The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1895-01-03
STRANGE STARS.
Ssme Interesting Discoveries Made BY
Astronomers

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ssms Interesting Discoveries Made by
Astronomers.
Are all the stars suns? The answer
to that question depends upon what we
mean by sun. Recent discoveries in
astronomy have made it evident that
some of the stars are very different
from our sun. Many of them are
larger, and many, probably, are smaller
than our orb of day; but that is by no
means the only difference. They vary
wonderfully in their organization and
condition. Some are intensely hot;
others are comparatively cool. The
Eight of some is blindingly brilliant;
ourers, of perhaps equal magnitude,
are obscure. Occasionally the telescope,
or the spectroscope, shows that an eb-
jectresembling star to ordinary vision
is in reality cloud of gas, or possibly
a swarm of meteors.
But there is one kind of stars, all the
representatives of which have been dis
covered within the last twenty-seven
years, that is in some respects the most
peculiar of all. These are the "bright-
line stars" also called the "Wolf-Rayet
stars" from the names of Messrs. Wolf
and Rayet, who discovered the first ex-
amples of them. Only ffty-five of
these strange stars have yet been found
amid the multitudes of the sky.
In order to understand their pecul-
iarity it may be we'll briefly to recall
what the spectrum of star, or of the
sun. is. When beam of sunlight, or
of starlight, is passed through prism,
or reflected from glass ruled with fine
lines, ucalled a grating, the light is
spread out into a colored band, or spec
trum, and ordinarily this spectrum is
seen to be crossed with narrow black
lines-the Fraunhofer lines.
Each of these lines owes its existence
to some particular substance existing,
in the form of gas or vapor, In the at
mosphere of the sun, or Of the star,
from which the light under examina-
ton comes. The fact that the lines
are black indicate that the substances
to which they are due are less intense
ly heated than the interior mass of
the sun, or star, which they surround.
AS the light from within streams
through them, these vaporous sub
stances absorb the radiations that are
peculiar to themselves, and thus pro-
duce the appearance of black lines, or
gaps, in the spectrum. 1t is the bust
ness of spectrum analysis to dis
tinguish the various substances, or
elements, such as iron, hydrogen, ETC.,
that produce the effects just desrcibed.
Now in the case of the bright line
stars, as the name itself indicates, the
spectrum shows many bright lines in
stead of black ones. The meaning of
this fact is that the atmospheres of
such stars are hotter than their sur
faces. They might be called stars on
fire, if we could conceive of such a
thing. Moreover, they exhibit changes
and fluctuations indicating that they
can not be such steady-going bodies as
our sun is pouring out with no per.
ceptible variation a certain quantity
and intensity of light and heat month
after month and year after year, but
that they would be very uncomfort-
able, not to say destructive, neighbors
for an inhab ited planet.
Just what is to be thought of these
stars astronomers are not yet prepared
to say. Prof. Campbell, who has
carefully studied them, remarks
that "the spectra of the Wolf
Rayet stars are not closely related
to any other known type. We can
probably say that the bright lines are
chromospheric, owing their origin to
very extensive and highly-heated at
mospheres, but showing very little re-
lation, in constitution and physical
condition, to that of our own sun"
Some of the substances that give the
bright lines in these stars have not yet
been recognized Hydrogen they pos
sess in abundance, and apparently iron
also, but much of the story that their
spectrum tells is still mysterious.
Are they dying suns, just Pickering to
extinction, or newborn orbs? Or do
they belong to different rank in crea-
ton from that in which stands the
great luminary that makes dayligt
for us?-Youth's Companion.
-O