206 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE STARS 



months of November, January, March, and June in the 

 northern hemisphere, and that if you see the same heavens 

 six months from these dates, the constellations will have 

 quite a different position in the the sky, as can be seen by 

 comparing the maps on pages 204 and 205. 



What Is the Milky Way? If you look up into the sky 

 on a clear moonless night, you will see an irregular belt-like 

 luminous cloud extending clear across the sky which varies 

 in brightness in different places. It seems like a pathway 

 in the heavens, and for this reason has been called the 

 Milky Way. This is best seen in September. In ancient 

 times the Milky Way was thought of as a pathway to 

 heaven over which those who died had to travel. It has 

 also been called by such names as Jacob's Ladder and the 

 Pathway of the Souls. Of late years our powerful tele- 

 scopes have revealed much more about the true nature of 

 the Milky Way. It is made up of millions of stars, masses 

 of incandescent matter, and perhaps bodies like our planets, 

 moons, and material out of which comets are made. All 

 the stars that we see through telescopes are luminous 

 bodies like our own sun. This great system of stars that 

 we see in the Milky Way is called a galaxy, and since 

 our own sun is a member of this galaxy, we belong to it 

 also. Many other galaxies have been discovered in the 

 very distant heavens, of which we will learn something 

 later. 



SELF-TESTING EXERCISE 



Select from the following list those words which best fill the spaces 

 in the sentences below and arrange the words in proper numerical order. 

 A word may be used more than once. 



earth north Big first handle cloud 



northwest south Little second bowl Polaris 



sun east medium third dipper Cassiopeia 



stars west Great thousands trillions pointers 



planets up Small millions northeast constellation 



galaxy down magnitude billions fourth luminous 



