Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/399

Rh changes it from one into eight or ten stars, and these stars exhibit a variety of beautiful colours charming to behold. However we look at them, there is an appearance of association among these stars, shining with their contrasted colours and their various degrees of brilliance, which is significant of diversity of conditions and circumstances under which the suns and worlds beyond the solar walk exist."

It remains to mention what is probably the most interesting telescopic object, and certainly the most satisfactory to view of its kind in all the heavens, the Great Nebula in Orion. It is situated in the so-called "Sword" of the Giant which hangs pendent from the Belt, and surrounds the star θ Orionis. No description can give an adequate picture of the sight of this wonderful object even in a small telescope. The star θ is divided by the telescope into six stars, four of which can be seen with fairly low power, and compose the well-known "Trapezium."

The nebula itself covers a space equal to the apparent size of the moon, but nebulosity extends over a much greater area. Its spectrum is purely gaseous, and its mass is said to be 4.5 million times that of the sun.

Serviss thus refers to it: "Nowhere else in the heavens is the architecture of a nebula so clearly displayed. It is an unfinished temple whose gigantic dimensions, while exalting the imagination, proclaim the omnipotence of its builder. But though unfinished it is not abandoned. The work of creation is proceeding within its precincts. There are stars apparently completed, shining like gems just dropped from the hand of the polisher, and around them are masses, eddies, currents, and swirls of nebulous matter yet to be condensed, compacted, and constructed into suns. It is an education in the nebular theory of the universe merely to look at this spot with a good telescope. If we do not gaze at it long and wistfully, and return to it many times with unflagging interest, we may be certain that there is not the making of an astronomer in us."

A fitting conclusion to this sketch of Orion and its stars,