Evening star., 1925-03-10

The stars, of which our sun is far
from being the greatest. may be
setting influences at work which
control the storms of the sun, mani
tested in the sunspots, which in turn
affect our temperature and winds.
The rise and fall of wheat prices in
our markets are due to conditions,
perhaps. fixed not by the barometri-
cal conditions studied by our
Weather Bureau as recorded yester-
day and last week, but by the stars
in their courses millions of years ago.
X v y r
The heat we receive from the sun
directly is greater than what reache es
forms US that the bright star, AL
baran. radiates heat which, if COL
lected over q. square mile of earth,
would produce one calory a minute.
whereas the suns heat in an area of
three -eighths of an inch square Cone
centimeter) would nearly double that
liza calories a minute.
We think of the size and weight of
the sun, as compared with the earth
as stupendous. The sun is greater in
mass than all the planets of the So
lar system com bined. 1t is nearly
100000 miles In diameter; the earth
approximately 5000 miles. Some OF
the sunspots are $4,000 miles across
the earth could drop into a sunspot
like an apple into a barrel. The
star. Albaran, has a diameter so
times greater than that of the sun
5S 900, 900 mileS-and BetelgeuX's di-
ameter is 800 times that of the sun.
Orionis and Lyrae are two and half
times hotter than the sun.
Only yesterday the announcement
f~a f1n from sha
servatory that the star Mirror has
been found to have a 25 per cent
greater diameter than Bepeldeuse-
a diameter of 250,0OO,0O0 miles The
solid body Of Mirror would fill the
entire circle of the earth's orbit. And
with the sun at its center would ex-
tend on all sides $4,000, 600, 600 miles
outside our orbit. The beams that
we now see started from Mirorr be-
fore we made our Declaration of In
dependence. Who shall measure the
influence of such worlds upon the
storms of the sun and earth?
So when issuing a declaration of
astrophysical independence from the
atmospheric conditions of our own
little earth, the radicals ask why
stop at the near-station of the sun.
only 100000 miles away? If we
were to travel-in imagination-upon
the wings of light, we would pass the
moon in f.2 seconds and the sun in
minutes, but the nearest star Alpha
Centauri, would require more than
four years, though we sped like
lightning"-six million million miles
year. There are only four stars
which would be reached in ten years.
1t would take 500 years to arrive at
w oh ic I
as our sun, and the beam from Orion
which we see twinkling tonight ac-
tually left that star upon its earth
ward journey 100 years before CO.
lumbus sailed to Cathay.
Our 100-inch telescope makes yisi-
BILE a billion and a half of stars all
bigger than our sun; future telescopes
will show that we of today see but
the outskirts Of the universe. There
are visible stars whose beams, travel
ing with the speed of light, 10000
miles per second, take 100000 years
to reach US. All their radio effects upon
the sun or upon the earth left their
starting station millions of years be-
fore this earth cooled sufficiently so
that God said, Let there be light:
and there was light"
X X
Our weather is forecast today upon
the oasis Oh the low OF nigh barome- j.
ter of the earth's atmosphere yester-
day. According to Drs Abbott and
Clayton, 1t will be predicated by the
future scientist upon the sunspots of
eight minutes past, though the in
f1uenceS that cause those sunspots
which cause our low or high ther-
mometer and barometer, were fixed
and Interchangeable millions of years
before. The weather is not a caprici-
Gus whim; it is immutable. Science
needs to collate facts and to read its
proofsheets
Copyright, 1925 by Paul v. Colllns.)