The San Francisco call., 1906-06-24

brightest star in the heavens. On the
fifth day il lost one-third OF its light
and then rapidly declined only to
brighten up occasionally. For long
time il fingered as a small telescopic
star, but it eventually disappeared en-
tirely.
On a photograph of this body taken
six months after it's first appearance,
small nebulous or cloudy ring was dis
covered surrounding the star. Subse-
quent photographs showed that this
ring of light was slowly spreading. At
first it was supposed that this was a
white hot gas or cloud of incandescent
meteors cast out by the star. but when
the ring was measured IL was esttmat-
ed to be several thousand billion miles
in diameter. The idea of a gas or solid
matter being thrown to such distance
in six months, or at a speed of several
million miles a minute, was prepOs-
ferrous. and it led to a new theory.
This theory held that the nebulous
matter was a vast cloud of meteorites
or gas. which was dark. and therefore
invisible until lighted up by the star;
that the star, too, was dark until IL
plunged into the swarm of meteorites
in its path, and that the force OF its
collision with these meteorites was so
great as to make il burst into flame,
Just as a meteor will suddenly become
white hot when il plunges through the
atmosphere. After passing through the
swarm the star gradually cooled on
and it's light faded but occasionally
gIowed brighter as il plunged through
stray wisps of the nebulOus NATTER
The ring of light was then merely the
light of the star reflected to US from
the nebulae surrounding the star
Light travels at the rate of about six
thousand billion miles a year, and so IN
six months it would cover an area
fn haf of
ring. When an astronomer knows the
diameter of distant object and can
measure it's apparent diameter in de-
grees of a circle in his telescope, IL is
a very simple matter to calculate the
distance of that object
The farther one moves from any OBJ
ieet the smaller it appears, and this at
definite rate. Applying this rate 10
the nebulous ring. it was found to be
roughly about 100000. 600, 600. 900
miles away. and as light travels nearly
is, ,OOO, ,0O0, ,0OO, 900 miles in three years, IL
took the light of that star three hun
dred years TO reach US. This means
that the star took it's eventful plunge
into the nebulOus mass at about the
time that Hendrix Hudson discovered
the Hudson River. but the record Of the
plunge, travelling at the speed OF light,
has Just had time to reach us
Another even more remarkable tenn
porary star was that discovered by
Mrs Fleming, at Harvard. last August.
This star suddenly appeared and grew
to the seventh magnitude within three
days, after which it died slowly away.
Two months later photographs of this
star taken independently in Paris and
in Germany. showed a faint nebulOus
ring. This had not appeared on prevt-
Gus photographs The ring was much
smaller in diameter than the one just
mentioned. measuring minute OF
arc in diameter. or about one-thirtieth
of the diameter of the moon as il ap-
pears TO U.S. Now. since it took two
months for the light of the star to ira
verse an angle of one minute. it follows
that the outburst rlust have taken
place about 1000. O0O. zoe, 100000 miles
from us and about 1900 years ago. In
other words. we have recently been eye
witnesses of an event which took place
during the reign OF King Alfred the
Great.