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Shannon News, 19 June 1928, Page 3

"Ave there any other solar systems, and how many?" was a rather difficult question asked of Professor Sommerville at the conclusion of his lecture in Levin last evening. His answer was that nobody knew. Ho went on to say that the nearest star was 250,000 times as far away as the sun, and at that distance it would be cjmte impossible to see any planets, with man \s present facilities for observation. The conditions which went to the formation of a system such as our solar, system were very complicated; but still, he thought it would be strange if there were not other systems like it somewhere in the depths of space, seeing that the stars could be numbered in hundreds of millions. Some of llicm were impossible as centres of solar systems because they were unlike our sun.. Some were of giant size. Betelgeuse, for example, had a circumference that would include the whole of the earth's orbit. There were others which were double stars, and they could scarcely be the centres of solar systems; but there were many single stars. It would be very rash to say that we could never at any time become conscious of planets in other systems, because mankind had gained knowledge of things which in the past were deemed to be quite beyond its powers of research.