Extracted text
Astronomers Industriously Endeavoring to Solve Problems by Photography.
“ An indication of the way in which such studies as these are beginning to disclose the secret of the sun’s constitution, and to give a clue to the causes which will eventually put an end to its career as a giver of light and heat, may be found in the fact that a resemblance has been detected between some of the spectroscopic phenomena observed in sunspots and those which are characteristic of stars known to be in almost the last stages of solar decay. So the astronomer may study these significant things on the sun somewhat as a physician studies the first marks of an incurable disease in a patient’s system.
“But the study of the sun itself does not by any means constitute the entire work of this remarkable observatory. That study alone would not suffice to solve the problem of solar evolution. Other suns must also be studied. The comparative method is as valid in astronomy as in anatomy. In consequence of this broad program of investigation, covering the whole field of solar and stellar life, the visitor to the new Solar Observatory finds that the labors of the astronomers there do not cease with the going down of the sun. At night he may see the great beam of sunlight replaced by a long ray from a star—from Sirius, the stellar god of ancient Egypt, or from Arcturus, whose splendor glows in the Book of Job. This, too, is caught by the coelostat, reflected into the second mirror, thence transmitted into the dark interior of the building, sent back from the farther end by the concave third mirror, and finally brought to a focus on the slit of a spectrograph, which is enclosed in a large constant-temperature chamber at one side of the building.
“But the study of a star, after all, differs in some respects very widely from that of the sun. Instead of the broad disk which the latter presents, the brightest star shows only as a brilliant point of light. By no means, at present devised, can that point be magnified into a measurable image. The consequence is that the ray of starlight transmitted from the mirrors to the spectrograph represents the radiations from the entire surface of the star, and not from any particular portion of that surface. The information that it gives relates to the condition of the star as a whole. But even this generalized information is of the highest value for comparison with that derived from the more detailed study of the sun.
“The views in the constellation Sagittarius show, at a glance, the relative proportions of the picture and the amount of detail which each exhibits. Objects that are mere specks in the smallest picture are magnified in the largest one to such a degree that many of their details are clearly revealed. This is notable in the condensed star-cloud in the upper part of the field. In the largest photograph here shown, the richness and complexity of the background, or bedwork of the Milky Way, is really marvelous. Dark gaps and lanes appear interspersed among the thickly crowded assemblages of stars, and the striking applicability of the term ‘star-clouds’ to many parts of the field is evident at a glance. What the meaning of the complicated array may be, what laws underlie this sprinkling of suns upon the background of the universe as if they were golden sands strewn from an Almighty hand—are questions not yet to be answered.
“Professor Barnard, himself, prefers not to speculate upon the subject—at least, not for publication. One thing he will say, however, and that is that he has found no appearances indicating the existence of other starry universes beyond this one. In Professor Barnard’s opinion, also, the countless millions of small stars constituting the clouds of the Milky Way are actually smaller than the relatively few bright stars scattered among them, and do not simply look smaller on account of excessive distance. Yet their actual distance is, of course, enormous.
“No less mysterious than the ‘star-clouds’ are the vast nebulosities spread over large areas in the Milky Way and its neighborhood. These faintly glowing and apparently gaseous masses, with their suggestive, tentacle-like extensions, flung out for billions of miles on all sides, as if they were feeling for stars, are found enveloping not only single stars, but also star-groups. In some cases they cover area of incredible extent.
“One of Professor Barnard’s finest photographs, made, however, before he went to Mount Wilson, shows a great cloud of stars in the constellation Sagittarius (which seems to be the Golconda of the heavens), and in it appear two dark holes, in one of which shines a lone star. The dark lanes crossing this starry cloud, and the remarkable rows of small stars that seem to form extensions of these lanes beyond the border of the cloud, amaze the mind of the thoughtful beholder.
“Why should suns fall into rank in such a manner? These stars are really sundered from one another by immense distances. Yet they clearly form a connected system, their rays are brilliantly intermingled, and the imagination commits no offence against essential truth in picturing their rows and circling ranks as streets of living light.
“The finest result of Professor Barnard’s work on the Milky Way will be to produce a photographic chart of all that portion of it visible from our latitudes, and the study of such a chart may furnish the key that astronomers have sought for centuries to the organic structure of the universe.
“At the time of my visit, Mr. C. G. Abbot, Professor Langley’s associate in solar research at Washington, arrived on the mountain to conduct there during the summer an investigation of the suspected changes in the radiation of the sun to which the extraordinary cold summer of two years ago, and other recent climatic eccentricities, are supposed to have been due. The peculiar advantages of the locality are likely to aid greatly this important inquiry, which, in its nature, is of vital interest to the whole world, for nothing strikes home like inconstancy, whether in the moods of a human being or of a sun.’’—Extracts from article by Professor Garrett P. Serviss, in the August Cosmopolitan.
Editorial transcription checked against the cited scans; the historical claims remain those of The Flaming Sword.
The Flaming Sword · Vol. 19, No. 10 · Aug 15, 1905 · PDF p. 23