The story of the sun, moon, and stars . at Sirius and 61 Cygni—Sirius the most radiantstar in the heavens, and 61 Cygni almost invisible tothe naked eye. According to this rule, 61 Cygniought to lie at an enormous distance beyond in actual fact, Sirius is the farthest away ofthe two. The illustrious Herschel believed that he had pene-trated, on one occasion, into the star-cluster on thesword-hand in the constellation ot Perseus until hefound himself among siderial depths, from which thelight could not have reached him in less than fourthousand years. The distance of those
The story of the sun, moon, and stars . at Sirius and 61 Cygni—Sirius the most radiantstar in the heavens, and 61 Cygni almost invisible tothe naked eye. According to this rule, 61 Cygniought to lie at an enormous distance beyond in actual fact, Sirius is the farthest away ofthe two. The illustrious Herschel believed that he had pene-trated, on one occasion, into the star-cluster on thesword-hand in the constellation ot Perseus until hefound himself among siderial depths, from which thelight could not have reached him in less than fourthousand years. The distance of those stars had not, and has not,been mathematically measured. Herschel judged of 332 STORY OP THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS. it by their dimness, by the strong power needed tomake them visible, and by the rules which he hadadopted as most likely true. Again, when Herschel found black spaces in theheavens almost void of stars, and believed that hehad reached the outside borders of the Milky Way,he may have been in the right, or he may have been. A CLUSTER OF STARS IN PERSEUS. mistakeno The limit might lie there, or thousandsmore of small stars might extend in that very direc-tion, too far off for their little glimmer to be seenthrough the most powerful telescope. If this latter idea about the Milky Way beingformed of a great many brilliant suns, and of vastnumbers of lesser suns also, be true, astronomers the milky way. 333 will, in time, be able to prove its truth. For in thatcase, many faint telescopic stars being much nearerto us than bright stars of the greater magnitudes, itwill be found possible to measure their journey of our earth round the sun must causea seeming change in their position between summerand winter. The theory also that some of the nebulae are otheroutlying Milky Ways, or galaxies of stars, separatedby tremendous distances from our own, is interesting,and was long held as almost certain, yet we have nodistinct proof either one way or the other. Many o
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidstor, booksubjectastronomy
