Page:A short history of astronomy(1898).djvu/492

402 differences inferences as to the relative "ages," or at any rate the stages of development, of different stars.

Many of the dark lines in the spectra of stars have been identified, first by Sir William Huggins in 1864, with the lines of known terrestrial elements, such as hydrogen, iron, sodium, calcium; so that a certain identity between the materials of which our own earth is made and that of bodies so remote as the fixed stars is thus established.

In addition to the classes of stars already mentioned, the spectroscope has shewn the existence of an extremely interesting if rather perplexing class of stars, falling into several subdivisions, which seem to form a connecting link between ordinary stars and nebulae, for, though indistinguishable telescopically from ordinary stars, their spectra shew bright lines either periodically or regularly. A good many stars of this class are variable, and several "new" stars which have appeared and faded away of late years have shewn similar characteristics.

313. The first application to the fixed stars of the spectroscopic method (§ 302) of determining motion towards or away from the observer was made by Sir William Huggins in 1868. A minute displacement from its usual position of a dark hydrogen line (F) in the spectrum of Sirius was detected, and interpreted as shewing that the star was receding from the solar system at a considerable speed. A number of other stars were similarly observed in the following year, and the work has been taken up since by a number of other observers, notably at Potsdam under the direction of Professor H. C. Vogel, and at Greenwich.

314. A very remarkable application of this method to binary stars has recently been made. If two stars are revolving round one another, their motions towards and away from the earth are changing regularly and are different; hence, if the light from both stars is received in the spectroscope, two spectra are formed—one for each star—the lines of which shift regularly relatively to one another. If a particular line, say the F line, common to the spectra of both stars, is observed when both stars are moving towards (or away from) the earth at the same rate—which happens twice in each revolution—only one line is seen; but when they are moving differently, if the spectroscope