Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1931-04-16
The Stage Is Set For A Change
OF Scene

The Stage Is Set For A Change
OF Scene
The brilliant stars of the winter
skies have been slowly drifting
westward with the progress Of win
ter, and with the coming of spring
new groups with softer skies will
await the star gazer. Meanwhile,
we cannot let the act close without
a curtain call for the principal
hero of the mid-winter stage
Orion.
Orion may still be seen in the
early evening in April in the south
west 1t is one of the richest con-
stellations in astronomical informa
ton, to be found in the whole sky,
Almost everyone who knows the
Great Dipper and North Star knows
Orion. The central part of the fig
ure contains the three bright stars
which form the belt, and just below
are three more stars close together
in short line where the sword of
our proverbial hero is supposed to
hang. Surrounding the middle star
in the sword is bit of luminous
cloud, just discernible to the naked
eye on a clear black night, and cas-
lily distinguishable with pair of
binoculars. Is is the nebula in
Orion.
This nebula, composed of gases
so diffused as to rival the best vac
uum produced in the laboratory, in
reality occupies billions upon bill
lions of cubic miles in space, and
has been shining with it's mystic
light for unthinkable time. The
cause of this strange glow baffled
astronomers for ages because of
certain unknown green light which
it emitted unlike anything ever pro-
duced, or that could be produced,
by scientists in their laboratories.
But at last the mystery has been
largely solved. The strange light
has been found by Bowen, of the
California Institute of Technology,
to be due to light coming from oxy-
gen and nitrogen in highly electri-
fled state, the very kind of gases SO
to speak which compose the earth's
atmosphere from which man draws
his breath of life.
So strangely chaotic has Orion
nebula appeared in large tele
scope that it was often termed by
the astronomers of yesterday a veri-
table workshop of uncreated worlds.
and many astronomers thought that
here were to be found stars in the
making. More recent investiga-
tions, particularly by Hubble of the
Mt. Wilson observatory, lead us to
believe, however, that the light from
the nebula itself is largely due to
eXcitation from the intensely hot
stars in its midst, SO that perhaps
after all the most of the nebula
which we see is the result of the
stars in Orion rather than the stars
resulting from the nebula.
How strange it seems when we
think that the astronomers, even
with the most powerful telescope,
can tell us nothing about what the
Orion nebula looks like today, for
although they may measure it and
photograph it in the year 1881 the
picture which they get is probably
at least one hundred years old, for
it has taken light century to come
from those depths of space to us.
If an observer in the Orion nebu-
la could, through some imaginary
telescope, be peering earthwards,
getting inside information on our
terrestrial affairs, and then were to
broadcast the same by radio from
such intensity that we could pick it
up tonight as soon as Amos n Andy
were off the air. what sort of news
item would we receive? We, listen
ing in in 1881, might well hear the
announcer somewhat as follows:
This is station ORION on the
air, broadcasting latest news fash