Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/69

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HE phenomenon of a new star appearing in the heavens is sufficiently rare to strike the imagination of the public, as well as to attract the attention of scientific men. On the one side, it possesses all the interest which attaches to the unexpected, to the mysterious unknown; and, on the other, it raises some very important questions as to the physical and chemical constitution of the stars, and as to the likeness between those distant suns and our own. But now more than ever before, more even than in the first moiety of the nineteenth century, is such curiosity justified, inasmuch as the new means of investigation in the hands of astronomers give promise of revealing, at least in a great measure, the nature of the strange transformations which give rise to these apparitions.

Before we consider the quite recent discovery made by Julius Schmidt, director of the observatory at Athens, let us make a brief review of the apparitions which preceded it.

Every one has seen in works on astronomy the account of the famous temporary star of 1572, which appeared during the month of November in the constellation of Cassiopeia, all of whose phases were observed by Tycho Brahe. Its extraordinary scintillation; its brightness, equaling and surpassing Vega, Jupiter, Sirius, and even Venus when in quadrature, so that it was visible at high noon; finally, its sudden diminution and disappearance after seventeen months of visibility, all conspired to give to this star an extraordinary celebrity.

In 1600 a new star appeared in the Swan, and was studied by Kepler; then it disappeared in 1621, was again visible in 1655, and at sundry times afterward; it is still visible.

Thirty years after the disappearance of the new star in Cassiopeia appeared the star in Serpentarius discovered by Brunowski in October, 1604, and which had for its observer and historian the great Kepler. It was visible for eighteen months, and, while it did not equal in brightness the star of 1572, it surpassed the stars of first magnitude, and even Jupiter itself.

In 1670 a third temporary star was discovered by the Carthusian Anthelme, in that part of the constellation of the Fox which is nearest to /3 of the Swan. At the time of its apparition, or rather of its discovery, June 20th, it was of the third magnitude. About August 10th it was only of the fifth magnitude, and three months later it disappeared, reappearing on March 17, 1671, with the lustre of a star of