TO KNO^^^ THE STARRY HEAYEXS 



329 



in the sun's rays and cannot be well ob- 

 served. It will pass to the west of the 

 sun and become a morning star on 

 April I. 



Saturn remains in the center of the 

 constellation Gemini in excellent position 

 for observation. 



On March 20, at 5 hours 47 minutes 

 P.M. (Eastern Standard Time) the 

 center of the sun will cross the equator 

 and at this instant spring will begin. This 

 day and the following night will be of 

 equal lengths. 



The occurrence of Easter during the 

 present year is very late because it hap- 

 pens that a full moon falls on INIarch 19. 

 only one day before the X'ernal Equinox. 

 The date of Easter is fixed as that of the 

 first Sunday after the first full moon 

 which follows the Vernal Equinox. The 

 first full moon after ]\Iarch 20 occurs this 

 year on Tuesday, April 18. Accordingly 

 it is the following Sunday, April 23, 

 which is celebrated as Easter Sunday. 



A Sun Fades Away. 



BY EDWARD F. BIGELOW. 



Long before you were born, unless you 

 are more than sixty-three years old, an 

 event took place, an event that on Thurs- 

 day, March i6th, evening at ten minutes 

 past nine (Eastern Standard Time) will 

 have its effect upon the earth. Some 

 sixty-three years ago, although nobody 

 can tell exactly when, there was shining 

 in its full brightness in distant space a 

 sun fifty-one times brighter than our sun 

 and almost one and a half times the 

 diameter of ours ; it was one and one- 

 quarter million miles in diameter. Trav- 

 elling around this sun was another not 

 so bright. This was 840,000 miles in 

 diameter but probably about six times 

 brighter than our sun. If we should use 

 a little human fancy, we might say that 

 this darker sun was envious of the bright- 

 er sun, but the darker, being not so large 

 as the brighter, and being located about 

 three and one-half million miles from the 

 brighter, had to content itself with merely 

 dimming the light until there was not 

 much left to pass into space, and for a 

 time it intercepted some of the light that 

 was streaming into infinity. 



If vou were on the roof, with a hose 

 that had a stoocock at the nozzle, and 

 you turned off the water, and imme- 

 diatelv turned it on again, a vacant space 

 would appear between the nozzle and the 

 end of the fallinsf stream of water, and 



an appreciable period of time would 

 elapse before the cut off stream could 

 reach the ground, and that empty space 

 would remain empty until you again 

 turned on the water. 



Light travels faster than that stream 

 While you wink, a ray of light might 

 travel seven times around the earth. For 

 ages that dimmed light stream has at 

 regular intervals been coming toward us 

 at the rate of 175,000 miles a second. We 

 are not able to realize such rapidity, but 

 day and night, year after year, from the 

 time when you were a baby in arms, 

 when you were going to school, when you 

 started in business, while you were ex- 

 periencing the vicissitudes common to us 

 all, that faint light has been streaming 

 toward us, continuously, persistently, 

 regularly, and it will reach us at ten 

 minutes past nine o'clock on Thursday 

 evening', March i6th. You can then go 

 put and see what happened decades ago 

 in that inconceivably distant space. No 

 astronomer can tell you exactly when it 

 happened. He can only say probably 

 about sixty-two and one-half years ago. 

 He can tell you to the minute when that 

 dim section of the light "stream" will 

 reach this earth. It will be at ten minutes 

 past nine on the evening of March i6th. 

 From that time on, for a little over an 

 hour, the light will steadily increase as 

 the result of that darker sun going by 

 the brighter sun decades ago. 



Every reader will recognize in this an 

 astonishing event, an amazing connection 

 of the present with the remote past, but 

 there is still another fact even more 

 astonishing: only a comparatively few 

 will see this marvelous occurrence. It is 

 is none the less wonderful because this 

 dimming of the light stream becomes ap- 

 parent on the earth so regularly that 

 those who are fond of observing it have 

 discovered that its period is two days, 

 twenty hours, forty-eight minutes and 

 fifty-five and four-tenths seconds. But 

 a difficulty that enters is the fact that we 

 cannot observe it at all times, because the 

 dimming often occurs by day or when 

 our side of the earth is turned away from 

 the star. But do not miss this opportu- 

 nitv to see this remargable event- If you 

 will look in the northwestern skv toward 

 tb?it beautiful cluster that resembles a big 

 fishhook, that the old observers call by 

 the more dignified title of "King Per- 

 seus," then a little to the north you will 

 see this huge sun. You mav fix vour eve 



