Evening star., 1934-05-30
Super-Explosions of Suns
Held Origin of Cosnic Rays
Entirely Ne,o Hypothesis Is Developed
by T,uo Astronomers of Carnegie
Institution of Washin gtOn.

short time ago-about 10000 900 900
years-was packed into a single atom
which exploded The stars and the
)galaxies themselves are flying frag-
ments of this explosion. The cosmic
rays are the sparks" resulting from
it. still wandering about in space.
Both hypothesis are fantastic. Baade
and Zwicky maintain. although their
own thesis is not entirely contradic-
tory to that of LIE Maitre and would
not be disproved in the event of con-
elusive proof Of the expanding uni
verse theory.
One point seems concluSively proved,
they point out. The cosmic rays come
neither from the sun nor from the
stars. There is no variation of their
intensity night or day If they do not
come from the stars of our own
galaxy it is highly unlikely that they
come from any of the other galaxies.
The Milky Way universe" seems fair
ly typical of all the others.
New Stars Frequently
Appear in Heavens.
The chief element of this third ma
jor cosmic ray hypothesis is the intro
duction of the super-novae
Common 'novae," or. new stars, are
well enough known-both in the ga
Tactic system and outside it. They
are obscure stars which suddenly be-
come very bright for a few days or
weeks, and then decline to inSignifi-
canoe again. They are important
objects to astronomers because of the
aid they give in measuring stellar dis
tances. Ten to twenty of them are
have been recorded in the Andromeda
nebulae, the best known of the island
universe" At its maximum bright
ness one Of these novae is about 90
600 times brighter than the sun, its
distance being taken into considera-
tion. During the brief maximum
period it may be the brightest star in
the sky.
But even such a phenomenon pales
into insignificance compared to the
"super-novae." Ordinarily, the as
tronomers assume. it has been a star
OF about the size and brightness of
the sun. At its maximum its bright
ness Is calculated at more than Co.
100000 times that of the sun. If the
sun should become a "super-novae"
1t will emit energy in two or three
days equivalent to what it ordinarily
would emit in 10000 900 years.
Such release of energy is incom-
parably greater than anything hith-
erto imagined in the solar system. 1t
is more than sufficient to account for
cosmic radiation, Baade and zwicky
find.
Stars Not Broken Up;
Process q Transition.
What actually happens? 1t cannot
be an explosion" in the ordinary
sense of the word. The stars are
not broken up.
Baade and Zwicky advance the hy-
pothesis that, for some unknown rea-
son, the "super-novae" phenomenon is
the transition Of an ordinary star into
a "neutron star"-composed entirely
of single pairs of electrons and pro-
tons, particles containing equal posi-
tive and negative electrical charges,
packed together in a state of matter
utterly beyond any human concep-
tion-of such density that a small
bit Of it would weigh as much as the
world. After the fare-up it becomes
SO small that it is ever afterward in
visible.
Matter Is transformable into energy.
The substance of the sun. for example,
is being melted away at a rate of
millions of tons second by the
nergy, in the form of radiation, which