Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/859

Rh through space, and hence the extent of the universe, the result of which will be of interest. It is based on the proper motion of the stars. One of the greatest triumphs of astronomy of our time has been the measurement of the actual speed at which many of the stars are moving to or from us in space. These measures are made with the spectroscope. Unfortunately, they can be best made only on the brighter stars—at least, those plainly visible to the naked eye. Still the motions of several hundreds have been measured and the number is constantly increasing.

A certain general result of all these measures and of other estimates may be summed up by saying that there is a general average speed with which the individual stars move in space, and that this average is about twenty miles per second. We are also able to form an estimate as to what proportion of the stars move with each rate of speed from the lowest up to a limit which is probably as high as 150 miles per second. Knowing these proportions we have, by observation of the proper motions of the stars, another method of estimating how thickly they are scattered in space; in other words, what is the volume of space which, on the average, contains a single star. This method gives a thickness of the stars greater by about twenty-five to fifty per cent, than that derived from the measures of parallax. That is to say, a sphere like the second we have proposed, having a radius 400,000 times the distance of the sun, and therefore a diameter 800,000 times this distance, would, judging by the proper motions, have ten or twelve stars contained within it, while the measures of parallax only show eight stars within the sphere of this diameter having the sun as its centre. The probabilities are in favor of this last result. But, after all, the discrepancy does not change the general character of the conclusion as to the limits of the visible universe. If we cannot estimate its extent with the same certainty that we can determine the size of the earth, we can still form a general idea of it.

The estimates we have made are based on the supposition that the stars are equally scattered in space. We have good reason to believe that this is true of all the stars except those of the Milky Way. But, after all, the latter probably includes half the whole number of stars visible with a telescope, and the question may arise whether our results are seriously wrong from this cause. This question can best be solved by yet another method of estimating the average distance of certain classes of stars.

The parallaxes of which we have heretofore spoken consist in the change in the direction of a star produced by the swing of the earth from one side of its orbit to the other. But we have already remarked that our solar system, with the earth as one of its bodies, has been journeying straight forward through space during all historic times. It follows, therefore, that we are continually changing the position from which we view the stars, and that, if the latter were at rest, we could, by measuring the apparent speed with which they are moving in the opposite direction from that of the earth, determine their distance. But since every star has its own motion, it is impossible, in any one case, to determine how much of the apparent motion is due to the star itself, and how much to the motion of the solar system through space. Yet, by taking general averages among groups of stars, most of which are probably near each other, it is possible to estimate the average distance by this method. When an attempt is made to apply it, so as to obtain a definite result, the astronomer finds that the data now available for the purpose are very deficient. The proper motion of a star can be determined only by comparing its observed position in the heavens at two widely separate epochs. Observations of sufficient precision for this purpose were commenced about 1750 at the Greenwich Observatory, by Bradley, then Astronomer Royal of England. But out of 3000 stars which he determined, only a few are available for the purpose. Even since his time, the determinations made by each generation of astronomers have not been sufficiently complete and systematic to furnish the material for anything like a complete determination of the proper motions of stars. To determine a single position of any one star involves a good deal of computation, and if we reflect that, in order to attack the problem in question in a