, 1911-12-30

4lKS the Pldu0lS1 WHlCu are Cpupdtai4NSlN
near, be lit up by our sun, but must, like
him, shine with their own light. As seen
in telescopes the planets appear as balls and
can be measured, but not even in the most
powerful telescope can a star show its form;
it remains, however brilliant, simply a light.
1t, seems quite certain, however, from a
comparison of the light given, that many
stars exceed our own mighty sun Ia SIZE.
Yet our sun is so large that it would take
Il million bodies the size of this great globe
on which we live to make up a body equal
III. size. What grandeur then Is seen IN the
space around US when we realize TINT every
one of these diamonds in the sky" is a SUI
like our own grand source of light and heat.
IS. Numbers or the stars. How many
stars are there? We answer this question
with a quotation from Professor Todd's
"Naw Astronomy';" Their approximate num-
Der has been ascertained not by actual count,
but by estimates based on coults OF TYP cal
areas scattered / in different parts of the bel-
veps. The nu uber of stars within reach Of
our present telescopes perhaps exceeds 125
millions According to the same authority
the number of stars visible to the naked eye
As about 1000.
4 Are the stars fixed ? When we see
&he same stars coming round at the same
times year after year, aul occupying the
Same relative positions in their respective
CONSIDERATIONS we can readily understand
AOw the stars have got the ma ne of fced. We
ran understand it still better when we com.
pare the stars with the planets (the wander
ers, as then name means). Suppose for ex.
ample that we have looked at the Pleiades
now aud again during the past few weeks,
we have seen near them q stranger, shining
with a steady reddish light. We have no
tlced that this stranger changed its position,
passing the Pleiades and climbing higher in
she sky. The stranger might at first up-
pearauOe be taken for the prince of that
group OF tiny lights, instead of whica he is
- mere tramp at an uuthinkable distance
away from them In size he is less than our
earth, 1900 miles IN diameter agaius; 5000
f"r the earthl While the tiniest speek in the
Pleiades IS 4 glorious suu, probably more
than a million times the size Of Mars,
which is the strangers name. When
year after year we see the Pleiades coming
round the same track IN the sky, the stars
of the group always forming the same figure,
while a planet now and again wanlers past,
we are the more impressed with the ap.
proprlateness Of the title "liXed' as APP
piled to the stars, and yet they are not
fixed after all. On the contrary they
are all III rapid motion, and here IN
the most striking way the truth is illusira-
ted that "things are not what they seem"
The motions of the stars of several consteIln-
tions have been measured by very fine IN
struments and it is known how fast each is
hroying, but the scale OF the heavens is 50
vast that it would take several thousand
years to accumulate changes to al amount
that could be noticed.
Those observations, made with measuring
instruments, could not shew motions directly
towards or away from us, emotions in the
liue of sight" as they are called; but Il truly
wonderful way of dealing with the night from
a given star has been discovered which re-
veals, not only whether the star is coming
towards or going away from US, but reveals
also the rate ut which ii is moving. Thu, it
has been found, for example, that the star
-lhIeburun mentioned above is moving to-
wards tue sun ut 81 mites PEI second; the
LIST magnitude star III the lower left-hand
culner of Orion (Betelgeux) is moving to-
wards the san at nearly IS miles n Sc
coud, and the 1,t magnitude Star DIigeI)
IN the upper right hand corner at nearly
IA miles a second. Other stars are NOV
ing away at rates just as rapid.
Such then are the fixed stars a countless
host OF mighty suns all in rapid motion in
various directions. and ONLY seeming to us