Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-11-11
THE WORLDS POSITION.
Astronomical Expedition Equipped
 to Determine Where We Are : in the Universe.


 cussing the course of British trade, as- tronomers have been equipping an ex- Dedition which is, if possible, to solve the question whether we are all free traders And protectionists alike, with the sun and the rest of the planets, rushing through space at the speed of 45,000 miles an hour in the direction of the star Vega, says the Sphere. With this ques- tion is connected another very vital one of our position in the general scheme of the universe. The study of many facts In astronomy has tended toward the inn pression that the earth is but grain on the sand beach of space. Other recent accumulations of facts, however, seem to indicate-as pr. Wallace, the veteran colleague of Darwin, has pointed out that the earth occupies unique and cen .ral position in the visible universe. In this very vital discussion 1t is of inn portanceto know whether we are moving away from the apparently central posi- tion in the plane of the Milky Way with speed which is great or negligible and In what direction we are moving.
 To gather accurate facts concerning this movement, Prof. W. W. Campbell, y, out an expedition to Santiago de Chilli, whose mission it Is to measure the velo- city of 300 or 400 of the brighter stars in the quarter of the sky surrounding the south pole, for the only way in which we become aware of the flight of the solar system is by watching the counter move ment of the stars. We are like,'' says Prof. Serviss, passengers on the deck of ship moving swiftly through crowded harbor. The direction and velocity of our motion are indicated by the other craft and the shores around us. Ships ahead of us, which we are over- hauling, loom continually larger; those behind, which we are leaving, dwindle in the distance. This does not quite ap- ply in the case of the stars, because they are almost infinitely far awsy, and the change in their brightness resulting from an approach to those in the north and our retreat from those in the south is too slight to be noticed even from year to year. But. luckily. the waves of light do the work for us. The light of the stars toward which we are going has it's un- dulation practically shortened by our swift approach, and the light of those which we are leaving behind has it's un- dulatdons practically heightened, and the spectroscope not only detects these changes in the light waves, but enables us by their means to measure the rate of our motion and also to deduce it's exact di- rection." ~ ...-..-
 More than 100 years ago Sir William Herschel declared that the solar system - sun and his attendant planets, includ- ing our earth-is moving in a straight line approximately toward the consteIla- l ion Hercules That was merely guess 1 on Sir Williams part for there were nc means then of ascertaining the distances b of the stars or their velocity Later dis coveries have shown, however, that the statement was absolutely correct and that. the solar system is moving to 8 point, either in Hercules or in <Lyra- Herschel put the speed down to oabout ten miles a second. Recent lengthy obser- vations and calculations at the famous Lick observatory in California declare the speed at 12 miles second or 45, ,000 miles every hour
 It is confidently expected that the com bination of the spectrographic results obtained at the Lick observatory in Cali fornia and at Santiago will lead to very satisfactory solution of the perplexing problem of the motion of the solar sys- tenn through space. The expedition will be away two years.
 1t will be of interest here to quote pr. Wallace's conclusion: "The three start ling facts that we are in the center of a 1 cluster of suns, and that the cluster is situated not only precisely in the plane of the Milky Way but also centrally in that plane. can hardly now be looked upon as chance coinciderces without any significance in relation to the culminat. ing fact that the planet so situated has | developed humanity Of course, the re- lation here pointed out may be 8 true re- lation of cause and effect, and yet have arisen as the result of one in thousand million chances occurring during almost infinite time; but. on the other hand, those thinkers may be right who hold that the universe is manifestation of mind"
 ODD MEANS OF STJpPORT.