The progress., 1891-03-07
ROMANCE OF THE SKY.
WHAT is KNOWN ABOUT THE
STARS WITHIN OUR KEN.
The Fixed" stars In Reality AL I'm Rapid
Movement They Give Out Light
Becausc They Arc Most
Awfully Hot.

IN the increased power Of telescopes
the number OF fixed stars within our
ken has been increased from y, 600, the
.riunber which may be seen In both
hemfspheres By the naked eve, TO prob
ably 81. .nN0. 900, says j. Norman Leck-
yei.in the Youths Companion The
Ihe-star nearest to the earth, Cen
,atiri Il about ~. 900. 0OG times as far
from III a. the sun il. and Sirius II
nbout twice as far away us that; y
however. we could view ~the-etwo bod
ies MT an equal distance. a CcntaTi
would appear nearlyltwice as bright as
oir sun, and Sirius forty times ~
bright.
Further. VIC know that all these bod.
ins. although they are called fixed stars
in astronomy books,4so far from being
liked arc all III rapid movement and.
the rate in some cases fills us with as
stoni.hmcnt. Thus, one star. (lSs0
Groonbridge) has velocity Of not less
than 200 miles second. This would
carry ii from New York to CONSTANT
nople In about minute, and from the
earth 10 the sun in five days. Another
star COL GygnD has a velocity Of not
ltSs than thirty miles second. or 3,
900. 900 miles day. SO far. then, VIC
find that the stars arc at different dis
tanccs that they are of different sizes,
and that instead Of being fixed they arc
I'LL in movement.
We now come 10 another question.
Why do these bodies, whether near or
distant, give out lighto They give out
light because they are hot, and some
OF them are hotter than almost any
thing we can imagine. But we are
not left to our imagination. BY the
use Of a prism the child wonder rs to
what the stars may be has hcen chang
ed into certain knowledge OF what
stars like the sun really are. Such
bodies are masses OF glowing gas, the
materials OF which are for the most
part precisely the same as those of
which our earth is built up. tie great
difference. between such stars and the
earth at the present time being that
they are hot while the earth il cold.
All the metals, or nearly all Of them,
which we read OF in books Of chem
istrv, have been found in the sun: and
it is quite possible that some of the
non-metals may exist in d part Of the
sun which we cannot get at by our
methods OF work. However, this may
be, we may be sure that the nom
metals will be in the sunlsome day, and
that when the sun is as cool rs the
earth its chemical composition will
resemble, our own essentially.
The sun is 80 Ahot ut present that its
outer atmosphere instead of being
composed OF cool oxygen and nitrogen
and water vapor, as happens with our
oxn, consists of brightly shining hy-
drogen gas and iron vapor chiefly.
The iron is not solid and it is not
molten, but Exists as iron steam at,
perhaps. distance of 200, 900 miles
above the shining orb that we see and
I'll the sun This | think, may be
taken as fair indication that the sun
is indeed very hot body, especially
when we remember that as its center il
approached the temperature must al
ways increase.
/ have said this much about the sur
because it is very natural to ask wheth-
or all stars are like the sun? 1t used
10 be thought that they were, but !,
for one, do not think this is SO. When
we come to examine the bodies which
shine in the sky, those dim patches OF
gray, light called nebulR, as well as
many of the stars themselves, the
prism tells us that the light which they
send to us is very different from the
light sent to lis by the sun, and by
the sun, and by other stars, the light
OF which is exactly like sunlight.
1t is. fair to suppose that If the light
sent out is different, the body which
sends 1t out must also be different in
some way or another. A great deal of
work recently done shows that proba-
bly, many stars, instead of being like
the sun, are built up as the comets are,
of enormous clouds or swarms of little
bodies,s some of them, perhaps, no
bigger than grains of dust. the differ
ent quantities and qualities of the light
given out depending upon the motions
of these little particles, and the aver
age distance between them.
Medicinal Qualities Of Foods.