EXPLORING THE GLORIES OF THE FIRMAMENT 



173 



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Photograph from Yerkes Observatory 



A VIEW OF A NEBULA IN THE CONSTELLATION TRIANGULUM 



There are cradles and tombs in the heavens, with mewling infancy, gay youth, settled 

 middle age, mellow advanced years, and lightless death as stages of the journey "between them 

 (see text, page 181). 



pax, penetrate a sheet of steel four city- 

 blocks thick. 



Think how far we travel every year 

 and how complex our journey! In the 

 first place, those of us who live near the 

 Equator cover upward of nine million 

 miles in our flight around the earth's 

 axis. In the second place, in our jour- 

 ney around the sun we travel nearly 

 six hundred million miles. While we 

 are doing all this we are also being car- 



ried oft" into new and untried regions 

 of space at the rate of four hundred 

 million miles a year. 



Is our great family journey through 

 space along a straight road, or is it re- 

 volving around some greater body, even 

 as the earth revolves around the sun 

 and the moon around the earth? The 

 astronomer tells us frankly that if the 

 sun has an orbit its curve as yet defies 

 detection. 



