El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1912-12-28

would take $50 years to cross it. Rep
resent this orbit by woman's finger
ring. and Con the same scale) Vega
would be about eight miles away
Three hundred millions of miles
seems an enormous distance. But light,
travelling at the rate of $4,000 miles
a second, could traverse it in less than
half an hour. And the great star vega
is nearly p light years. away from
US In other words, a ray of light start
ing from that giant sun would take al
most p years to reach the earth
Reach vega in $4,000 Years.
Thus it appears that, making all rea-
sCnable allowance for errors OF reck-
oning. the sun and its FAMILY Of plan
cts ought to arrive in the ne1ghbor-
hood of Vega about 100000 years from
now. And high time, too, for, if the
ideas of certain very eminent astron-
OmerS are correct, the earth and It's
inhabitants by that date will be in ur-
gent need of a fresh source of heat
our own solar orb being already, at
this writing, somewhat decrepit
Prof T. J. J. See, the foremost of our
naval astronomers, says that the sun
Will begin to run down rapidly AFTER
100000 years from now, and that on
this account. mankind (barring some
such piece of cOSm1c good 1uck) must
look forward with certainty to being
wiped out eventually by steadily in
creaSing cold. The sun. according to
Prof See. has already burned 32,OOO,OO
years, and in about 100000 years more
it will go out"
The "cosmic accident" however. may
be of a very different and highly ca
lamitOus kind. For, on our way to the
constellation of the Tyre. we may go
smash into something. Prof. See saws
that there are many more dark IL e.
eXtinguished) suns than bright ones,
and that the heaven are literally
filled with these invisible bodies"
Worlds in Collision.
It is quite certain that such col
IsiOns do occur every now and then. In
- nArne-H 49, =
kind made visible to astronomers low
ing to the resulting confIagratiOn in
the SKYE a new star which was listed
as Nova Persei." On the night of Feb
ruary "A it was the brightest star in
the heavens, Sirius alone excepted. But
SIX weeks later its fires had diminished
to such an extent that it was hardly visi-
bic to the naked eye.
As a matter of fact the collision thus
made manifest occurred at least a cen
tUry before we saw il. Few astronomi-
cal happenings are more astonishing or
more Instructive. The most remarkable
celestial collision on record is that
which set "TychO'S star" on fire in 1872
A. D. It was so brilliant as to be visi-
bic to the naked eye in full sunlight,
and even to this day it still smolders,
though it can be seen only with a
gOod-sized telescope.
Measuring the Universe.
Until recently nothing was deemed
more hOpelessIy beyond the reach OF
human knowledge than the measure
know these measurements, approx
mately, and We are even able to tell
the number Of stars the universe con-
tains.
We know now that the universe has
the shape of disk When we gaze up
ward at the Milky Way. we are looking
through the disk edgeWise, and that is
why the stars seem thick. All of these
stars are blazing suns. The total num-
Der OF them is not less than 500 000,-
100000, and not more than 1000, 00O,
900, 900.
The diameter of the disk is about
$4,000 light years. Which is another
way of saying that a ray of light,
starting from one edge would reach
the opposite edge in $50 centuries.
Our sun is a rather small star not
far from the center of the Milky Way
that IS to say, Of the disk above men
toned. There are certainly thousands
and probably millions of stars hun
dreds Of times as big so that we can
hardly consider our little solar system
as cutting a very important figure in
the universe.
Attached to our sun are eight plan
ets-four big ones and four little ones.
We dwell on one of the little ones,
which, science is strongly inclined to
believe, Is the only one Of the eight
that is inhabited Quite possibly this
IS mistake. But the earth, as we
call it, is scarcely more, relatively
speaking, than a speck Of star dust
Let US refer this statement to known
facts.
The question used to be-Do other
stars q. e., other suns than OurS) DOS
sess planets of their own? Of course.
the reasonable presumption was that
they did, but proof was lacking.
This proof has now been supplied.
Some OF the planets belonging to a few
other suns than ours have been spied
out with powerful telescopes, and even
measured Necessarily, only a few very
large ones have been thus described /
and a majority Of these are more than
100000 times the size Of the earth
Think Of planets as big as, or bigger
than, our sun! We have discovered a
few of them, figured out their periods
OF reTolution-and so forth, but it is only
reasonable to suppose that these giant I
Orbs number millions.
Well, then Notwithstanding the |
enormous distances that separate the
Stars-Our nearest neighbOr, Alpha !
Centaurl, being more than four light \
years away from us-we are able to /
learn that some of them at least DOS
sess attendant planets. The presump-
ton, at all events, is that most of them 4
have planetary systems of their own.
Such Of their planets as we are ac- /
with are giants compared with 1
the universe?
Human Vanity Is Great.
Why. then, should we imagine that /
the earth is the only Inhabited orb Of /
the unieVrse?
Refer the matter to crazy human !
vanity and let it go at that
Suppose that there are only 100000 I
100000 suns in the Universe-this be- /
ing, according to our best astronomical /
knowledge, a minimum estimate. There !
must be. in the nature of things, several I
times that many of the minor and de- 4
pendent Orbs which we call planets. /
The chances, then, are as thousands of 4
billions to one that ours is not the only I
planet that is peOpled.
In other words, it is a practical /
certainty that other planets are inhab- i
tied; and there is every reason to sup /
pose that many millions of them are
the abOdes of living and conscious be- 1
ngs- Natures laws are the same ev-
7rywhere, and life is certain to exist 1