OUR VAST UNIVERSE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1939, Page 8

OUR VAST UNIVERSE

MR B. IVESON ADDRESSES ROTARY CLUB. ASTRONOMICAL DISTANCES AND TIMES. At the weekly luncheon of the Masterton Rotary Club today, the president. Rotarian H. H. Daniell, occupied the chair. The speaker was Mr B. Iveson, who took popular astronomy for his subject. In dealing with the size and distances from the earth of some of the more important stars, Mr Iveson stated that the light from Canopus, travelling at the rate of 188,000 miles per second, took 650 years to reach the earth, so far was the star away .from the earth. An aeroplane travelling at a speed of 100 miles per hour, day and night, would take approximately a year to travel the diameter of the sun; sixty-nine years would be required by the aeroplane to cross the surface of Canopus. But the latter star was a midget compared to some of the others. Antares, the largest known star, had a diameter of 400,000,000 miles and the aeroplane would take 465 years to fly from one end to the other of the star. Light travelled to the earth from the sun in 8 minutes, to cross the solar system it took 11 hours, to travel to the nearest star (Proxima in the Southern Cross, 22 billion miles away), required 4.; years, while it would take 150,000 years for light to travel from one 2nd of the whole galactic system (the system in which the earth is situated) to the other. The vastness of the universe could thus be realised.

The sky was full of nebula, which astronomers considered were worlds in tire making, said the speaker, but these were situated at almost incredible distances from the earth. The light from the nebula in Andromeda, travelling as light does at 186,000 miles per second, took 900,000 years to reach but that from the nebula in Orion (to be seen in the western sky early at night) took no less than ninety million years. Some stars travelled so fast that an aeroplane going at the same pace would reach Auckland from Masterton before one could sav “Masterton.” An aeror>lan o travelling from the earth at 100 miles an aour would reach the moon in 91 days and get to the spn in 105 years, but to reach the planet Neptune would require 3,082 years; leaving the earth a thousand years before the birth of Christ it would in 1939 still have over 140 years to go to reach its destination. Mr Ivcson dealt with various other matters relative to stars, the sun, planets, etc., and was accorded a hearty vote of thanks. Birthday greetings were extended to Rotarian F. M. Whyte.