Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-29
A MOUNTAINOUS PLANET.

I A Wonderful Star That No Man Has Ever
viewed-Recsnt Wonderful Discoveries
In Astronomy-The Great Variety That
Exists in the stellar Universe.
The many wonderful discoveries Yin as
tronomy recently made by the aid of pho
Biography have seemed to leave the \older
methods of astronomical investigation TAR
In the rear. But just now Mr. s. c. Grand
Ter. OF Boston, has made what may be ca He'd
a discovery by the aid of mathematical
methods, recalling the achievement OF
Leverrier and Adams in the detection of
Neptune so years ago. There is In the
northern sky, says the New York Sun, star
known as Algol, which the sharp-sighted
Arabs who discovered its variations in
light called the demon star. Every days,
20 hours and 40 minutes this star suddenly
begins to fade, and continues to grow fainter
for three or four hours, at the end of which
1t has sunk from the second to nearly the
fourth magnitude. After remaining thus
for few minutes It begins to brighten, and
in the course of three or four hours moro
regafns It's former brilliancy.
Within the past few years it mas been dis
il
100000 miles, and to this phenomenon the
variations in Algol's light are due. At reg
ular intervals this dark companion star
comes into the line OF sight between Algoi
and the earth, and thus partially eclfpses
light.
These stars, Algol and its strange nom
luminous comrade, are or great size. Algol
itself being more than L. 100000 miles in
diameter, while the diameter or the dark
body that circles around 1t is $4,000 miles.
Studied Over the Olden Observations.
Mr.. Chandler, meditating on certain ir-
regularities in the motions Of Algol and its
companion, suspected that they might be
due to the presence of another invisible
star in their immediate neighborhood. He
carefully compared the observations back
to the time of Goodricke, more than a
hundred years ago, and pursuing mathe-
matical method similar to that which re-
suited in the discovery of Neptune through
the effect of its attraction on Uranus, he
arrived at the conclusion that such another
star must actually exist. According to his
conclusion this mysterious body is far
more massive than either Algo1 or its con-
panion, but does not give forth any percep-
t1Dle light, and 1T forms q center OF attrac-
tion around which both of the other stars
revolve in nearly circular orbit, in a period
Of l3O years Mr. Chandler's theory seems to
fit in well with the observed irregularities
of Algol. He remarks, moreover, that there
are several other stars known to astrono-
mers to be variable which evidently have
one or more dark companions like those OF
Algol.
1t is natural to inquire what is the nature
of these mysterious dark bodies existing in
the neighporhood of bright stars compara-
Bile in brilliancy with our own sun, and evil
IDENTIFY obeying the same law Of gravitation
that prevails in our solar system. The pri-
mary distinction between o sun and planet
light of its own, while the planet, having
been encrusted with solid and opaque
shell, only shines by the reflected light
which it receives from its sun.
The Invisible Planets Sun.
The dark companions of Algol may then
be regarded as in the plantary condition, at
least so far as the question of luminosity is
concerned. But they differ widely from any
of the planets of our system in their great
size as compared with the sun in whose
neighborhood they circle. That companion
of Algol, which by its eclipsing effect pro-
duces the variation in the light of the star,
is not very far Inferior in size to its bright
comrade,. while the greater dark body,
by Mr.. ChandIer's investigations, greatly
exceeds them both in mass.
Here, then, If we choose to adopt the idea
that this great invisible orb around which
the word, we have q world which is the
center of motion for the sun that illuminates
it. This is going back to the old pre- -Coperh-
lean lean idea OF the earth as the center OF the
solar system, having the sun as its satellite.
Such system seems unnatural, if not in
possible, because the ordinary laws of the
raulatlon OF neat require that q large body,
other things being equal, should cool down
from the solar to the planetary condition
later than a smaller body. But it would
seem that in the Algol system, for som e
reason yet to be discovered, the mott
massive member of the system has parteh
with its light and heat far earlier than onp |
OF the satellites revolving around it. III
Great Variety in tho Universe. N
If it should prove to be true, as Mr. Chan
der suggests, that there are other, and per-
haps many other, systems similar to that of
Algol, then we shall simply have additional
evidence of the great variety that exists in
the arrangements of the stellar universe.
There is really no reason why we should
take our own stellar system as the invari-
able type to which all the other systems
throughout space must correspond.
1t might be suggested that in the case of
such system as that of Algol, all the bod
les belonging to it have long since become
extinct through the operation of those laws
OF cosmical evolution which seem to be
manifested in the universe at large as well
as in our own planetary system, and that
through some such cause as a collision one |
of the minor bodies of the system has again
been brought to luminous condition.
But there is no end of speculation when
we try to interpret the wonderful discover
les with which the astronomy of our time is |
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