The Story of the Heavens by Sir Robert Stawell Ball (fantasy books to read .txt) 📕

the ship's motion when they go on deck, and when they look at the sea surrounding them. Let us suppose that their voyage is nearly accomplished, that the distant land appears in sight, and, as evening approaches, the harbour is discerned into which the ship is to enter. Let us suppose that the harbour has, as is often the case, a narrow entrance, and that its mouth is indicated by a lighthouse on each side. When the harbour is still a long way off, near the horizon, the two lights are seen close together, and now that the evening has closed in, and the night has become quite dark, these two lights are all that remain visible. While the ship is still some miles from its destination the two lights seem close together, but as the distance decreases the two lights seem to open out; gradually the ship gets nearer, while the lights are still opening, till finally, when the ship enters the harbour, instead of the two lights being directly in front, as at the commencement, one of the lights is passed by on the right hand, while the other is similarly found on the left. If, then, we are to discover the motion of the solar system, we must, like the passenger, look at objects unconnected with our system, and learn our own motion by their apparent movements. But are there any objects in the heavens unconnected with our system? If all the stars were like the earth, merely the appendages of our sun, then we never could discover whether we were at rest or whether we were in motion: our system might be in a condition of absolute rest, or it might be hurrying on with an inconceivably great velocity, for anything we could tell to the contrary. But the stars do not belong to the system of our sun; they are, rather, suns themselves, and do not recognise the sway of our sun, as this earth is obliged to do. The stars will, therefore, act as the external objects by which we can test whether our system is voyaging through space.

With the stars as our beacons, what ought we to expect if our system be really in motion? Remember that when the ship was approaching the harbour the lights gradually opened out to the right and left. But the astronomer has also lights by which he can observe the navigation of that vast craft, our solar system, and these lights will indicate the path along which he is borne. If our solar system be in motion, we should expect to find that the stars were gradually spreading away from that point in the heavens towards which our motion tends. This is precisely what we do find. The stars in the constellations are gradually spreading away from a central point near the constellation of Lyra, and hence we infer that it is towards Lyra that the motion of the solar system is directed.

There is one great difficulty in the discussion of this question. Have we not had occasion to observe that the stars themselves are in actual motion? It seems certain that every star, including the sun himself as a star, has each an individual motion of its own. The motions of the stars as we see them are partly apparent as well as partly real; they partly arise from the actual motion of each star and partly from the motion of the sun, in which we partake, and which produces an apparent motion of the star. How are these to be discriminated? Our telescopes and our observations can never effect this decomposition directly. To accomplish the analysis, Herschel resorted to certain geometrical methods. His materials at that time were but scanty, but in his hands they proved adequate, and he boldly announced his discovery of the movement of the solar system.

So astounding an announcement demanded the severest test which the most refined astronomical resources could suggest. There is a certain powerful and subtle method which astronomers use in the effort to interpret nature. Bishop Butler has said that probability is the guide of life. The proper motion of a star has to be decomposed into two parts, one real and the other apparent. When several stars are taken, we may conceive an infinite number of ways into which the movements of each star can be so decomposed. Each one of these conceivable divisions will have a certain element of probability in its favour. It is the business of the mathematician to determine the amount of that probability. The case, then, is as follows:--Among all the various systems one must be true. We cannot lay our finger for certain on the true one, but we can take that which has the highest degree of probability in its favour, and thus follow the precept of Butler to which we have already referred. A mathematician would describe his process by calling it the method of least squares. Since Herschel's discovery, one hundred years ago, many an astronomer using observations of hundreds of stars has attacked the same problem. Mathematicians have exhausted every refinement which the theory of probabilities can afford, but only to confirm the truth of that splendid theory which seems to have been one of the flashes of Herschel's genius.


CHAPTER XXII.


STAR CLUSTERS AND NEBULAE.

Interesting Sidereal Objects--Stars not Scattered uniformly--Star
Clusters--Their Varieties--The Cluster in Perseus--The Globular
Cluster in Hercules--The Milky Way--A Cluster of Minute Stars--The
Magellanic Clouds--Nebulae distinct from Clouds--Number of known
Nebulae--The Constellation of Orion--The Position of the Great
Nebula--The Wonderful Star th Orionis--The Drawing of the
Great Nebula in Lord Rosse's Telescope--Photographs of this
Wonderful Object--The Great Nebula in Andromeda--The Annular Nebula
in Lyra--Resemblance to Vortex Rings--Planetary Nebulae--Drawings of
Several Remarkable Nebulae--Nature of Nebulae--Spectra of
Nebulae--Their Distribution; the Milky Way.

We have already mentioned Saturn as one of the most glorious telescopic spectacles in the heavens. Setting aside the obvious claims of the sun and of the moon, there are, perhaps, two other objects visible from these latitudes which rival Saturn in the splendour and the interest of their telescopic picture. One of these objects is the star cluster in Hercules; the other is the great nebula in Orion. We take these objects as typical of the two great classes of bodies to be discussed in this chapter, under the head of Star Clusters and Nebulae.

The stars, which to the number of several millions bespangle the sky, are not scattered uniformly. We can see that while some regions are comparatively barren, others contain stars in profusion. Sometimes we have a small group, like the Pleiades; sometimes we have a stupendous region of the heavens strewn over with stars, as in the Milky Way. Such objects are called star clusters. We find every variety in the clusters; sometimes the stars are remarkable for their brilliancy, sometimes for their enormous numbers, and sometimes for the remarkable form in which they are grouped. Sometimes a star cluster is adorned with brilliantly-coloured stars; sometimes the luminous points are so close together that their separate rays cannot he disentangled; sometimes the stars are so minute or so distant that the cluster is barely distinguishable from a nebula.

Of the clusters remarkable at once both for richness and brilliancy of the individual stars, we may mention the cluster in the Sword-handle of Perseus. The position of this object is marked on Fig. 83, page 415. To the unaided eye a hazy spot is visible, which in the telescope expands into two clusters separated by a short distance. In each of them we have innumerable stars, crowded together so as to fill the field of view of the telescope. The splendour of this object may be appreciated when we reflect that each one of these stars is itself a brilliant sun, perhaps rivalling our own sun in lustre. There are, however, regions in the heavens near the Southern Cross, of course invisible from northern latitudes, in which parts of the Milky Way present a richer appearance even than the cluster in Perseus.

The most striking type of star cluster is well exhibited in the constellation of Hercules. In this case we have a group of minute stars apparently in a roughly globular form. Fig. 96 represents this object as seen in Lord Rosse's great telescope, and it shows three radiating streaks, in which the stars seem less numerous than elsewhere. It is estimated that this cluster must contain from 1,000 to 2,000 stars, all concentrated into an extremely small part of the heavens. Viewed in a very small telescope, this object resembles a nebula. The position of the cluster in Hercules is shown in a diagram previously given (Fig. 88, page 420). We have already referred to this glorious aggregation of stars as one of the three especially interesting objects in the heavens.

The Milky Way forms a girdle which, with more or less regularity, sweeps completely around the heavens; and when viewed with the telescope, is seen to consist of myriads of minute stars. In some places the stars are much more numerous than elsewhere. All these stars are incomparably more distant than the sun, which they surround, so it is evident that our sun and, of course, the system which attends him lie actually inside the Milky Way. It seems tempting to pursue the thought here suggested, and to reflect that the whole Milky Way may, after all, be merely a star cluster, comparable in size with some of the other star clusters which we see, and that, viewed from a remote point in space, the Milky Way would seem to be but one of the many clusters of stars containing our sun as an indistinguishable unit.

In the southern hemisphere there are two immense masses which are conspicuously visible to the naked eye, and resemble detached portions of the Milky Way. They cannot be seen by observers in our latitude, and are known as the Magellanic clouds or the two nubeculae. Their structure, as revealed to an observer using a powerful telescope, is of great complexity. Sir John Herschel, who made a special study of these remarkable objects, gives the following description of them: "The general ground of both consists of large tracts and patches of nebulosity in every stage of resolution, from light irresolvable, in a reflector of eighteen inches aperture, up to perfectly separated stars like the Milky Way, and clustering groups sufficiently insulated and condensed to come under the designation of irregular and in some cases pretty rich clusters. But besides these there are also nebulae in abundance and globular clusters in every state of condensation." It can hardly be doubted that the two nubeculae, which are, roughly speaking, round, or, rather, oval, are not formed accidentally by a vast number of very different objects being ranged at various distances along the same line of sight, but that they really represent two great systems of objects, widely different in constitution, which here are congregated in each other's neighbourhood, whereas they generally do not co-exist close to each other in the Milky Way, with which the mere naked-eye view would otherwise lead us to associate the Magellanic clouds.

When we direct a good telescope to the heavens, we shall occasionally meet with one of the remarkable celestial objects which are known as nebulae. They are faint cloudy spots, or stains of light on the black background of the sky. They are nearly all invisible to the naked eye. These celestial objects must not for a moment be confounded with clouds, in the ordinary meaning of the word. The latter exist only suspended in the atmosphere, while nebulae are immersed in the depths of space. Clouds shine by the light of the sun, which they reflect to us; nebulae shine