Galileo also announced the detection of innumerable stars, invisible to the unassisted sight; and those remarkable appearances in the heavens, generally called nebulæ, the most considerable of which is familiar to all under the name of the milky way, when examined by his instrument, were found to resolve themselves into a vast collection of minute stars, too closely congregated to produce a separate impression upon the unassisted eye.[58] Benedetti, who divined that the dark shades on the moon's surface arose from the constitution of those parts which suffered much of the light to pass into them, and consequently reflected a less portion of it, had maintained that the milky way was the result of the converse of the same phenomenon, and declared, in the language of his astronomy, that it was a part of the eighth orb, which did not, like the rest, allow the sun's light to traverse it freely, but reflected a small part feebly to our sight. The Anti-Copernicans would probably have been well pleased, if by these eternally renewed discussions and disputes, they could have occupied Galileo's time sufficiently to detain his attention from his telescope and astronomical observations; but he knew too well where his real strength lay, and they had scarcely time to compound any thing like an argument against him and his theories, before they found him in possession of some new facts, which they were unprepared to meet, otherwise than by the never-failing resource of abuse and affected contempt. The year had not expired before Galileo had new intelligence to communicate of the highest importance. Perhaps he had been taught caution from the numerous piracies which had been committed upon his discoveries, and he first announced his new discoveries enigmatically, veiling their real import by transpositions of the letters in the words which described them, (a practice then common, and not disused even at a much later date,) and inviting all astronomers to declare, within a certain time, if they had noted any thing new in the heavens worthy of observation. The transposed letters which he published were— "_Smaismrmilme poeta leumi bvne nugttaviras._" Kepler, in the true spirit of his riddling philosophy, endeavoured to decypher the meaning, and fancied he had succeeded when he formed a barbarous Latin verse, "_Salve umbistineum geminatum Martia proles_," conceiving that the discovery, whatever it might be, related to the planet Mars, to which Kepler's attention had before been particularly directed. The reader, however, need not weary himself in seeking a translation of this solution, for at the request of the Emperor Rodolph, Galileo speedily sent to him the real reading— _Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi_;