Evening star., 1939-05-11
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study

In Field, Laboratory
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.
FORT DAVIS, Tex, May 11-Across
chasm of 100000 00o, 900 900 900 miles Of
star dust and nothingness, appearing like
a foot-square patch of star-sprinkled sky
on a frosty October night. globular clus-
ter Messier shines thrc:s... the eye
piece Of the giant telescope on the Texas
mountain top.
1t impresses the worlds most eminent
astronomers. gathered to observe pivo-
tai event in the accelerating progress Of
the human mind towards understand
ing Of the ultimate realities Of space and
time. On May night Of 1889 AID, they
beheld something that was happening
ABOUT the year $4,000 Be, when gro
tesque, club-armed Neanderthal man was
the only representative of the human
race on earth and the light gathered by
the rejecting mirror of the telescope
started its 180,000-mile- second journey
from the faraway island of hot stars.
Messier 3 is one of several hundred
similar star islands known to astronomers
thousands of stars packed in a globe
shaped conglomeration on the edge of
the Milky Way galaxy of which the solar
system is tiny part. On very clear
night it might be seen with the naked
eye in the southern heavens as a very
faint, twinkling star. With fairly large
telescope it would appear as a ball of
light. But with the worlds newest and
probably most powerful telescope looking
into space from the top of this Texas
mountain it appears for what it really is,
thickly packed field of individual stars.
1t was for the study of such objects,
members of our own galaxy of 100 OOO,-
100000 stars averaging the size of the sun,
that the new telescope was especially de-
signed, leaving to larger instruments to
come later and to the great 10O-inch in
strument of the Carnegie Institution Of
Washington the task of exploring the un-
imaginable vastnesses of space time be-
tween man on earth and the ultimate
realms Of nothing.
In some ways the former is the harder
job. 1t has required on the part of the
astronomers of the Universities of Texas
and Chicago and the engineers of the
Warner & Swasey Co. of Cleveland, who
built the new instrument, utilization of
the utmost reflnements of optical science
to make the nearest perfect "eye" in cre-
alton 1t Is intended primarily for close
seeing-within ranges of not much more
than few million light years-and re-
cording OF fine details. 1t is prepared
to use the Milky Way galaxy as a speci-
men for dissection in order to get at the
life secrets of the millions of other oc-
topus-like creatures Of light in creation.
Less than 20 years ago this little Milky
Way galaxy was all there was, so far as
the human mind was concerned Astrono-
mers had mapped it and tried to count
the stars in it. Only few bold minds
had ventured the hypothesis that certain
nebulous patches which appeared in the
consultations really might be great ag-
gregat1ons OF stars across great stretches
OF empty space from the farthest limits
OF what was generally considered to be
all of creation. Then, at the Carnegie
Institutions Mount Wilson Observatory
lncontrovertible evidence was obtained
that this hypothesis actually was true.
Still, man thought. these other galaxies
must be little things compared to the
Milky Way mass itself-perhaps no more
than satellites of it as planets are satel-
ites Of the sun. Then came the great
victory in the struggle of the mind of
man to free itself from the shackles of
man. -centered universe. First it had
been believed that the earth was the
center OF all things because man lived
on it, that relatively little sun revolved
around it, and that the stars were tiny
lights hung in the heavens. Then it was
proved that the earth and other planets
were comparatively insignificant satel-
htes revolving around this sun a thou
sand-fold bigger than any of them. Then,
within the time of our grandfathers, bet
ter and better telescopes showed that
even the sun did not amount to much
an insignificant one among almost
countless millions of similar objects. The
cosmic significance of mans petty wars
and triumphs long since had been erased
by the telescope. Now the fate Of earth
and sun itself became of no significance.
Then came the revelation of the extra
galactic nebulae. They, at least, seemed
smaller than the Milky Way system. The
mind of man, snubbed in everything else,
still could take a sort Of home town pride
in its own galaxy. Progress was rapid,
however, and discoveries of the absorp-
ton of light, the measuring rod of the
universe, by cosmic dust showed that
this was probably only an average-sized
galaxy among millions.
Thus the great glass eyes Of the lonely
mountainous have brought to the mind
immeasurable humility and with this
humility immeasurable freedom from the
shackles of any sense of responsibility
for the running of creation.
Now, with the new Mcdonald Observa-
tory telescope, the astronomer returns
again to microscopy and dissection Of
one of the millions Of galaxies-his own
in order that he may better under
stand the others and not with the idea
that it has any individual Importance
at all.