The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-01-18
SIRIUS, THE MIGHTY.
The Brilliant Crown Diamond of the
Stellar Universe.


Detroit Free Press.
Down in the southeast on these winter
nights when Orion is trailing his sword
toward the unattainable zenith, shines the
supreme monarch of the stellar worlds, the
p~re-eminently brilliant Sirius, whose splen-
dor is, in fact, so great as to place 1t out
side of classification as to magnitude, max
ing it among the true stars appear some
what as our sun amid his family of planets.
Yet, judging from apparent size, Sirius and
Jupiter seem just at present as twins. pro-
crossing nightly through the same skyey
between them being the scintillation of ST.
RUS whereby we are informed that he Is
no planetary vaSsal. but a ruler by his OVID
right and eminent radiance.
From an astronomical point of view, Si-
RUS is not so tremendously distant from us
as are many other conspicuous denizens OF
the sky, since 1t takes light not quite ten
years to span the space separating Sol from
the Dog Star. albeit not so very long ago
years for the journey. Yet. after all, the dis
lance is SO vast that, despite the now we'll
of the star, its brightness during hundreds.
nay, thousands. of years. has not suffered
the crown diamond of the night as when
Moses and Aaron gazed at 1T on their way
to denounce to Pharaoh his harsh usage Of
umba, the Dove. is the constellation toward
which great Sirius makes gigantic strides
every day, and from which our sun with his
planetary household is supposed to have
travelled on. his long journey to the con-
busybody interfere in the meantime, he viii
arrive after the revolution of millions of our
earthly years. Thus. guided by so fallible
be much nearer the Great Bear and beau
tiful Vega of the Tyre than we are at pres
ent, as Hercules lies just west of Lyra and
south of the Great Bear. or ursa Major. the
most noticeable portion of the constellation
forming an irregular quadrilateral.
gave the opinion that although Sirius was
so remote from us, if he and the star we
call our own should begin to nod to each
other. nv and hive in the COURSE of time Ito
speak more precisely, after $1,000, 600 years
running toward each other). they would
through the mere intensity and force OF
their greeting. and from the combination of
their transformed elements evolve a new
grand nebula, whence a fresh set of worlds
would eventually start out on their circles
of # vegetable, animal q and ndo d Intellectual life.
Of the order just described, it is lucky for
heading for the Dove. and that we shall not
be annoyed with Sirius matter even in 49,
100000 years.
With reference to the size of our luminary
as compared with the great Canicula, many
and diverse have been the computations
made; but. accepting quite a moderate esti-
mate of the grandeur of the star, we are
still obliged to that our solar
globe has la times less surface LIS times
twelve, when it comes to instituting com
parsons with Sirius. And this reminds us
northeast, and causes us to reflect on the
fact that the entire circuit of that celestial
~vagabond's three and one-third years of
revolution round the sun could be included
within the glowing, incandescent circumfer-
ence of the giant in the southeast.
Notwithstanding the immense rem0teness
of its initial departure the ray of light
which reaches our earth from Sirius ac-
tually produces q. perceptible heat, really
instrument whereon it strikes. and the white
intensity of that ray imringes upon the eye,
as though it issued from a source near at
hand. Indeed, it is by no means of such in
far distant universes are classified and
placed in the conventional magnitudeS; for,
whereas the planets of our system and their
satellites are prodigiously emerged by the
powerful magnifying telescopes now en-
ployed, the so-called fixed stars, owing to
their seemingly infinite distance. are ac-
tually made smaller by the artificial inspec-
ton, because of the elimination of refrac-
glasses, whose principal advantage over the
naked eye consists in the concentration
and consequent intensifying of the divers
rays of luminosity emanating from the ex-
ira solar worlds.
In conclusion. we must repeat the state
ment that Sirius belongs to the white class
of stars, showing a spectrum whose rays
correspond to those emitted by the elemen-
tary substances sodium, magnesium, hydro
gen and iron. Moreover, our vast star IS
not, after all, one body. but really two
starS-the huge silvery Sirius himself and
a little ninth-magnitude stellar globe, al
most lost amid the dazzling radiance of it's
companion, to which different relations are
being that it is but a bigger solar BROTHER;
another, that it is not connected with the
smaller star, which, in that case, would re-
volve at an immensely greater femoteness.
and yet another that the smaller body is a
monstrous planet, whereto our Jupiter and
Saturn would be the merest pigmies.