THE IMMENSITY OF SPACE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2153, 22 January 1891, Page 1

THE IMMENSITY OF SPACE.

For a long period astronomers unsuccessfully endeavoured, says Mature, to determine the distance between the stars and tho earth, and it is only within a comparatively short time that the interesting prob em can be said to have been solved. The distance that separates us from the nearest star, is according to a recent lecture by Prof. Nichols, about 206,000 times greater than the distance from the earth to the sun, or 95,000,000 of miles multiplied by 206,000. Alpha in ihe constellation of the Centaur, is the star nearest, the earth ; its light occupies three whole years in traversing the distance which separates us from the little blinking orb ; or, in other words, should Alpha be blotted out of existence to-dav, we should be well into the summer of 1893 before the inhabitants of this mundane sphere would be aware that Al,»>ha no longer existed. Yet light travels so rapid'? as to occupy no perceptible space of tims in flashing round the globe. If the sun were transported to the place occupied by this, the nearest star, the vast circular disc, which in the morning rises majestically above the horizon, and in the evening occupies a considerable timo id descending entirely below the same line, wcu'd have dimensions puny in their insignificance. Colossal as the sun appears to us, it would, were it possible for it to exchange positions with Alpha, take the Lick telescope to mike it appear as a star of tho third magnitude.