The Popular Science Monthly, September, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
The Popular Science Monthly, September, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The fact that the stars move suggests a very natural analogy to the
solar system. In the latter a number of planets revolve round the sun
as their center, each planet continually describing the same orbit,
while the various planets have different velocities. Around several
of the planets revolve one or more satellites. Were civilized men
ephemeral, observing the planets and satellites only for a few minutes,
these bodies would be described as having proper motions of their own,
as we find the stars to have. May it not then be that the stars also
form a system; that each star is moving in a fixed orbit performing
a revolution around some far-distant center in a period which may be
hundreds of thousands or hundreds of millions of years? May it not be
that there are systems of stars in which each star revolves around a
center of its own while all these systems are in revolution around a
single center?
This thought has been entertained by more than one contemplative
astronomer. Lambert’s magnificent conception of system upon system will
be described hereafter. Mädler thought that he had obtained evidence
of the revolution of the stars around Alcyone, the brightest of the
Pleiades, as a center. But, as the proper motions of the stars are
more carefully studied and their motion and direction more exactly
ascertained, it becomes very clear that when considered on a large
scale these conceptions are never realized in the actual universe as a
whole. But there are isolated cases of systems of stars which are shown
to be in some way connected by their having a common proper motion. We
shall mention some of the more notable cases.
The Pleiades are found to move together with such exactness that up
to the present time no difference in their proper motions has been
detected. This is true not only of the six stars which we readily see
with the naked eye, but of a much larger number of fainter ones made
known by the telescope. It is an interesting fact, however, that a
few stars apparently within the group do not partake of this motion,
from which it may be inferred that they do not belong to the system.
But there must be some motion among themselves, else the stars would
ultimately fall together by their mutual attraction. The amount and
nature of this motion cannot, however, be ascertained except by
centuries of observation.
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