Sept. 18, 1885.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



^L V^ AN ILLUSTRATED^ ^<y>|- 



^ >^ MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE '^'^ 

 PlaindtWorded-exactlyDeschibedI 



LONDON FlilJDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1885 

 Contents of No. 203. 



Tho New star in the Andromeda Scraps from tbo British Associa- 



Science and' Education;"' By sirl! Gn"^\K "T^y'v^''K]'vr^'inT""':'^'::. : 



Th6Phib'soph7of'ci"thingrSV^^^^^ 'f"!"i" '"',,"'" .,,';","' , 'J^,^ 



MysuWsandXralitieTvlI.'By " " ' - : ' . m , :',,', 



EdwardClmld :. 21! 1,1 



The Great Bed Spot on Jupiter. By ;',!!■ „; .mm 



or Judd .. 



By Pro 



"■■(i»«v; 



THE NEW STAR IN THE ANDROMEDA 

 NEBULA.* 



THERE are three theories of the universe, rising step 

 by step in gi-andeur, on wliicli the remarkable dis- 

 covery of a new star in the Andromeda nebula throws 

 light. Grand as is the conception of a process by which 

 the whole of the solar system had its birth and growth, 

 with its mighty and beneficent central sun, its families 

 of planets of varioiis orders, giant planets and earth- 

 like planets, minor planets and secondary planets, with 

 all the multitudinous orders of meteoric and cometic 

 systems, the thought is yet more overwhelming in 

 its grandeur that that system is itself but a unit 

 among millions — nay, thousands of millions — of such 

 .systems. Each star is a sun, and as there are 

 many orders of planets so are there many orders of 

 suns. There are suns like Sirius, and Vega, and Altair, 

 tho blue-white stars, so far surpassing our own that he 

 compares with them as Saturn or Jupiter with him, as 

 our earth with Jupiter, or as tho least of tho asteroids 

 with the earth. There are orbs again, the yellow-white 

 stars, which are veritably our sun's brother suns, so like 

 are they to him in structure. There are others, the 

 orange-coloured stars, whose vaporous envelope has so far 

 cooled as to absorb large portions of their lustre. Others 

 yet, the red and garnet-tinted stars, are suns whose light 

 is so darkened by their absorptive atmospheres that we 

 must regard them as in solar decrepitiulc Ami limilly, 

 there are bodies, the dark suns, whosr lijlii n.. Lii-^i- 

 penetrates their cooled envelopes; tlu y :in ml- wIihIi 

 wo cannot see, but whose existence we can ii'i-a^iniially 

 trace in the perturbing influences they exert upon their 

 nearest neighbours. 



Here, then, is a system, not only grander than our 

 solar system in this, that its components are themselves 

 solar systems, but presenting probably a far greater 

 variety of structure, since so many millions of bodies 

 form those parts of it which are visible because self- 

 luminous. Wo can picture to ourselves, however, a yet 



a this 



sof 



highci 



As there are syster 

 10 galaxy of such systems— so 



> stems of such galaxies. Many 

 m \ toncene to exist in such a 



1 Infanite must be indeed, to 



millions of „' 1 1 t 1 1 L uur ov, u, containing multi- 

 tudinous ouki-, if •,ol a »_)^lems, each of these in turn :is 

 ^ a ltd as oui own We may i)ass even beyond tho 

 system of galaxies, and conceive with Kant the idea of 

 systems of such systems (f systems of systems of such 

 systems, and so on t 1 ' i 1 higher orders abso- 



lutely without end. 1.' - ! !:uowledge does not 



extend beyond the ,t;:il ' .. : > of solar systems; 

 and it can never extern 1 l"j,- iJ . ^, . m mis of galaxies, even 

 if it should ever extend so far. 



It is on this point, indeed, that the remarkable dis- 

 covery just made throws clearest light. It tells us 

 certainly what one or two reasoners had already shown to 

 be all but certain — that we have no evidence of galaxies 

 external to our own. If there was one among the 5,000 

 known star-clouds about which it might still be plausibly 

 maintained that it is a remote galaxy of stars, the great 

 Andromeda nebula — " the transcendently beautiful queen 

 of the nebulie," as the old astronomers loved to call it — 

 was the one. Because of its great apparent size Sir 

 William Herschel regarded it as the nearest of the stellar 

 nebulae. Unlike the great irregular nebula in Orion — 

 called, less poetically, the Fish-mouth nebula — the queen 

 of nebuliB was not suspected of being gaseous even when 

 Sir William Herschel adopted the belief that many nebula; 

 are mere masses of luminous gas or star-mist. The spec- 

 troscope in the skilful hands of Dr. Huggins had shown 

 conclusively that the Andromeda nebula shines with 

 such light as comes from the stars, as if it were a 

 mighty congeries of suns.* A sudden degradation 

 of the spectrum near the red end indicated great 

 absorptive action by vapours surrounding this sun-like 

 matter ; and that had naturally suggested doubts as to 

 whether the nebula can be a galaxy like our own, the 

 leading members of which give under analysis all colours 

 of light from the deepest red to where the spectrum, 

 faints away in darkest violet. But as one star differs, 

 from another in glory, so may one galaxy be unlike 

 another ; as there are young suns and old suns, and- 

 dying suns and dead suns, so even may al, ., ,, i. in. 

 different stages of galactic life. T 1 1 1 y 



which it had been shown that probably i^ • i... i> > s, ; nal 

 galaxy is within telescope range were uui Uused vn any 

 evidence which the telescope or the spectroscope had 

 given about the great nebula in Andromeda considered 

 individually, but on certain peculiarities of nebular 

 arrangement which show that tlu lal ula lil.ii'j- t" cur 

 own stellar system. Tin- .VimIi-; i c ■ ![s 



the one star-cloud win. ■!. .m-l,: : . i a u 



to this rule. It is very laV-c n.; :': i. ->;.;!', :iito 

 M|.aratc star.s, ilmu-h formed apparently of such bodies, 

 Miicc it L'u.s .Mar-light; no other nebula among all tho 

 .',01)0 kuiiwu tc a.tronomers can be compared with it in 

 tins resi-cct. 



The recent discovery, however, entirely disjcsis of 

 the possibility that even this great lulaila can be an 

 external galaxy. That a star of the (-.liih inai^nuudo 

 should be visible in the heart . f ' ' 'ad of star 



material, shows that the star-c' -My lie at 



listance form ( a at least 



which follow.— K. r. 



I 



