SPEED IN STARS

Opotiki News, Volume X, Issue 1041, 28 October 1947, Page 2

SPEED IN STARS

. 100,000 MILES AN HOUR! Scientists have estimated that a German V2 rocket, fired in the desert of New Mexico, soared to a height of seventy-five miles, and travelled at a maximum, speed of 3800 miles an hour, far too fast for the sound of its approach *to be heard. The details concerning the travel of the V2 are so astonishing that we are inclined to wonder whether such velocities can be exceeded. _ , Nature has the answer. Forces beyond the control of man still defy comparison. Astronomers smile at a rocket’s 3800 m.p.li. formidable as it is to the rest of us. They know, for instance, that for ages past Mercury lias been speeding round the run at a velocity exceeding 100,000 miles an hour; and the spectroscope reveals that distant nebulas are moving at- a million and a half miles a minute. ; -