Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-04-13
This is Always the History Of Tenn
porary Stars.
NOT NEW IN A STRICT SENSE
Speculation as to Their Origin
and Composition.
ARE BY NO MEANS RARE

Written for The Evening Star by Charles A. Young,
LID, Professor OF Astronomy in Princeton
University.
There are, so far as at present known,
no new stars in the sense commonly un-
derstood. That is, no instance is on record
of star appearing where there was none
before, and continuing permanently as a
new member of the stellar host. 1t has
happened more than once that such cases
have been reported. as we'll as of stars that
have disappeared and are now missing"
but In every instance an explanation has
been found in some error of the observer or
computer who constructed the star cata-
logue on which the report was based. 1t
may be that such things happen now and
then as the heavens grow old; that dark
stars brighten into permanent luminosity
and bright ones die out and disappear; but
thus far no instance of the kind is certain
ly known to have occurred.
But we do have instances, and a consider
able number are on record, In which a star
before faint absolutely invisible sud
denly blazes UP, increasing its brightness
hundreds or even thousands of times with
in day or two, and then gradually fades
away, until, after several months, IL re-
sumes it's previous condition or as often
happens, ceases to be a star and becomes a
nebula, body of quite a different nature
An object of this kind is called a new
star. Nova or, more properly, a tenn
porary star" We have Just had a magnIf-
cent example in the star which was first
noticed in Perseus on the Dist of last Feb
ruary. rose on the oath to be the brightest
IN the heavens, Sirius alone excepted, and
Is now barely visible to the naked eve and
slowly fading toward extinction.
PerpIeNing and AstOnishing.
Few astronomical phenomena are more
interesting, suggestive and instructive, or.
L may add, more perplexing and astonish-
ing. Formerly such cases We're supposed to
be extremely rare. Miss Clerke, in her adj
mirable System of the Stars" enumer-
ated fourteen before 1850, beginning with
the star of Hipparchus, 1874 B. C. (Which is
said to have caused him to make his ia
nous star catalogue, the first ever con-
structed), and ending with little star de-
tected by Hind in 1878, though barely Wis
lble to the naked eye. OF these fourteen
however, eight are more or less doubtful.
the record not being sufficiently definite
as to preclude the idea that the body OBJ
served may have been a comet All but
the last We're, Of course, conspicuous
though only two of them seem to have
been more brilliant than our own Nova
Persei"
The most remarkable of all hitherto OBJ
served was Tychos star of 1872 in the
constellation of Cassiopeia. This, few
days after it was first seen, outshone even
the planet Venus, and was visible in full
sunlight; 1t continued visible Cthere were
no telescopes them for more than two
years before it's final disappearance and
still shoulders" to use Miss Clerke's
graphic expression, a little reddish star
of the eleventh magnitude, visible only
with good-siZed telescope.
The star observed by KepIer in 1904 may
also have been somewhat superior to Nova
Persei, since one observer states that il
rivaled Jupiter. But since then nothing
comparable to our star of 1901 has made
its appearance.
Of Varying Brightness.
Since 1850, however, three objects Of the
same character and visible to the naked
eye have been observed In 1866, 1876 and
1912. The two first when at their best
were about as bright as the Pole star, and
the other much fainter about equal to the
small stars in the Hyades. Besides these
there have been at least seven others, of
telescope brightness only; five of them
were discovered since 1887 by means of
photographs made at the Harvard College
observatory or at it's South American an
mex, and several of them only after the
outburst was over, by an examination of
plates made some months earlier. They
make 1t quite clear that if close watch
could be maintained on all the hundred
million of telescope stars the phenomenon
OF a Nova would be by no means so ex-
ceedfngly rare as formerly supposed.
1t is an interesting, and probably a sig
nifcant, fact that, excepting only the star
of 1866 in the const citation of Corona Bor-
calls, and the little star which in 1885 ap-
peared in the heart of the great nebula of |
Andromeda, all the temporary stars hither-
to observed have been In the Milky Way or
very near 1t.
Studying Their Spectra.
The star of 1865 was the first subjected |
to spectroscopic observation. It's spectrum |
was found by DR.. Higgins (now Sir VIII
liam. the Nestor or stellar spectroscopy) to |
exhibit conspicuously the bright lines of |
self-luminous hydrogen, along with some !
others, not then identified, but now known |
to be due to helium-the same which spe-
cially characterize the spectrum of the |
solar Observation-Disclosures sudden and |
enormous increase of the stars gaseous |
envelope, or at least of the luminosity of |
that atmosphere. The star of 1879 In Cyg-
nus presented much the same appearance; |
but it died out, its spectrum, instead of |
returning to the ordinary stellar type, be- |