Evening star., 1935-02-21

Riding IN car travelling several
thousand miles a minute with nc
chauffeur. no traffic rules, all sorts
Of crossroads and highway functions.
and billions of other cars moving at
the same speed all around.
That's about what everybody is do
ing. so long as one remains a pas
senger on the solar system in its dash
through space. But there's no great
need to lose sleep over the likelihood
of a collision, according to determine
ton Just announced by DR.. r. F.
Sanford, astronomer Of the Carnegie
Institution Of Washington. We are
protected by the vastness and empti-
ness of space. AS a matter Of pure
chance, a stellar smash-up Is very
unlikely.
DR.. Sanford's provisional determ-
nations indicate that in an imaginary
sphere extending outwards for 16 light
years from the sun as center the
stars, on an average, are seven light
years apart. A light year Is the dis
tance traversed by light. moving
180, 900 miles a second. in year. II
star of average size, DR.. Sanford
estimates, be represented by a sphere
one-eighth of an inch in diameter
these spheres would have to be placed
four miles apart to give a true repre-
sentation of the distances Of the stars
around us.
Said DR.. Sanford: "It Is estimated
that the space around us that is un-
occupied by stars is 100000, ,000, ,000,-
900 100000 times as great as that
which the stars fill.
"a -
Production of pure iron" has just
been announced from the Carnegie
Institute Of Technology.
At least, the product produced In
the Institutes laboratory is more than
1896 per cent pure. Ordinary iron,
while good enough for all practical
purposes, is contaminated with minute
amounts Of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,
silicon, nickel, manganese, chromium
and copper. The publication was
accomplished by passing a stream OF
hydrogen over iron from which as
many impurities as possible had been
removed by other methods. These
took out many of the alien elements,
leaving them in quantities not greater
than a few parts in q million.
One purpose for producing the
pure iron was to determine accurately
the properties of the metal. So long
as a sample contained other elements
it was impossible to determine
whether some Of its peculiarities Of
behavior were due to its own prop
critics or those Of the other agents In
the combination.
For example, as Is well known, iron
expands with heat. It continues to
expand until a temperature Of about
900 degrees Centigrade is reached.
Then it stops expanding and actually
contracts. When the heat Is in
creased above this critical tempera-
ture it starts expanding again. This
phenomenon Is due to the rearrange-
ment Of the iron atoms in q new
molecular pattern-although some
metallurgists have maintained In the
past that the rearrangement would
not take place If it were not for the
impurities.
Tests with the pure substance,
however, showed that the change was
even sharper, indicating that with
only iron atoms present the rearrange-
ment took place under the most ia
vorable circumstances.
Il 4
+ A series of paintings on cloth,
which, it is believed, constitute one
Of the few permanent records Of the
great nine-day healing ceremony Of
the Navajo Indians, the mountain
chant, has Just come into the pos
session Of the Smithsonian Insti-
They are accurate representations
of the so-called sand paintings" Of
sacred dEares which hage . proni.