Seeing A Trillion Miles 



You do it every clear night that you turn your eyes 

 skyward and watch the stars twinkle in the heavens 



TO see a trillion miles seems super- 

 human, but it is done nevertheless. 

 In one way, we can see many 

 trillions of miles, but, as we should ex- 

 pect, not very clearly. We can see the 

 Sun, and he is more than ninety millions 

 of miles distant. Thus, when we gaze 

 at him, we are seeing many millions of 

 miles. 



Now, most of the stars are suns. They 

 shine and give out heat exactly as the 

 Sun does, only many of them are much 

 brighter and hotter than he. The reason 

 why they do not look as large and as 

 brilliant, is because they are so very, 

 very far away — trillions of miles, instead 

 of millions. After astronomers had cal- 

 culated the distance to the Sun, they 

 were able to estimate the distance to the 

 other suns. Obviously, these distances 

 to the stars are not accurate to a mile 

 or indeed to many, many miles. How- 

 ever, it is absolutely certain that each 

 one is at a distance 

 of trillions and tril- 

 lions of miles. 



A few of the stars are not a trillion cf 

 miles away. These comparatively nearer 

 stars are known as "planets," and all of 

 us have heard about or seen Venus, Jupi- 

 ter, Mars, or Saturn. In fact, there are 

 quite a number of planets, big and little, 

 and these vary in distances from millions 

 to between two and three billions of 

 miles. These planets shine with the 

 light from our Sun, reflecting that light 

 to us. We see them with our eyes or 

 our eyes assisted by a telescope. We are 

 able, therefore, to see billions of miles. 



But, still more wonderful, we can see 

 trillions of miles! According to astro- 

 nomical science today, all of the suns of 

 night are trillions of miles distant. 



Indeed, so far off are they that as- 

 tronomers usually speak of their re- 

 moteness in terms of "light-years," — 

 that is, the time it takes the Hght 

 from these stars to reach us. In the 

 case of the nearest known sun of night, 

 this is four and 

 one-third light- 

 years. 



Bright and 

 beautiful 



Vega 

 Summer Sun 



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L'on 



L S'llks 



The distance around the earth 

 is about twenty-five thousand 

 miles. Since the diameter of the 

 earth is approxinately one third 

 of the circumference, astrono- 

 mers, have been able to compute 

 the distance to the Sun. Using 

 that as a basis, they have calcu- 

 lated the distance to the other 



Sirius 

 Winter 5un 



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§(~y^ all 5un_5 seen 



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fronr\ Earth 



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47 



