'TAIL LIGHTS' OF NEBULAE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 7, 23 January 1937, Page 11

'TAIL LIGHTS' OF NEBULAE

Do Thev Mean Limited Universe?

The red "tail lights" of nebulae which are seen in far-off space out near the seeing limits of the 100-inch telescope at Mt. Wilson, California, received a new interpretation by Dr. Edwin Hubble, the American astronomer. Tho "tail lights" are the puzzling red colour of the distant nebulae, star collectionB like the milky way. The colour is attributed to motion away from earth. All resemble tbe tail lights of speeding automobiles disappearing down a road way at night. There are two interpretationS of this red glow, said Dr. Hubble. First— The tail light objects are* out near an actual boundary of creation, and creation is so limited in size that the 200-inch telescope now building may identify the "rim." This creation is finite, with a "positive" curvature making it resemble a vast spbere. Second — There may be no outer edgo of creation, and the "tail lights" are the discovery of a new fundamental in nature, unlike anything of which mankind now dreams, still too distant to be interpreted. Dr. Hubble presented tbese new findings in the last of a series of Rhodes memorial lectures. Tho place whero the tail-light star bodies are seen is some 500,000,000 light years away from the earth. This region is the distance away that light can reach ixi 500,000,000 years, travelling at 186,000 miles a second." It is about three sextillion miles, or three followed by 21 ciphers.

Out x there, Dr. Hubble said, the heavens are different. The nebulae1 are no longer so numerous as in* nearer regions'of 'space^ . Out there* th'ey are no longer uniformly distributed. If they are really. - as less .numerous aa they se'ein it may bo a sign ,of man'e approach to tlie outer rim. But they also all have the "tail light" or red shifi colour. This red colour is known to be due in part toabsorption of some. of their shorter waves, or "bluer colours, by the dust in space. The redness cuts down their * visibility, Dr. Hubble said, by 40 per cent. Less of them sbould be visible so far away, and this agrees with what the telescope records , But if the distant starrnehulae are reeeding like the automobiles, as seems to be the fact, then Dr. Hubble said 14 per cent. of the red tinge is due to their recession. He said he is inclined to accept the recession as true«, If the distant nebulae are not thinning out as the red tail lights suggest, Dr. Hubble said that researchers may assume a "stationary universe," one which seems to have no end. "But," he said, "if the universe !• stationary, not only must We seek » bitherto unknown principle in nature in order to explain the reddish light, but it seems clear that the eample of the universe we can. see is too far away to indicate the nature of the xemaindejc iof our universe."