Before proceeding to inquire into the singular and significant circumstances of the recent outburst, it may be found interesting to examine briefly the records which astronomy has preserved of similar catastrophes in former years. These may be compared to the records of accidents on the various railway lines in a country or continent. Those other suns which we can stars are engines working the mighty mechanism of planetary systems, as our sun maintains the energies of our own system; and it is a matter of some interest to us to inquire in how many cases, among the many suns within the range of vision, destructive explosions occur. We may take the opportunity, later, to inquire into the number of cases in which the machinery of solar systems appears to have broken down. The first case of a solar conflagration on record is that of the new star observed by Hipparchus some 2000 years ago. In his time, and indeed until quite recently, an object of this kind was called a new star, or a temporary star. But we now know that when a star makes its appearance where none had before been visible, what has really happened has been that a star too remote to be seen has become visible through some rapid increase of splendour. When the new splendour dies out again, it is not that a star has ceased to exist; but simply that a faint star which had increased greatly in lustre has resumed its original condition. Hipparchus's star must have been a remarkable object, for it was visible in full daylight, whence we may infer that it was many times brighter than the blazing Dog-star. It is interesting in the history of science, as having led Hipparchus to draw up a catalogue of stars, the first on record. Some moderns, being sceptical, rejected this story as a fiction; but Biot examining Chinese Chronicles[32] relating to the times of Hipparchus, finds that in 134 B.C. (about nine years before the date of Hipparchus's catalogue) a new star was recorded as having appeared in the constellation Scorpio.