THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. Prof. Proctor's Opiinon.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 215, 13 August 1887, Page 3

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. Prof. Proctor's Opiinon.

Many readers may, I think, be interested to learn precisely what astronomers really know and think respecting that tamous star which blazed out in Cassiopeia in the year 1572, and whose return to temporary brilliancy is expected by many non-astro-nomical persons and by a few astionomcih at about this present time. Ido not propose to discuss, the imagined connectian between this star and the .Star of Bethlehem, an idea which could only suggest itself to persons perfectly ignorant of the as-tionomy of today and aLo of the astiological notions of past ages. All that nstronomeis know with certainty about the star called Tycho Brahe's is that it shone foith with gi eat .splendoui on the night of Nov. 11, 1.172, in a spot (close by the star Kapj -a of Cassiopeia) indicated with considerable precision by the ])ani>h astronomer, ami that it continued % isible, though with gradually diminishing bistie, until Match. 1.174, atter having shone tor neaily seventeen months. We iiiii) be tolerably certain thai it shone out suddenly on the night of Nov. 11. because- Tyeho Brahe wa* i:\ bhe constant habit of studying the aspect of the heavens, a\ IIH winch ho was perfectly familiar ; and such a st ir athe so-ealltd new one, shining in a legion of the hea\ em w hero there aie no start, of the lir.-t or e\en of the full i econd magnitude, coull not luno escaped his attention for a moment had it been winning on the 10th of Xo»eiuber as he saw it on the 1 lth. How far ba: ■>. we must set the real time of the outbla -j w e cannot tell. Supposing the star about a? far aw ay as Hie iirsi -magnitude staiv— taking their average disiance — m;i> be hiippo-ed to lie, we may ibMimo that the light of the star in its suddenly pertmbed condition Inul taken not fewer than twenU yeais to lea^h our t*ai th. But as n matter of fact, we do not know enough about the distances of con the ncmcr star? to be .ible to spoak wit'i any confidence on thi.s ]>oint ; only we may be tolerably eeitain that tin 5 average distance of the handled neare-t star?, or suns, is- moie than a million times the distance of our own .sun, and, as light take=« neaily nine minutes in i caching us from him, r must take hHcen or twenty years, on the average, foi light, to reach u^ from odoisj iof the-c neaie-t stars. Most probabh , ho\ve\er, the si-u w Inch soaina/ed Brahe had htv'ti afleettd by the tiemendoao change which caused its mi luui accession of bistre more than a cental y bufoie hi* time. In passing, one may note how strangely this thought bears on the fanciful notion that the star seen by the " Wise -Men of th» % E.i&D ' was that remote oi b, set, in contl igration a hundred yea>s oi so befo. .* the time of the Xathity. in ouler that, after tiavdli'ig several hundteds of millions of millions of mile.s, it might attiact the attention of t'u magi and guide them on then two houis' walk tiom Jeiu&alem to Bethlehem. We have \ j.y little to connect the star of Tycho Bm!k* with tho-e said to ha\eappeaicl in tie yeai.s !)4.") and I'iUt, on the stion^th of \.lueh Mi])post>d vonneetion the star lias be_'n supposed to .shine with abnormal biigSitne.ss ac inter\als axeraying about 312 yoai«. C'yprianus Loos ituis', a tio-hemi-xna-tro'iOmerfontem[)oiai} w ithl\\ cho Brahe, as-eits thao in a manuscript clnonicle h. found records of the appe.irance of a star in 04.") between tin; i.onstellatn)ns Cephous and C'a^iopeia, and ot another J t;ir which apjiL'ii'd in the s-anie lcyion in I*26 i. iSince the petition of T)cho Biahe's stamight in iJn^o old, inexact <!;ms h,i\c been fairly enough desciibed as between Ccpheud and Cassiopeia, though leally well within the latter c^istellation (it i, '-how n elo f bv the lower rol of the Seated Lad\ chair back, at ;>i^e 10(5 of mv '* Ha-v Sta: Les-on''), Lcl itius .sugyotefl that the starof 945 and 1291: weie mei'-Iy aj)piintions ot the star aftciwaids s C ( n l>y Tycho Brahe. r rhe astionomeis or that time iihmediately pounced on the opportunity of ■ieiiding Leovitius for mistakuig ib an account of a *rar what really i elated to a comer, pointing out that m I'2(i4 one of the moit remarkable comets e\ei s^en made it-> app^arancer But Tycht. Brahe, anxious, appaiently to establish the re-[)ectable antiquity of his defended Leovitiuts aiain.sL the attacks of l l t>ntanus And Camel iriu.s, who had been lead? 1 •* among those (juestioning the validity of the statements made by L 'ovitiu^. .Sti'l it remain^ the fact that all the evidence astronoineis lu^e on which to ha-e a belief that T}cho Brahe's .-Jtai- is n porior'ical vaiiable is the doubtful <»-^erlion of a little-known astionomer lespecting two very questionable statomtnes in an vi - known manuscript, about two stars which probably v/tro not stars, but comet 5 , appearing in a part of the sky which might possibly ha^e been, but most probably wanot. the place whete Tycho Brahe's fbu 1 appealed, and inteivals between the thiee apparitions (if we daringly a&s-umc the same orb was seen, being 3H) yeais and 308 years, periods not piccisely or even ap}>roximately equal. With no other evidence available it require-> more coinage than any astronomer living probably possesses to assert -as «ome who know nothing ot astronomy ha\e asserted — thnfc Tycho Bralf's star aj)j>cars at intervals of 315 years, and will bo next in Augu? z of this present year. KiciiMJi") A. Pkoctoh.