Evening star., 1937-11-21
North Star
Similar to
Our Sun
Comet Is Called
The Tramp of
The Sky.

IN oAy
YOU'VE probably never realized how
much people depend on the stars.
Have you ever been lost in the woods
and found your direction by the North
star? If you have, you can UNDER
stand why this particular star has
always been so important to man.
Ancient seamen set out on unknown
seas with the North star as their guide
Not every one knows that the great
pyramids Of Egypt were laid out by
means Of it. In modern times this
star is the object toward which the
north" end Of the compass needle
points.
This star, however, is not exactly
north. and that north point also shifts
from year to year, but reckoning by 1t
is exact enough for most purposes.
As for the star itself, it is really q
sun, something like our own sun, and
is the center of system, also, though
the "earths" belonging to it are too
far away to be seen even through our
largest telescope.
II you don't know how to locate the
North star, find the big dipper and fol-
low the line of the two end stars away
from the bottom Of the dipper for a
distance about equal to the length of
the dipper handle. There you will see
this famous star.
Perhaps you've often wondered about
the great clouds of glowing dust which
form one of the most beautiful pictures
in the whole sky. This is known as the
nebula and it's figures are both delicate
and beautiful. Many of the great
spaces back Of star areas are known to
be filled with these large clouds-the
raw stuff out of which suns and sys-
TENS are made.
While these great flre-clouds are ap-
parently the raw materials of the uni
verse. strange things happen concern
ing them. Suddenly, without warning,
a new star will flame forth with great
brightness. Then shortly 1t will pass
off into a less active state and appar-
emily become part of the cloudy mass
again. We do not know what causes
these appearances and disappearances
of stars, nor do We know just what
forms the nebula.
Not SO very long ago a brilliant
star flashed out from the mass, and
newspapers published the news Of the
breaking up of the star. Yet this star
was so far away that the explosion
which we saw in the goth century
really blew up" before Columbus dis
covered America, and its light, speed
ing across the airless space l86, 900
miles second, was still coming to
us hundreds Of years after there
wasn't any star at all. So the news"
was several centuries late!
Maybe you'd like to know a little
about the tramp of the skies. Yes,
it's the comet, which, instead of set
ting down quietly in one place and
| living in an orderly manner, goes
wandering restlessly about through
space.
Comets are not rare. Thousands Of
them have been observed. Many of
them have been captured by the big
planet Jupiter, because of the heavy
pull its gravity has on them as they
pass by, so that Jupiter is sort of a
Jail for all these sky tramps
They are enormous in size, the heads
sometimes being million miles across
They are light in weight, however,
almost like the gas in balloon. The
! danger of one of these comets run
ming into us, like head-on collision
between two trains, isn't worth wor-
rying about. because the comet is so
light and airy. And there Is not one
chance In 10 thousand that comet
will strike us.
Perhaps you've heard of Halley's
Comet which appeared last in 1910,
but had been seen nearly dozen
times before that. It was first OBJ
served in the year II B. c., and we are
due for another visit from this sky
tramp in 1885.
We know of one comet which actI-
ally broke in two and then finally
broke up altogether. These pieces or
parts OF comets are usually known as
shooting stars" They suddenly flash
into view, the tail remains a second
and they are gone. Like comets, these
shooting stars are usually very light
1t has been figured that 20,000,000 Of
them enter our atmosphere every "a
hours, beginning to glow about 10 to
80 miles out and lasting as far as 40
miles from the earth's surface.
There is, however, an entirely diff
ferent sort of shooting star-the me-
teorite. Meteorites are great heavy
masses of rock which, burning as they
come, are not burned up before hitting
the earth.
Five centuries before Christ we have
record of one being observed in
Greece. The British Museum has over
300 specimens which have been seen
to fall. The largest of these weighed
SAT pounds. One has been found in
Mexico which is 13 feet long. 6 feet
wide, S feet thick, and weighs SO tons.
Iron, nickel, silicon, calcium, a1umi-
mum, and other minerals are found in
these unexpected visitors to our earth.
But you don't have to worry about be-
ing hit by meteorite, for as far as is
known only one man was ever killed
by one, so large is the surface of the
earth as compared with the number OF
people to be hit.
So when you look at the sky tonight,
you no longer need think Of the we'll
known verse, Twinkle, twinkle, little
star; how I wonder what you are"
which all Of us know. For now you've
learned something about these stars,
and you can think of them always, not
as just pretty decorations in the sky,
but as members of a great system in
which our own earth and sun are but
very tiny parts.
Grammatical Pants.