Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/34

26 them naturally tend to collect in clusters. It is, however, a curious fact that, so far as yet been noticed, the large, diffused nebulæ which we have mentioned are more numerous in or near the Milky Way. If this tendency is established it will mark a curious distinction between them and the smaller nebulæ.

The most interesting question connected with these objects is that of their physical constitution. When, about 1866, the spectroscope was applied to astronomical investigation by Huggins and Secchi, these two observers found independently that the light of the great nebula of Orion formed a spectrum of bright lines, thus showing the object to be gaseous. This was soon found to be true of the nebulae generally. There is, however, a very curious exception in the case of the great nebula of Andromedæ. This object gives a more or less continuous spectrum. Why this is it is difficult to say.

Beyond the general fact that the light of a nebula does not come from solid matter, but from matter of a gaseous or other attenuated form, we have no certain knowledge of the physical constitution of these bodies. Certain features of their constitution can, however, be established with a fair approach to accuracy. Not only the spectroscopic evidence of bright lines, but the aspect of the objects themselves, show that they are transparent through and through. This is remarkable when taken in connection with their inconceivable size. Leaving out the large diffused nebulæ which we have mentioned, these objects are frequently several minutes in diameter. Of their distance we know nothing, except that they are probably situated in the distant stellar regions. Their parallax can be but a small fraction of a second. We shall probably err greatly in excess if we assume that it varies between one-hundredth and one-tenth of a second. To assign this parallax is the same thing as saying that at the distance of the nebulæ the dimensions of the earth's orbit would show a diameter which might range between one-fiftieth and one-fifth of a second, while that of Neptune would be more or less than one second. Great numbers of these objects are, therefore, thousands of times the dimensions of the earth's orbit, and probably most of them are thousands of times the dimensions of the whole solar system. That they should be completely transparent through such enormous dimensions shows their extreme tenuity. Were our solar system placed in the midst of one of them, it is probable that we should not be able to find any evidence of its existence.

A form of matter so different from any that can be found or produced on the surface of the earth can hardly be explained by our ordinary views of matter. A theory has, however, been propounded by Sir Norman Lockyer, so ingenious as to be worthy at least of mention. It is that these objects are vast collections of meteorites in rapid motion