The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1912-05-17
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 "Star" Is
Fighting For Existence, Has Abso-
Iutely No Chance TO Win and Whose
Death Means the End of the World.
Life is a tragedy, the earth 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, his own ulti-
mate fate Is bound up with the denoue-
ment of the play.
1t is the life drama Of the solar sys-
tenn. Its 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
is aging.
The fact Is becoming only too clear
that for him this is no sport, but real,
deadly tragedy. He is not acting a
part, but lighting 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 will go with him in one uni
versal ruin.
Until recently we were only troubled
little In mind by the sun spots. It
was evident that they must cut on
some radiation. but the amount APP
peared to be trifling, and their maxlma
are far apart, ten or eleven years But
now we are confronted by much
more disquieting phenomenon. The sun
appears to "fuctuate at irregular inter-
walls 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
mean? What may 1t mean to the earth
and its inhabitants? These questions
can best be answered by considering
other variable stars.
Let us take an extreme example
There is in the constellation Of the
Whale a famous variable star known
as Mira the Wonderful In a period
Of about ten months on the average 1t
changes from the third-sometimes the
and then back again.
That means, In the extreme, prob
able difference of between two and
three hundred times in the amount Of
light and heat which 1t radiates around
1t at maximum and at minimum.
When IL is faintest II cannot be seen
with the naked eye; when it is bright
est it is a conspicuous object. As 1t
fades it turns reddish in color, and
when it brightens it blazes with bril-
liant spectroseopic lines,
1t is probably sun at least as great
rs our sun, and it has recently been
found that its spectrum resembles in
some striking peculiarities the spectra
)f sun spots
Did it ever have any worlds to light |
iuI uOuFlsn II SO luluh VI luc CVuAl- /
ion Of those worlds now.
A sun is like living organism-it |
wears out As it ages it becomes more !
Ind more variable. 1t maintains itself /.
md it's planets while its radiant power |
asts, but it cannot do so forever. 1t
contracts. fiickers. struggles, fades and 7
goes out. Its lifetime is millions of /
7ears, but it has an end.
LET US account as mere nothing"
.ried Bossuet, everything that ends,
or though we should multiply years
beyond the reach of numbers, yet all
would be nothing when the fatal term
S reached Garrett p. Serviss in New
fork American.