The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1921-02-03
Ed orr al S
IN DEFENSE OF THE SUN

Since the announcement that the fixed star Beelgeuse
has Lecn measured by Chicago astronomer and found
to have diameter of 200 100000 miles, there has been
much comment in the press of kind calculated to create
dissatisfaction with faithful luminary. Why
should we be put off with little one-horse sum- only
100000 miles in diameter, when the inhabitants of the
Beelgeuse system revolve around which is millions
OF times bigger? is the tenor of the complaint.
Before this dissatisfaction assumes an active form,
The Telegram desires to submit few mitigating cir
cumstances
Because Betegeuse today as big in its circumfer-
the orbit of Mars, it does not follow that it
any important as member of the sidereal system
than Old Sol. 1t may merely be younger. Time was.
astronomers declare, when the which lights and
warns the United States was vast, gaseous or nebu-
lous body whmlmg through space of irregular FORM like
huge spiral in process Of becoming SPHERICAL and with
its outer edges extending than billion miles from
its Under the influence of grayilaton and other
natural laws ii slowly contracting.
In time it threw off part of its bulk and the result
another spherical body revolving around it, under
the impulse of its original motion his body contracted
cooled off went through similar processes of its own,
and finally became the planet Neptune which now rolls
on an orbit three billion miles from the SUM-
This process repeated, gave birth to the planet
Uranus, whose mean distance from the almost two
billion miles Saturn was the next solar child, and the
curious rings and satellites which surround that planet
nearly billion miles from the SUM- afford curious illus
ration OF the by which the heavenly bodies re-
produce their species The had shrunk 10 one
third its original diameter but lis dimensions were still
immensely greater than those of its rival, Betegeuse
Another tremendous separation of matter from its sur
face brought Jupiter the largest of the planets into ex
sence. By this time Neptune was old and faded, and
had probably become fit abode for animal exist
ence, for even at that day the sun was two billion miles
away from its first born
Another similar separation produced, not another
planet but whole brood of little bodies called aisle
rods, revolving almost the orbit and passing so
close to each other that the inhabitants if there are any,
can almost megaphone each other as they pass. I hen
another long period Of shrinking and cooling, and
Mars rolled OFT from The still gaseous surface and
began Its career.
AT this period, billions Of years after it began its
course, the occupied the same amount of heavenly
space Betelgeuse at this time But it continued to
shrink The EARTH followed by Venus, and then by
and Jupiter had done in the ages past and the sun sat
down in the midst of its family 10 pass through the last
stage Of dissolution. In the course CT ages will grow
dim, cold and lfeIess just like the moon that sweeps
around the EARTH ike the distant planets which have
long since ceased be of any use in the astral
But it is still the hottest thing we know anything
about and the period of its final extinction is too remote
to trouble the present generation. Before making invic-
comparisons, will be necessary 10 know more about
lis stellar rivals 1t is quite likely that in its present com
pact, energetic and wellregulated form, the sun is
much better thing to rely upon than q halfbaked sar
that buks millions of times large but probably has
net enough density to float cigarette smoke