Page:The evolution of worlds - Lowell.djvu/37

Rh recovered the lost horses of the Sultan, and which from its unaccustomedness in the affairs of men got him suspected of having stolen them and very nearly caused his death, will show the untenableness of this idea and help us to a solution. In the first place we note that the star holds the very centre of the nebular stage, a remarkable prominence if the star has no creative right to the position. Then the same knots and patches of the nebulous configuration are visible in all the photographs, in the same relative positions, turned through corresponding angles as one will see for himself, all having moved symmetrically from one date to another. At the truly marvellous mimicry implied if different objects were concerned common sense instinctively shies, and very properly, as the chances against it are millions to one. Clearly it was not a mere matter of ethereal motion, but a very material motion of matter, which was here concerned. Something corpuscular emanating from the nova spread outward into space.

Clinching this conclusion is the result of a search by Perrine for traces of the nebula on earlier plates. For on one taken by him on March 29 (1901) he found the process already started in two close coils, its conception thus clearly dating from the time of the star's outburst. In Nova Persei, then, we actually witnessed a spiral nebula evolved from a disrupted star.