Page:The Music of the Spheres.djvu/223

 Not far from the Southern Cross is a telescopic treasure which has long been enjoyed by astronomers. This treasure is a cluster of colored stars so delicately beautiful that the loveliest of rubies, emeralds and sapphires seem to have been filled with fire and turned to stars. There are over a hundred of these sparkling jewels in a space of only one forty-eighth of a square degree. What a delight it would be to suddenly uncover such a wonderful casket in our treasure hunt among the stars! But imagine the pleasure in watching the sky from the surface of a planet swinging in a field of such stars. Quite a thrill was experienced at the thought of a daytime tinted by a colored sun, or even two colored suns, but now imagine a night-time adorned with large and glowing pink, green, orange, red and yellow stars!

Just below the Southern Cross lie two stars which outrival the twin stars of Castor and Pollux. These two stars are often called the "southern pointers" because they point out the Southern Cross. They belong to the constellation of the Centaur, Alpha Centauri being noted as lying closer to the earth than any other star. The light we call Alpha Centauri comes from two suns instead of one. These suns are separated from each other by a distance of 2,000 million miles and gravitate one round the other in a time equalling 81 of our years.

Above the Cross shines Canopus on the stern of Argo, the ship