The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1899-10-11
THE NORTH STAR IS THREE SUNS!
No Eye at the Telescope Can see Aea, 11,j
But the Camera Proves 1t.

No Eye at the Telescope Can sec ~
But the Camera Proves It.
The news from Lick Observatory
that the North Star, 255, 900, 0o0, ,0o0s
of miles>away from US, has been 1ouno
to be not one star, but three-swlngr
ing around in great orbits Ike the
moon, earth and SUMS another re.E
markable result of the application OF
photo-spectroscopy to the telescopes
study of the heavens. Always tss-
cinating, the search for dcubie ands:
multiple stars has become OF the hieh-s
est interest since the spectroscope mas
made it possible to discover multiple
stars which the greatest telescopes do
not reveal to the eye. The three
components of Polaris cannot be seen
with the most powerful telescope IN
the world. But the Lick star spec
troscope. attached to the great thirty
six.inch refractor, makes it plain that
there are suns revolving about q sun
where the eye distinguishes but one
twinkling light.
Ten years ago at the Harvard unl-
versity Observatory the first photo
spectroscopic multiple star was dis
covered Unexpectedly. The star
Mizar, the middle star of the handle
of the Big Dipper, has been called g.
"naked-eye" double because it has =
visible companion, Aloor, close to It,.
But Riccioli in 1850 discovered with
the telescope that Mizar had tele.s
scopic double. Mizar seems to have
been the first double star discovered
with telescope. The apparent dis
tance between Mizar and Alcor is
nearly forty times the distance that
separates the components OF Mlzar.
The telescope shows, too, that there
are other stars between Mizar and
Alcor. M
Two centuries after the telescope
revealed two stars in Mizar the spec
troscope showed that the brighter Of 2
the components was itself made up OF
two stars. In photographs taken at
the Harvard Observatory in 1889 the,
z line in the spectrum of Mizar apf
peared double. In other plates the
line was single, in others it was hazy.
A close scrutiny of all the plates
showed that the line was double atf
intervals Of ffty.two days. This
proved to astronomers that the
brighter component Of Mizar wes
really two stars. A spectroscopes
takes cognizance OF the motion OF q :
star to or from the earth. When one
star begins to approach and the other
to recede from US, the lines in the
spectrum OF the approaching star will
be displaced toward the violet end,
while those of the receding star will
be displaced toward the red end. The
lines will at first appear hazy. but
when the approach and recession OF
the stars reach maximum the lines
will appear double. The calculated
distance between the components Of
Mizsr is about 143, 900, 900 miles, and
the brilliancy of the star is estimated
to be over hundred times greater
than that of our sun.
A number of other sphoto-spectro- !
scopic multiple stars have been dis
covered recently. With the Lick tele-
scope and spectroscope, fourteen have
been found. This method of discov-
cry came about from the use of the
spectra to determine the velocity with
which stars approached or receded
from the earth. The North Star, it
was found short while ago, is now
shooting earth ward. at velocity OF
sixteen miles O second. Two OF the
suns of the North Star triple revolve
about each other every four days and
these two swing about the third. -
New York Sun.