus and corresponding in
size and place to the earth
would be CSC, 900 miles in diameter and
2, ,000, 900 miles around, or half as large as
the sun itself, but its distance from Arcturus
would be enormous as compared with the
distance from the earth to the sun. /
ga planet corresponding to Jupiter
would be more than 100000 miles in
diameter and over % ono O0O in circum-