Whatever may be discovered in the future in regard to the form and
extent of the universe the idea of a fixed and immovable center
either within the solar system or among the stars beyond has gone
from the minds of men at last.
[Illustration: SPIRAL NEBULA IN ANDROMEDA VIEWED EDGEWISE
Taken with 60-inch Reflector of the Mt. Wilson Observatory]
Not more than a generation ago a survival of the old idea of a
fixed center was seen in the belief that Alcyone, in the Pleiades
was a "central sun" about which all the stars revolved. It is now
well known that the Pleiades form a moving star cluster. Alcyone is
therefore drifting slowly onward through the universe and the idea
of a fixed and immovable center to which man may anchor his ideas is
drifting away also. There are, it is true, local centers of systems,
such, for instance, as the sun occupies in the solar system or some
group of stars may occupy in the stellar system to which our sun
belongs, yet _as a whole_ these systems move on and their centers
with them. There is no evidence today that any absolutely immovable
point exists in the heavens.
No celestial object has been found to be without the attribute of
_motion_, not only motion _onward_ through the universe, but also
_rotational_ motion about an axis of the body. The planets rotate on
their axes as well as revolve about the sun, and the sun also turns
on its axis as it moves onward through space. This rotational motion
is also found in the nebulæ and star clusters as well as in the stars
and planets. No object in the heavens is known to be without it. Even
the slowly drifting Orion nebula possesses a rapid internal velocity
of rotation. There is no such thing as a body absolutely at rest in
the universe.
TABLE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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