HOW LARGE IS THE UNIVERSE?

Temuka Leader, Issue 2456, 26 January 1893, Page 4

HOW LARGE IS THE UNIVERSE?

To form some idea of the largeness of the earth, one may look upon the landscape from the top of an ordinary church steeple, and then bear in mind that one must view 900,000 similar landscapes to get an approximately correct idea of the size of the earth. Place 500 earths like ours side by side, yet Saturn’s outermost ring could easily enclose them. Three hundred thousand earth globes could be stored inside the sun if hollow. If a human eye every hour were capable of looking upon a fresh measure of world material 14,000 square kilometres large, that eye would need 55,000 years to overlook the surface of the sun. To reach the nearest fixed star one must travel 33.000. of kilometres, and, if the velocity were equal to that of a cannon ball, it would require 5,000,000 years to travel the distance. On a clear night the ordinary human eye can discover about 1000 stars in the northern hemisphere, most of which send their light from distances which we cannot measure. How large they must be ! Pound these 1000 stars circle 30,000 other stars of various sizes. Besides single stars we know of systems of stars moving round one another. Still we are but a short way into space as yet. Outside our limits of vision and imagination there are, no doubt, still larger spaces. The milky way holds probably at least 20,191,000 stars, and, as each is a sun, we presume it is encircled by at least 50 planets. Counting up these figures, we arrive at the magnitude of 1.000. stars. A thousand million stars ! Who can comprehend it ? Still this is only a part of the universe. The modern telescopes have discovered more and similar ways still further away. We know of some 3000 nebulte which present milky ways like ours. Let us count 2000 of them as being of the size of our milky way, then 2000 by 20,191,000 equals 40.382.000. suns, or 2,019,100,000,000 heavenly bodies. Suppose these bodies parading before our mental eye one per minute, it would require 3,840,000 years to finish the march, in all of which time we would have to look upon them unceasingly. Suppose a human being migrating from globe to globe, and spending fifty years on each, he would require 100.955.000. years for the round. If he stayed only one hour, he would save much time, but still need, 230,400,000 years for the task. Yet these nebulae are only part of the universe. Outside the nebulae limits we know of other nebulas not x’esolvable into stars. They appear to be primitive nebulae, pure, unused worldstuff—matterfornew creations. Some of them occupy a space as large as the orbit of Uranus. Some are still larger. The one in 11 Orion ” is estimated to be 2.200.000. times larger than our sun. Are we come to the uttermost limits ? Who dares say yes 'I We are probably come to our limits; but the future, with new instruments and scientific devices, may push those limits so much further into space.