MARVELS OF THE UNIVERSE

Hokitika Guardian, 9 January 1931, Page 8

MARVELS OF THE UNIVERSE

TONNAGE OF LARGEST STARS

LONDON, Nov. 27. Tn a broacast talk this week, .Sir ! James Jeans (the eminent mathematician and.:, astronomer, and seere- - tary of the Royal Society) told the • people of Great Britain some startling - facts about distances and weights of , neighbouring stars. The gravitational ' pull of the earth, he said, whether on I a. ton weight or a flying cricket ball - or on the moon, showed that it had the clossal weight of 60,000,000,000,000,- . 000.000,000 tons. “ In the same wav we can calculate - the sun’s weight from its pull on the ! earth., and we find that it has 332,000 times th» (Weight of the earth—For * every ounce of the earth’s, substance fVic «un has very nearly a ton,” lie said. ' “The sun’s, gravitational pull Wnc the earth from wandering off into space. If it were not for this pull the earth’s sneed of about 19 miles a second would soon carry it far awav from the min into the cold depths of space, and we shoull moot an icy death within a few weeks. .List because the sun has this huge weight its gravitation pull is tremendous. A strong man who lived on the sun would onlv be aible to, throw a cricket ball for two or three yards and would harly be able to lift a 71b weight. And to perform j either of these feats lie would have to be made of steel; a man of ordinary flseh and Wood would he crushed flat under his'own weight.” SUN’S CANDLE POWER. Sir Jn.fties mentioned that there is a colony of four stars believed to have a total weight equal to nearly a thousand suns, and he said the sun gives out a ]irrj]t eoual to that of 3.000.000,000.000,000.000,000.000.000 candles! Light; travelled at 186.000 miles a second and took eight years to reach us form Sirius, which had about twenty-mv times the candle-power of the sun. If Sirius replaced the sun rivers and oceans and ice continents round the poles would rapidly 'boil away, and life would be banished. The most unwelcome star, as far as this earth is concerned, would he S. Dorados, which ' has over 300.000 times the candle-now-er of our sun. “If our sun suddenly became as energetic as this star it« extreme heat would rapidly turn the whole earth and all objects on it, including ourselves, into vapour.” The temperature of the stars was calculated hv their varying colours, which ranged from a dull .t'» vivid Iblue and violet. stars had a temnerature of perhaps 70.000 degrees Fahrenheit. From a star’s temperature we can calculate its candle-nower p°r square inch, and if w« know its total candle-power a sinr pie division gives 11s the total number of square inches to its surface. This is how we calculate the size-? of the stars.” The smallest pt-nr is hardly ‘ greater than our earth and a million such stars could be packed inside the ( sun. A T et other stars are so enormous that many millions of suns could be < x packed inside them, and if one of them ( wer* nut. in the position of our sun we should find ourselves inside it, the rndins of the star being Greater than that of the earth’s odbit.