Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/305

Rh of a long exposure which led to the present important discovery. If the stars had been bright enough to be photographed by an exposure not longer than a few seconds or even than a few minutes, then this new and wonderful planet Eros would not have been revealed.

Many points of light which were undoubtedly stars, and merely stars, were shown on this picture taken by the German astronomer at Urania. Among these points of light was, however, one object which, though in appearance hardly distinguishable from a faint star, was in truth a body of a very different character. No telescope, however powerful, would show by mere inspection any appreciable difference between the dot of light indicating a star and the dot of light indicating the asteroid Eros. The fundamental difference between the star and Eros was, however, revealed by the long exposure. The stars in such a picture are, of course, at rest. They have occupied for years and for centuries the places where we now find them. If they are moving at all, their movements are so slow that they need not now be considered. But this starlike point, or, as we may at once call it, this asteroid, Eros, is moving. Not that its movements seem very rapid from the distance at which alone we are compelled to view it. No casual glance would indicate that Eros was flying along. The ordinary observer would see no change in its place in a second—no change in its place even in a minute. But when the exposure has lasted for an hour this asteroid, in the course of the hour, has moved quite appreciably. Hence arose a great difference between the representation which the photograph has given of the stars, properly so called, and of the asteroid. Each star is depicted as a sharp, well-defined point. This little body which is not a star, this unsteady sitter in the picture, could not be so represented; it merely appeared as a streak. The completed photograph accordingly shows a large number of well-marked dots for the stars, and among them one faint line for the asteroid.

Such a feature on a picture, though very unusual, does sometimes present itself. To detect such a streak on a photograph of the stars is a moment of transcendent joy to the astronomer. It is often for him the exciting occasion on which a discovery is made. This little moving point is in actual fact as different from a star as a pebble is different from a brilliant electric light. The resemblance of the asteroid to a star is merely casual; the resemblance would wholly disappear if we were able to make a closer inspection. The star is a brilliant blazing orb like a sun, but so far away that its luster is diminished to that of a point; the planet is comparatively near us; it is a dark body like our earth, and is like our