THE SYSTEM OF SIEIUS. 47 



THE SYSTEM OF SIRIITS, 1 



AND SOLAR SYSTEMS DIFFERENT FROM OURS. 

 By CAMILLE FLAMMARION. 



EACH of the stars which glitter in the depths of space is a volu- 

 minous and massive sun like that which gives light to our 

 earth. Distance alone reduces them to the appearance of fixed points. 

 If we could approach any one of them we should experience the same 

 impression as in passing from Neptune to the sun ; the star would 

 increase in size as we should approach it ; it would soon exhibit a cir- 

 cular disk and continue to increase its proportions until they would 

 be as large as the sun ; finally, this luminous disk, continuing to in- 

 crease in consequence of our approach, would expand and present 

 itself as a fiery furnace filling the entire heavens a colossal blaze, 

 under which we would be reduced to nothing, melted like wax, vapor 

 ized like a drop of water dropped on red-hot iron ! Such is every star 

 in the heavens. 



Each sun in space has its special sphere of attraction, a sphere 

 which extends to the limit of neutralization by another. This attrac- 

 tion diminishes in the inverse ratio of the square of the distances, 

 but never becomes absolutely nothing. At the distance of Neptune 

 the solar attraction is 900 times less than at the distance of the 

 earth. While the earth if it were stopped in its course would fall 

 toward the sun 294 hundred-thousandths of a metre during the first 

 second of time, Neptune would fall only 327 hundred-millionths of a 

 metre in the same time. At the aphelion distance of the comet of 

 1680 the fall toward the sun is only the minute distance of 416 hun- 

 dred-billionths of a metre during the first second of time. This at- 

 traction continues thus to decrease as the distance increases. But, at 

 the same time, if a body moves in the direction of one of the neigh- 

 boring stars, it begins immediately to receive its influence. The star 

 nearest us is at a distance 210,000 times greater than that which sep- 

 arates the earth from the sun, or eight trillions of leagues; it is the 

 star Alpha Centauri, a brilliant double star whose orbit and mass I 

 have calculated. This mass is equal to the half of that of the sun ; 

 it happens that if one could travel from the sun to this star a point 

 would be reached where the attraction of the two would neutralize 

 each other; this point is three-quarters of the distance which sepa- 

 rates us, that is, six trillions of leagues from our sun, or, what is the 

 same, two trillions of leagues from Alpha Centauri, the whole distance 

 being eight trillions. At that point, a celestial body, a comet, would 

 hesitate as to which course to pursue, would weigh nothing, would 

 1 Translated from the French by P. A. Towne. 



