The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-01-04
THE SIZE OF THE UNIVERSE
a Large Old Concern. Whose Figures Ar
WeIl-Nieh IncoInnreh sihIe.

/ A Large Old Concern. Whose Figures Are
weIl-Nigh IncomprehensibIe.
To form some idea of the largeness Of
| this earth one may look upon the land
scape from the top of an ordinary
church steeple and then bear in mind
that one must view 900, 900 similar land
scapes to get an Approximately correct
idea OF the size of the earth Place 500
earths like ours side by side, yet Sa-
turns uttermost ring could easily in
close them. Three hundred thousand
earth globes could be stored inside the
sun If hollow. If human eve every
hour was capable of looking upon
fresh measure of world material IA, 600
square kilometers large that eye would
need SIS, 900 years to overlook the sur
face of the sun. To reach the nearest
fixed star one must travel SO. 900, 00o, 600
of kilometers. and if the velocity were
equal to that of cannon ball it would
require 5,000,o0 of years 20 travel the
distance.
On a clear night an ordinary human
eye can discover about ZOO stars in the
northern hemisphere, most of which
send their light from distances which
we cannot measure. How large they
must be! Round these 1000 stars circle
so. 900 other stars of various sizes. Be-
sides single stars we know of systems
of stars moving round one another.
Still we are but short way into space
as yet! Outside our limits Of vision and
Imagination there are, NO doubt, still
large spaces
The Milky Way holds probably at
least 90. 1911 900 stars, and as each is
sun we presume it is encircled by at
least fifty planets. Counting upon
these figures we arrive at the magni-
tude of 81, 600, 955, 900 stars. A thousand
million of stars! Who can comprehend
it? Still, this is only part of the uni
verse. The modern telescopes have
discovered more and similar milky
ways still further away. We know OF
some 5000 nebulB which represent
milky ways like ours. Let us count
1000 of them as being of the size of our
milky way, then 2,000x20, 191. 00O--4O.-
SS2, 100000 suns, or 2,019, 100, 600, coo
heavenly bodies Suppose these bodies
parading before our mental eye, one per
minute, IL NOulu require ., o3V, OOo years
to finish the march, in all of which
time we would have to look upon them
increasingly. Suppose human being
migrate from globe to globe and spend
ing fifty years on each, he would re-
quire 100, 955, 900, 900, 900 years for the
round If he stayed only one hour he
would save much time, but still need |
$50, 400, 900 years for the task. Yet these /
nebule are only part of the universe. |
Outside the nebule limits we know of /
other nebule not receivable into stars.
They appear to be primitive nebulR, /
pure, unused world-stuf matter for /
new creation. Some of them occupy a /
space as large as the orbit of Uranus. /
Some are still larger. The one in .
Orion" is estimated to be 2, 200, 600, 000, ,
600, 900, 900 times larger than that of .
our sun. Are we coming to the utmost /
limits? Who dares say yes? We are
probably come to our limits. But the ,
future, with new instruments and sci /
entific devices may push those limits SO .
much further out into space. -Copen-
hagen NOrdstiernen.