El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-02-04

WHICH ecI1pSeS AISOl every bS hours,
causing the light of the latter to glare
and fade alternately, like the beam
| from a lighthouse with a revolving
lamp. But even more odd is the case
| Of the bright star Castor. which re-
wolves about an immense dark globe
the spectacle presented being that Of
a gigantic world with sun actually
circling around 1t.
How Heat is Measured.
The Smithsonian folks, with the help
| Of an ingenious electrical thermome-
ter, have made accurate measurements
of the amount of heat delivered upon
the earth by good many of the stars
among them Sirius Areturus, Alley
one, and Alpha Centauri This is ac
complished by catching a ray from
selected twinkler upon mirror. ana
throwing it through a tube in such
way as to make 1t fall upon a thread
of platinum. Inasmuch as the cleo
trical resistance of the metal varies
directly with its temperature. the
amount of heat carried by the star can
be exactly determined by a delicate
galVanOmeter.
To measure the briIliancy Of a star
l. e., the amount of light it emits-fs
a problem altogether different of
course. In this case the pole star is
taken as a standard. BY an arrange
ment of mirrors, the image of the pole
star is thrown upon the object glass of
a telescope, side by side with that Of
the star whose brightness is to be de-
termined Then the two are compared,
and by certain mathematical means,
the matter is determined with absolute
accuracy.
Thus, as above stated, it is known
that Algol gives out So times as much
T2r7< hat
that amount to? Why, Vega, in the
constellation OF the Tyre, is 1000 times
as brilliant as our own orb of day. And
this is a fact of special interest to US,
inasmuch as the entire solar system
Ito which we belong) is moving direct
ly toward Vega at a speed of 10 miles
a second. The reader is already many
hundreds of miles nearer to that giant
sun than when he began to peruse this
article.
Largest of All Suns.
Vega, itself, however, is dwarfed by
Areturus-the. star of Job, largest Of
all the suns, and the greatest center
of radiant emery the universe contains.
Five thousand suns like ours would
be required to give as much light as is
emitted by this, the might'est member
of all the shining multitudes that
throng the Milky Way.
So it would seem thst our sun. while
a right hot little star. is not much TO
brag about, as heavenly bodies 60 1t
is in fact, a star of only the fifth mag
nitude, and Of inferior brightness. AS
well as the astronomers can make out,
it occupies a position not far from the
middle of what we call the universe
or, in other words, of the Milky Way.
The universe has the form of a disk;
and, when we gaze at the Milky Way,
we are looking through 1t edgewise
from the center-which is the reason
why the stars look so thick.
Not Too Close Together.
Yet, as a matter of fact the stars
which look so closely huddled together
in the Milky Way are separated from
each other by an average of six and a
half light years. In other words, a
ray OF light, which travels 1900
miles a second. would require six and
a half years to pass from one to an
other Of these celestial neighbors.
Ny. but it is lonely in the midst Of
space. The sun has only one near
neighbor star-AIpha Centauri-and he
is four light years away. Too far, one
fears, for visiting purposes; and a pity,
too for in all likelihood Alpha Cen
tauri has flock of planets Of his own,
at least some of them inhabited.
The Runaway Sun.
But, if one were to have an oppor-
tunty to pick another system TO live
in, surely it would be jolliest and most
interesting to become dweller on one
Of the satellites of 1880 Groombridge."
That is the astronomers name for it,