Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/59

Rh of the tenth magnitude, 373,000 instead of 1,500,000, as we should expect. An absorbing medium in space, which would dim the light of the more distant stars, is a possible explanation, but this hypothesis does not agree with the actual figures. An examination of the number of adjacent stars shows that it is far in excess of what would be expected if the stars were distributed by chance. Of the three thousand double stars in the 'Mensuræ Micrometricæ' the number of stars optically double, or of those which happen to be in line, according to the theory of probabilities, is only about forty. This fact should be recognized in any conclusions regarding the motions of the fixed stars, based upon measures of their position with regard to adjacent bright stars.

We have here neglected all conclusions based upon the difference in composition of different stars. Photographs of their spectra furnish the material for studying this problem in detail. About half of the stars have spectra in which the broad hydrogen lines are the distinguishing feature. They are of the first type, and belong to class A of the classification of the Henry Draper Memorial. The Milky Way consists so completely of such stars that if they were removed it would not be visible. The Orion stars, forming class B, a subdivision of the first type in which the lines of helium are present, are still more markedly concentrated in the Milky Way. A large part of the other stars, forming one third of the whole, have spectra closely resembling that of the sun. They are. of the second type, and form classes C and K. These stars are distributed nearly uniformly in all parts of the sky. Class M, the third type, follows the same law. Class F, whose spectrum is intermediate between classes A and C, follows the same law of distribution as classes G-and K, but differs from them, if at all, in the opposite direction from class A. There, therefore, seem to be actually fewer of these stars in the Milky Way than outside of it. One class of stars, the fifth type, class O, has a very remarkable spectrum and distribution. A large part of the light is monochromatic. Of the ninety-six stars of this type so far discovered, twenty-one are in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one in the Small Magellanic Cloud, and the remainder follow the central line of the Milky Way so closely that the average distance from it is only two degrees. All of these stars, with the exception of sixteen, have been found by means of the Henry Draper Memorial.

It will be seen from the above discussion that stellar photometry in its broadest sense furnishes the means of attacking, and perhaps of solving, the greatest problem presented to the mind of man—the structure and constitution of the stellar universe, of which the solar system itself is but a minute and insignificant molecule.