The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-03-15
News Of Recent Science
AROITT THE STARS.

The number of stars visible 10 the naked
eye is less than 5000.
The number OF stars visible through the
largest telescopes is. probably, not less
than 100, 900 900.
The faintest stars visible to the naked
eye are of the sixth magnitude; the faint
est telescope stars are reckoned OF the
sixteenth or seventeenth magnitude.
An average star Of the first magnitude
is 100 times as bright as one Of the sixth
magnitude.
There are but 20 stars of the first mag
nitude, of which number only II are ever
visible to observers in the mean latitude
of the United States, the rest being too
far south to appear above our horizon.
Betelgeuse, in the upper left hand cor
ner of Orion, is an average star OF the
first magnitude. Capella, midway De-
tween this star and the Polar star, is more
than twice as bright as it, and Sirius the
Dog Star, is about nine times as bright as
an average first magnitude star
Fully nine-tenths of the stars lie IN
belt of the heavens about 50 degrees wide
through the center Of which runs the
Milky Way.
In some parts of the Milky Way the tel
escopic stars are so numerous that as
many as 1000 may lie within the limits OF
a space whcih might be covered by the
moon.
Sir William Herschel supposed that the
stars inthe Milky Way were comparable
with the sun in size, on an average, and
that they were about the same distance
IT, small
parent size he assumed that hey were at
enormous and unequal distances form US.
His theory of the makeup of the sldereal
heavens was that the universe OF luminous
worlds extends farther in the plane of the
Milky Way than in a direction perpendi-
cular to this plane, the apparent crowding
of the stars in the Milky Way being due
simply to the fact that we look here into
a more profound depth of stars than when
we face the regions of the heavens on
either side of ii.
Stellar photography is not favorable TO
this Hersechelian view of the heavens. On
the contrary, photographs of the Milky
Way present features which render ii lit
tie less than certain that this faintly-lum-
inous stretch of the night sky is really of
a cloud-like character. as ii appears to be
to the naked eye, and that its stars, the
faintest as well as the brightest, are at
essentially the same distance from US,
though doubtless many stars which ap-
pear TO be in the Milky Way are uncon-
nected with it, being beyond ii or between
us and it.
How far away the Milky Way is there
are no means of judging with much conf
dence. Professor Barnard has given
good reasons for thinking that its ground
work consists Of stars which are much
smaller than the sun, perhaps hundreds or
thousands of times smaller, so that its
distance from us may not be great, as
star distances go.
The average distance of the ten first
magnitude stars of the northern hemis-
phere is, according to the measures of
DR.. Elkin. thirty-seven and a half light
years" This means that light, flashing
through space at the rate of $4,000 miles
a second, requires that number of years
to reach us from point in space at dis
lance from us equal to the mean distance
of these ten stars.
The nearest first magnitude star of the
northern hemisphere is Procyon, distant
twelve light years Arcturus appears to
be one of the most distant. Regulus is at
about the mean distance of thirty-seven
and half light years.
The determination of star distances is
at present in a very unsatisfactory state.
Really, very little is known with certainty
about the distance of any Of the stars.
The tendency among astronomers now
is to reduce very greatly the extravagant
estimate of the probable extent OF the Wis
ible stellar universe. 1t has been estima-
ted that there ae stars so distant from US
that their light has been several thousand
years on its way to us-anywhere from
three to thirty thousand. 1t may be doubt
ed whether there is any visible star so re-
mote that its light has been more than a
few centuries in traversing the interven-
ing space.