Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-01-09
LOST STARS.
Some Astronomical Information for People
Who Are Watching Biela's Comet.

some Astronomical Information for People
Who Are Watching Biela's Comet.
From the st. Louis Republic.
There variable stars which are constantly
waxing and waning in periods, increasing in
brightness for q certain time till they reach
maximum Of effulgence, and then dying away
to faint points TO revive again and go through
the same change indefinitely. Most of these
capricious stars are telescopic-too small for
the naked eve TO observe their variations; but
there 10 one called by the Arabs Algol. the
demon star. in Medusas Head in the circum-
polar considerations, which any one with ordin-
ary vision without the aid Of glass. 1t
ia probably . million times further off than our
sun. and Vet every three days it is seen to go
through a series OF transformations. increasing
In size from the fifth to the third magnitude
and then paling back to the fifth. Another
star. Wonderful. In the Whale. requires nearly
q year to go through its changes from the
second magnitude to total disappearance and
back TO its normal size; and still another
Delta, In the constellation Cepheus. effects Its
changes in five and half days.
But these variable stars, unaccountable as
they are, yield in point of wonder to those
which seem to come into existence and those
which pass out of eXistence-these as If they
had run their course and fulfilled their mission
and those as il they were creations from
the hand OF the Almighty. The ancients. who
had only their naked ewes to scan the heavens
with. counted seven briliants in the beautiful
trembling group OF the Pleiades, and the group
is still known to the Seven Stars though
one OF the disappeared years ago. One
star In Aurigs, one in the Wolf and several in
the Southern Fish. laid down in the ancient
lists. are now no longer seen. and astronomers
Of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
point out many more that have disappeared.
NJ he Of Pct
hem" as 1t is called, is familiar to many read
ers. IL appeared suddenly in the constellation
the Chair on November IL, 1874 bursting into
view so abruptly and SO conspicuously as to fill
with Amusement the Danish astronomer. Tycho
brahe who had examined the heavens an hour
before without seeing it. This star remained
in the sky for eighteen months. shining for part
Of that time with brifiancy greater than even
the brightest Of the planets, and then vanished
never to return. Many persons who saw and adj
mired itived to see another similar stellar appari-
tion burst into view in the Serpent on the 10th
Of October, 1904. Ii increased in brightness
until 1t was - brilliant as the planet Jupiter
and inferior only to Venus. and then waned
slowly TO total disappearance in 1906 As late
twenty-six years ago. m 1866. new star
blazed ont in the Northern Crown where no
star had been seen before. and grew to a second
magnitude sire and then vanished.
These three new stars excited popular as well
scientific interest by their conspicuous
brilliancy. bnt it il probable that similar ap-
partitions take place frequently in remote
regions, II we only had eyes to see them. The
stellar system is SO inconceivably distant from
the frontier Of our own solar system that when
all our knowledge Of the stars is grouped to-
gether it amounts to almost nothing, and
astronomer ignorant of the cause OF
these phenomena the masses Of men. They
look upon them In helpless smazement and ave.
since the most powerful telescopes fail to extort
an explanation of them from the serene and
silent depths of space. As probable an explana-
ton rs any other is that they are bodies larger
than our sun in conhagration. Their hour of
doom is struck and they fame up and burn to
cinders and ashes TO be seen no more.