The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1912-05-21
SPOTS ON THE sun
They Indicate the Aging Of Our
Orb of Life and Light.
THE GREAT SOLAR TRAGEDY.

A Grim Play In Which the ''star1 Is
Fighting For Existence, Nae Abso-
tutsiy No Chance to Win and Whose
Death Means the End of the World.
Life Is a tragedy, the earth a stage,
men and women the actors, the gods
the audience. Some pessimists believe
that this great play of life is more
comic than tragic In the opinion Of the
spectators.
However this may be, there is an
Other, vastly greater, tragedy Of life at
which man himself is an onlooker, al
though, unfortunately, bis own ulti-
mate fate Is bound up with the denoue-
ment Of the play.
It is the life drama of the solar sys-
tam- It's chief actor is the sun, and
men are beginning to rub their eyes
and wipe the specks from their glasses
as they perceive more and more plainly
indications that the STAR Of the play
IN aging.
The fact is becoming only too clear
that for him this is no sport, but real,
deadly tragedy. He is not acting
part, but fighting for life. He cannot
win; he can only prolong the struggle,
and when he falls exhausted the stage,
the theater, actors, spectators, pit and
galleries win go with him in one uni
versal ruin.
Until recently we were only troubled
q little in mind by the sun spots. 1t
Was evident that they must cut off
some radiation, but the amount ap-
peared 10 be trihing and their maxima
are far apart, ten or eleven years. But
now we are confronted by a much
more disquieting phenomenon The sun
appears to "huctuate at irregular inter-
vAls OF several days and sometimes of
several months"
Here is the crux Of the whole mat
ter. What does the recognition of the
fact that the sun is a veritable star
end It's inhabitants? These questions
60 best be answered by considering
ether variable stars.
: Let us take an extreme example
/ There Ia In the constellation Of the
Whale a famous variable star known
| a. Mira the Wonderful. In a period
Of about ten months on the average it
changes from the d-sometimes the
sscond-magnitude to about the ninth
and then back again.
| That means, in the extreme, a prob
able difference Of between two and
three hundred times In the amount Of
light and heat which 1t radiates around
+. Il at maximum and at minimum.
! When 1t is faintest 1t cannot be seen
/, with the naked eye; when 1t is bright
ct 1t is a conspicuous object. As 1t
fades It turns reddish in color, and
when It brightens it blazes with bril-
liant spectroscopic lines.
/ 1t Is probably sun at least as great
a. our sun, and it has recently been
found that its spectrum resembles in
some striking peculiarities the spectra
Of sun spots.
DID 1t ever have any worlds to light
and nourish? If so think of the condi-
ton Of those worlds now.
+. A sun is like a living organism-it
wears out. As it ages it becomes more
and more variable. 1t maintains itself
and its planets while its radiant power
lasts, but 1t cannot do so forever. 1t
contracts, fiickers, struggles, fades and
goes out. It's lifetime Is millions OF
years, but ii has an end.
| let us account as a mere nothing,
cried Bossuet, everything that ends
for. though we. should multiply years
beyond the reach of numbers, yet all
would be nothing when the fatal term
"a reached Garrett P. Seryiss in New
York American.