TEMPORARY AND VARIABLE STARS.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1499, 5 December 1878, Page 3

TEMPORARY AND VARIABLE STARS.

The " Scientific American " had tne following note ijickerton's piper on the aoove subject : Professor BiekerLon, in a paper on this subject, read before the Canterbury Philosophi cal Institute, England (sic), reasons thus:—The existence of variable stars seema sufficient to prove thu existence of gigantic feebly luminous cr bodies. The

existence of variable stars seems sufficient to prove t here are such bodies, and, as I have shown, all the hypotheses offered in explanation of temporary stars assume their existence. The high temperature and small relative light of celestial radiation points to the same conclusion, or to non-luminous gas._ It might be asked, If there are dark bodies, why not stellar eclipses ? Ido m>t know if such have been observi d j it would be wonderful if any had been, for they must be very rare, probably as rare as temporary stars, for although we have all the depths of space in which eclipses are possible, on the other hand, with temporary stars we have attraction bringing very distant bodir.- together. Further, the points of light of the fixed stars form but a small area in space : and, lastly, if eclipses occurred they would probably not be recorded, as small black patches of cloud so often obscure a portion of tho sky that such an occurrence would scarcely attract attention. But why should there not be large dark bodies ? Laplace's theory of universal nebula? may be assumed to be against it; but did Laplace assumo that it was contemporaneous ? If not, then even that theory does not interfere. All our conceptions seem to agree more with a rhythmic cycle than with any definite beginning or end. If wo assume this hypothesis, then the period of dissipation of energy seems indefinitely projected into futurity ; for all radiation falling' on the matter in space must prevent its temperature from falling so low as without this radiation, and when at a subsequent date a collision occurs, this heat must exalt tho final temperature, nor does it appear that we need look forward to a gigantic dead sun as the final condition of this universe, for doubtless our universe has its own proper motion in space, which may bring us into collision with other universes. This shows gravitation to be as competent to multiply worlds as to absorb them one into another. But, after all, our hypothesis only takes us a step further back in time, and our imaginations a step further forward into the future, thus removing further than ever from our conceptions every trace of a beginning or promise of an end. I