CHAPTER II 

 THE UNIVERSE 



6. Extent. Looking up at the sky, especially on a fine night 

 in summer, one sees, in addition to the many brilliant points 

 which we call stars, a broad, faint band of light extending 

 across the heavens like an arch. This is known as the " milky 

 way." When it is examined with a telescope, it is found to 

 consist of a great many bodies like our own sun, though most 

 of them are so far away that they cannot be distinguished by 

 the unaided eye. There are possibly a hundred million of these 

 suns grouped in the form of a great hoop or girdle. The reason 

 why we do not see this great assemblage of stars or suns as a 

 circle is because our own sun is located within it and well 

 toward the center. We can see only a section of it at one time, 

 no matter from what part of the earth we view it, but if the 

 earth were moved away and we could stand in its place, the 

 circular form would be apparent. So far as we know, this 

 great ring of suns, probably many of them with attendant 

 worlds of their own scattered at immense and inconceivable 

 distances from one another, make up the universe in which we 

 have our being. 



7. The Stars. The points of light which we call stars are 

 really suns like those of the milky way; in fact, they may be 

 said to be parts of the milky way, the only difference being 

 that those we call stars are near enough to us to appear as 

 separate bodies and not as hazy points of light. Astronomers 

 have discovered that many of the stars are larger than our own 

 sun the well-known "dog star," Sirius, is more than twenty- 

 five thousand times larger and appear only as mere points of 

 light because of their great distances from us. Our own sun. 



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