The daily Alaskan., 1916-08-07
SECRETS OF SPACE
What Might Be Revealed if Ma
 ture Lifted the Yell.
WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE.

verse ID Sh'g ~ a'N VI e' N'~''SS'
 and Perhaps Infinite sysEom of sun0
 and Worlds and Planets.
 Men of science have found reasons ;fur believing that there may be, far ofr in infinite space, other material systems besides the one visible to us. We seem to be able with modern tele- scopes to reach the boundaries or farthest limits of the stellar system to which our sun belongs.
 It Is found that with increase of dis tance the relative number of stars de- creases until, In most directions at least, point Is reached beyond which virtually no more stars can be seen. Then, too, 1t has been found that the stellar system has a fairly definite shape-a fact which in itself implies boundaries. The shape is that of a vast spiral, with curving arms sur rounding a central agglomeration. If you will Imagine floating in the middle of the room where you sit a roughly globular swarm of bright particles, distributed with a fair degree of uni. formity as to distance from one an. other, and then outside of the swarm surrounding it, but separated from 1t by 8 space which Is nearly but not quite empty, an irregular spiral ring of similar shining particles, you will have before you a picture of one of the latest astronomical conceptions of the form of the visible universe.
 The central swarm will represent the assemblage of stars of which our sun Is a modest member, while the envel oping spiral will represent the i'm mense system Uf the Milky way, whose stars are vastly more numerous than those composing the globular swarm The stars Of the Milky way are the most distant members of the entire system, which appears to be shut in all around by black space. Viewed from afar of in the ebon depths of that space, this universe of ours would resemble a phosphOrescent iellydsh, with faintly sparkling tentacles, ahoat in the sea of immenSity.
 This being so. the question naturally arises, May there not be, or must there not be, an indefinite number of other such systems scattered through the Hmitless expanse of space? That ques- ton would forever remain a matter Of pure conjecture if we did not have cer. tain very suggestive facts which seem to indicate that It ought to be an. swered in the affirmative
 The facts of which I speak are ob- jects of visual observation. But that does not necessarily make them parts of the visible universe" because they appear to be unconneCted with It and to lie beyond It's boundaries.
 These objects are known as spiral ncbulae. The photographs that have been made of them ID the past few years are simply amazing. The forms of many are surprisingly like that which has been described above as churacterizlng the stellar system. They have central agglOmerations with en velopiug spirals. They have knots of light which recall the globular clusters of stars found in the visible universe, but they are so distant that no sepa rate stars can be detected In them.
 They look like masses of more or less condensed glowing gas. but the spec. troscope shows that the light coming from them is not that which is charac teristic of gaseous nebulae, but that which belongs to true stars. The indu- en @ is that these wonderful objects muy actually be other universes lying out in the ocean Of space beyond our shores
 This inference is strengthened by what we know of the distance of some of these objects. The utmost diameter of the great spiral of the Milky way probably does not exceed from 4,OOO to 6.OOO 'parsecs." or from 500 to l,20O million times the earth's distance from the sun. A parsec which corresponds to a parallax of one second of arc, equals about I9,OOO.OOOOOO,OOO (nineteen tril. lion) miles. But some of the spiral nrbulae appear to be at least 10000 pursecs distant
 If that Is so there exists between them and the outer frontiers of the wis ible universe a gap far broader than the entire diameter of that universe. It can hardly be supposed. then. that they are outlying parts of or attendants upon our universe. but 1t is much more reasonable to conclude that they are other universes constructed on a simi lar plan. but so far away that as view cd with eur utmost visual powers. our mlghtiest telescopes. they are but gleaming specks! Perhaps the nearest of these strange objects Is the Androm eda nebula, which, in a small tele- scope, looks like faint spindle shaped wiSp.-Garrett P Serviss in New York Journal
 Venueanco on fhe Caddje.