Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1913-05-27
#iseellaneous Reaaina
FACTS ABOUT DEAD STARS
There are Ten Thousand Million Of
These Heavenly Bodies Chasing
About In Space. ---

neto fIoaNcTiy 5SotoS SUdoIn8
About in Space. ...tr
Perhaps 1t has never occurred to many
people that there are such bodies as
dark stars; but so great an authority
as Sir Robert Ball has said that the
dark stars are TO the bright for num-
bers as the cold horseshoes in existence
are to the red-hot ones. In these
days Of motor vehicles 1t is evident
that horseshoes are much less numer-
GUS than they were; but doubtless the
proportion of cold ones to those at
any given moment red upon the black
smiths anvil remains as 1t always
was For every such hot one there
must be many hundreds of cold ones;
so that If the sipile is sound, the
heavens must contain an incredible
number Of these derelics on the ocean
Of space. which. having lived their
life, have grown old and dead, but are
still racing about at star-speed until
in their wanderings they meet some
other heavenly bodies In terrific colli-
sion. ID. ...
Such gigantic catastrophe as the
clash Of two suns each perhaps mil
lions Of miles in diameter, rushing at
each other at the rate Of twenty or
thirty or even more miles per second,
would result, so the mathematicians
tell US, in world-splitting explosion
exactly as II each were composed Of
billions of billions Of tons Of gunpow-
der; and as when gunpowder explodes
nothing is left but gas and smoke, so
in the clash Of stars nothing would be
left of the two great solid bodies which
had collided, but an immense whirling
mass Of incandescent gas called a neb-
ula, Of which, as most people know,
there are quite a number dotted over
the heavens, This maelstrom of gus
would sail about among the stars for
ages, in the course Of which II would
naturally cool down and condense into
a r-system much like our own, with
probably a central sun. planets and
moon. ......
Some of these would sooner or later
arrive at a condition of temperature
suitable for the support Of life, and as
the centuries passed would become
peopled with sentient beings. Gradu-
ally they would grow too cold for life
to exist, and finally become frigid, cold,
dark, stars once more. The number Of
stars visible to the naked eye is only q
few thousands. With the best telesco-
pic and other instruments II Is calcu-
lated we can detect about a hundred
millions-not a large number (there
are fifteen times as many people as
that living on this globe); but judging
by Sir Robert Balls horseshoe simile,
and reckoning only one hundred dark
ones to every bright one, we may take
1t that there must be at least ten
thousand million dark stars chasing
about in space, most of which we have
never seen and probably never will
see. ... ..... 'n
% I say most Of which, for perhaps It
may come as a surprise to some that
the earth we live on Is a dark star; 80
are all the other planets and planet
oids of our solar system, which with
their moons, of which bodies, shining
only by the reflected light Of the sun,
there are at least 600 known to astron-
emers. Nor must we forget to mention
those bodies called shooting stars
which may be seen almost any clear
night II patiently watched for. These
though they look like stars, are hardly,
as every one knows, to be dignified by
that name, being mostly but very
small masses Of matter flying about In
space. They are quite cold and dark
until they enter our atmosphere, which
they do at such speed as raises them
at once to a white heat by friction Of
their passage through it, and thus they
are revealed to us. For every one we
see there must be many thousands
whose paths miss us entirely, ships
that pass US in the night, silently and
unknown. These too, we must class as
dark stars, though very humble ones
All these are cold and dead compared
with our sun or any Of the stars we
see. From the nearest they would be
quite invisible; and, vice versa, we
cannot see the planets which revolve
around the stars, If such there be, as
is likely enough; for it is hardly to be
supposed that our sun alone, among
q hundred million others, possesses
such attendants.
But we have one or two other rea-
sons for thinking that there are dark
stars much larger than any Of these.
Here and there are bright ones, which
are found to vary in magnitude at reg
ular intervals. One, Algol in Perseus,
not far from Cassiopeia, varies every
three days from a star of the second
magnitude to one of the third, and
gives us only third as much light
at its dullest as 1t does at its bright
est 1t seems probable that Algol is
really two stars revolving about each
other much as the two ends Of dumb
bell would revolve were 1t set spin
ming One Of these is supposed to be
dark and cold, or comparatively 80.
and the other bright; 1t Is easy to see
how at each revolution the dark one
might come between US and its bright
er companion, and cut Off part of the
light, thus causing the changes we see.
About thirty Of these variables have
been discovered. 1t seems a small
number, but 1t is plain enough that for
one Of such a pair to eclipse the other
its path would have to lie exactly be-
tween us and its partner. Probably
there are many whose paths do not
fulfill this condition, and therefore
cause no variation of light coming to
us. Others are doubtless flying about
the heavens on haphazard paths, and
1t is conceivable that one might come
along and collide with us or our sun.
The result Of such a collision would
undoubtedly be the end of this earth
and its inhabitants.