STAR-LIGHT. 



545 



the light from the star called 6 1 Cygni took ten years to reach the earth ; 

 and there are stars whose light has never yet reached the earth, although the 

 gleam may have been travelling at 186,000 miles a second for thousands of 

 years. And we may presume that though we still see the light of stars, 

 some of them may be dead, but the light left is still progressing to us 

 through space. 



So we must conclude that some stars which look large, as do Vega 

 and Sirius for instance, must be enormous " suns," a great deal larger than 

 our sun, and the stars are each the centre of invisible systems just as our sun 

 is the centre of the " solar " system. Vega is a tremendous star, and 

 shines with her own light as do all other visible stars; for reflected light, 

 so very visible in the moon, which is close to us, would be quite in- 

 visible at such tremendous distances. So we must call these stars "suns," 

 and may add an apparently astonishing fact, that our own sun is merely one 

 of the stars in the Galaxy, or " Milky Way " ! 



