MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



astronomer to label it a star of class B, C, D, etc., 

 must move in response to the aggregate gravitation 

 pull of the stellar bodies that make up the universe. 

 In effect it must fall (so it would seem) toward the 

 gravitation-center of the universe, and as time goes 

 on it will gather speed in its fall, just as a body 

 directed from a height gathers speed in falling to- 

 ward the earth's surface. The older the star, then, 

 the greater its momentum which brings us back to 

 the matter of fact of Professor Campbell's observa- 

 tions. 



If the reader's imagination leads him to ask 

 whether there is any limit to the ultimate speed at- 

 tainable, the answer would seem to be that, sooner 

 or later, the flying star will come into collision with 

 some other flying star; when the two bodies, by 

 mutual impact, will be reduced once more to the 

 original nebulous state; their speed thus retarded; 

 their direction of flight altered; their particles mo- 

 mentarily dissipated; their cycle of world-develop- 

 ment ending in a new beginning. 



This imagined culmination, it should be explained, 

 is no part of the generalization from Professor Camp- 

 bell's observations, but a conclusion warranted by 

 other lines of astronomical research. 



OUR SUN AND ITS NEIGHBORS 



All these varied observations imply that our solar 

 system is isolated in space, separated from the nearest 

 neighboring stars by unthinkable distances. Yet we 

 must recall that in the astronomical sense our sun 

 is itself a star closely similar to millions of others. 



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