Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1918-08-16

mystery OF it, and the man in the
street may be pardoned for having
raised questions regarding the lurn.
mary which should not be asked.
was the nova" "sign in the hea-
vens,. some kind of portent or
warning The nearest approach to
such an Interpretation came when
British experts were asked whether
the new sun was moving this wav
ana II there was any likelihood of il
getting IN to head-on collision with
the earth. These moments of alarm
nave now passed and the star.
though diminished in brilliance from
the first to fourth magnitude. is
still shining-at safe distance.
In the interim, and without any
unrlddling of the puzzle, we have
come to realize that the celestial
visitor is new" only in a pIckwic-
khan sense. 1t had been seen before:
at least thirty years ago Harvard
photographs of the constellation
showed this particular star in cx-
actly the same place which is oc-
ccupies today. 1t was then vcly
faint object, even for the camera,
and remained in such successive
pictures until early in June, when
1t took turn for the brighter, and
qualified as an astronomical sensa.
ito. Whether the star Exploded
got tremendous jolt from q clark
sum-, or simply p!owed its way thru
nebula, nobody knows. 1t is easy
to trace fire to spontaneous com
huston when the flames arise in the
next street; it is much more diff
cult to decide between rival theories
when your conflagration is any,
between 6,000,000,O 100000 and 6,OO0,-
ooO,OOO,OO0,OOO miles away.
The distance was deceptive, to
say the least, and our happy-go-luck
method of thinking that everything
we can observe is happening in the
now" led us to suppose that We
were contemporaries of the "flare-
up, Light does travel at inconcei-
vaDle speed-at the rate of 1885, 900
miles secondhand we get news of
events IN the sun in about Fights
minutes. But many of The stars ar.
so bewilden-ingly remote that this
particular outburst must have taken
place not week nor month before
It was seen, but hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of years ago. In study
ing the CONSULTATIONS That have be-
come SO familiar and dear to us we
are studying not what is, but the
things that once were-the vast
antiquity which makes up SO much
OF the bulk of our universe.
Tremendous changes, of which
only our far-off successors can know
anything, may even now be in prog
res in the skies. And if there be
sentient beings far afield who scan
our habitation with Instruments i'm
measurably superior to ours, they
also are antiquarians in regard to
US. In one world, according to dis.
lance the observer might be wit
Messing the battle of Waterloo. in
another the founding of Rome, in
third the fell of Troy, in a fourth
scenes from ancient Egypt and it's
dynastics; deeper still in space we
imagine some celestian inquirer tv
whom has just come the vision of
earliest man at last on his feet and
disputing with the cave bear for
place in which to lay his head 1t is
an impressive thought that there arr
star systems so remote that even the
swift messenger Of light could not
reach them with the story of our war
until long after this planet had
ceased from it's nurture of life and
had been teased out into the cosmic
dust from which new worlds inces-
sanity come forth Boston Herald.