Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-07-18
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.

AND Sfuoy
By Thomas r. Henry.
Discovery OF two cosmic supergiants
100000. ooo, ooo. 600, 900 miles or more
distant from the earth In the southern
heavens has just been announced to
the National Academy of Sciences here
by DR.. Harlow Shapley and Constance
D. Boyd, Harvard University astrono-
mers.
They are hitherto unknown galaxies
of galaxies of stars one Of them con-
tanning the largest close-packed celestial
aggregation yet known to astronomers.
Each is moving outward into empty space
at a speed of close to 5000 miles q sec
ond. The size Of these objects stuns the
Imagination. The Milky Way galaxy,
Of which the solar system is part,
is considered an average conglomera-
ton of stars in the universe. It consists
of about 100000, 100000 stellar bodies,
of which the sun is close to the average,
occupying space which light, moving
at 10000 miles a second, requires about
10000 years to cross.
One of the newly discovered aggrega-
tons has at least 3,847 and the other at
least 3,47s just such aggregations. Some
are smaller and some larger than the
Milky Way system. Many Of the smaller
ones, DR.. Shapley believes are not in
Guided in the counts because they were
too faint to make any impression on
the Photographic plates. They are
packed closely together. Light requires
only about million years to cross one
OF these supergalaxies.
Other such giants have been de-
scribed, containing several hundred star
systems. Such aggregations, he points
out in his report, are in striking con-
trast to the local neighborhood of space
where eight or ten systems. including
the Milky Way aggregation and its
two satellites, the Clouds of Magellan,
are scattered within an area of about
s. million light years.
Shapley says, apparently are made up of
all sorts of universes, from gigantic
spirals like Fourth Of July pinwheels
such as the Milky Way system would
appear to an observer millions OF light
years distant to baby galaxies which are
just beginning to become differentiated.
They are fairly close to each other,
separated by only about SOC, 900 ,OO0, 0CO,-
600 900 900 miles, and are in a region of
creation where systems of galaxies, great
and small, seem to be fairly abundant.
Space between galaxies comes close to
universe as whole. A recent esti-
mate is that it contains about one 30 ,0OO,-
00o, 900 ,OO0, 900 900 0OO, 0OO. OO0, 00Oth of a
gram of matter per cubic centimeter-
compared to which the space between
the stars in a galaxy is millions of times
denser, even If 1t Is millions of times
emptier than the most complete vacuum
obtainable on earth. This is about the
condition in the neighborhood of the
Milky Way galaxy.
These regions of thick space, DR.. Shap-
ley says, seem to be from hundred to
thousand times denser than ordinary
empty space. The figures are arrived at
by considering all the matter in the
galaxies as equally distributed through
every cubic centimeter of the area filled
by the aggregation. But, he says, the
density distribution in the regions of
the supergiant galaxies seems to be
very unequal, in some places approach
ing that of the Milky Way neighbor-
hood.
widely accepted theory at present
is that in the beginning, from two to
three billion years ago, all the matter
in the universe was packed tightly to-
gether, that this great mass exploded,
and that all the stars and galaxies and
systems of galaxies in existence today
are flying fragments of this explosion.
Now, Dr. Shapleys report points out,
some portions have remained together
closer and longer than others. Event.
ually all are bound to disperse so that
there will be an equal density every
where. In the particular region he is
ocSSa AOAAAS, ~ 40 cAPldiIlcO, ILLS breaking
up may be just getting under way It
must be remembered of course, that he
is looking at something as it was about
100000 years ago, when the light
which fell upon his Photographic plates
started on its way.
The external system of stars nearest
to the Milky Way galaxy is the So.
called Andromeda nebula, the first to be
discovered. 1t was at first thought
much smaller than its gigantic neigh
Dor, our own system. Later investiga-
lions showed that the two were of ap-
proximately the same size and appar-
emily represented about the limit for
such stellar aggregations.
In one of his new supersystems, DR..
Shapley reports to the National Acad-
envy, there is at least one galaxy which,
so far as can be judged from photo
graphs, is at least so per cent bigger
than the Andromeda aggregation and
hence that much larger than the Milky
Way system.
Says Washington Should