Year: 1877

A new star has appeared in the con-


stellation Cygnus (the SWAMI. On the


evening of Nov. 24th, Professor Schmidt
director of the Athens Observatory
noticed there a star of the third magni-


tude. Not only was no star Of that


brightness there before, or any star visi-


BILE to the naked eye, but il was found
when catalogues and charts came TO be
examined, that no star had ever been
noted there, even in lists meant to in
clude all stars down TO the tenth mag
nitude. For instance, ATgelander has
made such list, and charts from it,
showing no less than 324, 900 stars
that is, a hundred times as many as we
can see OH the darkest and Clearest night
yet his list showed no star where the
new one had appeared. Astronomers
do not, however, suppose the new star
is really new, except in the sense of
being seen for the first time. They know
that when last new star appeared in
this way it was found to be one of Argel-
ander's army of 324 900 stars, and watch
ing that star (Which had appeared in
the constellation of the Northern crown
in May, 1866, they found that though
it faded gradually out of sight TO Ordi-
nary vision, the telescope could still fol-
low it, until it had sunk to the tenth
magnitude, at which degree of luster it
remained and still remains. No doubt
if we had had full lists of all stars down
to the fifteenth or perhaps the twentieth
magnitude, we should have found that
the new star in Cygnus was simply an
old faint star which had frightened up
suddenly, and remained for time as
one among the stars adorning our skies.


Examined with an instrument called
the spectroscope the new star gave a
very strange account of itself. 1t was
found to be emitting the same sort Of
light as other stars; but besides that
light, it emitted such light as comes
from intensely heated vapOrs, Among
the vapors in that star thus (for the
time) intensely hot, were hydrogen,
the vapOrs of the metals sodium and
magnesium, and vap0r known to be
present in enormous quantities in our
suns outer atmosphere, as seen during
times of total eclipse. All these vapOrs
surround our sun; and it is very prob
able that If anything caused our sun to
blaze out with greatly increased light
and heat, folks living on a world cir
cling round some other sun would find
the same peculiarities in our suns light
as we have found in the light of the new
star in the Swan. What caused that
star to blaze out in that strange way,
we do not know. We should like TO
know, because we might then deter
mine whether the cause which had so
disturbed that sun might not be one
from which our own sun may one day
suffer. Whatever the cause was, its
effects did not last very long. In a
week the new star had sunk to the fifth
magnitude, in another week to the
sixth, in yet another to the seventh,
since which time December l5th) it
has very slowly diminished, and is still
(January 5th) above the eighth mag
nitude. But although the unusual
light and heat of that remote sun faded
thus quickly away, yet if inhabited
worlds circled around that sun, the
cooling of their sun must have come
far too late to save those creatures lives.
If our sun were to shine even but for
twenty-four hours with several hun
dred times its usual heat, it is certain
that every creature on the earth would
be destroyed, and when the sun re-
turned to its usual luster it would shine
on a system of worlds on which not
single living creature was left.-St.
Nicholas,