Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-02-17
SIRIUS BRIGHTEST STAR
Brightest and Most Beautiful of Celes-
trial Jewels.

Do you ever get out in the night to
look at the stars in the winter time?
Because there has been so much rain
of late there have been few opportuni-
ties to see the stars because there have
been few clear nights. But If you will
pick q clear, frosty winter evening you
may see Sirius, the most magnificent of
all the celestial jewels. Sirius is called
the dog star. 1t is almost in line with
the belt of Orion in the eastern sky and
some twenty degrees to the southeast
Of 1t, scintilating and dashing lights of
varied colors and far outshining any
other star in the heavens.
As Sirius never attains great height
above the southern horizon in our lati-
tudes and is, in addition, exceptionally
bright, it's rays are strongly refracted
or broken up by the atmosphere, which
exerts it's greatest effect on bright OBJ
jects close to the horizon. AS result
1t wrinkles and flashes far more con-
spiculously than any other star. - This
sparkling Of Sirius and its flashing Of
lights of varied color makes it a most
gorgeous object to view in the teles-
cope but for the same reason; one Of
the most difficult to observe. -"
Almost completely hidden from view
in the brilliant rays OF Sirius Is a faint
companion star, which revealed Its
presence by the manner in which it
perturbed the motion Of its brilliant
neighbor through grayitatfonal .attrac-
tien, long before 1t was detected visual
ly by Alyan G., Clark while testing the
IS-inch telescope Of the Dearborn OBJ
servatory in 1862. ~ .. -.
The companion star is about as far
from Sirius as Neptune Is from the sun
and the two stars complete a revolution
about their common center of gravity
in 48.S. years. The fainter star Is one
Of the most feebly luminous stars
known, having only twenty -thousandth
part of the luminosity OF : Sirius. IT
would take twenty thousand stars as
bright as the companion star, to give
as much light as Sirius. In spite OF its
feeble light the faint star is half as
massive, that is, it would weigh half as
much as Sirius. The two. stars ccm-
bined weigh three and one half times
as much as our own sun. The llght OF
Sirius is equal to the combined light Of
forty Eight suns as bright as our own,
Though refraction Of, the light Of
Sirius by the atmosphere causes it to
fash the spectral colors, it is in reality
One of the intensely. white hydrogen
stars of great brilliancy. j
The Sirian system is at distance OF
about eight and one-half light years
from the earth and there are only two
stars nearer to us. One of these Is the
well known Alpha Centural and the
other faint star catalogued as Lal-
ande 21-1S5. On scale in which one
inch represents the distance of the
earth from the sun the Sirian would be
placed about eight miles away.
Sirius belongs to a moving cluster OF
stars known as the Ursa Major cluster,
which consists of at least thirteen
members, FIVE Of which are stars in the
Big Dipper and another the bright star
Beta, in Auriga These stars are all
moving in the same general direction
through space and are arranged in the
form of a disk Of diameter Of about
16O light years, and width fifteen light
years. The sun lies at present in the
midst Of this cluster and so the various
members of the cluster appear to us 10
be widely scattered over the sky. Sirius
the nearest member is but eight llght
wears distant, while the stars OF the
Big Dipper are seventy five light years
distant and Beta .Auriga Is at a dis
tance Of 135 light years. The cluster Is
now slowly oyertaking the solar system
and in the course of ages will pass II.