The Scientific Monthly, October to December, 1915Various
Science
The Scientific Monthly, October to December, 1915
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
5. The stars are more and more uniformly distributed over the
sphere as one goes from the helium stars through the hydrogen
and solar stars, to the red stars. The Class M stars show
little or no preference for the Milky Way. Of course, I am
speaking here of the brighter and nearer stars which we have
been able to study by means of the spectroscope, and not at all
of the faint stars which form the unstudied distant parts of
the Milky Way structure. The helium stars are young, their
motions are slow, and they have not wandered far from the place
of their birth. Not so with the older stars.
6. The visual double stars afford strong evidence that the
order of evolution described is correct. The 36-inch refractor
has shown that one star in 18, on the average, brighter than
the ninth visual magnitude, consists of two or more suns which
we can not doubt are in slow revolution around each other. The
number of double stars observable would be very much greater
than this if they were not so far away. Of the 20 stars which
we say are our nearest neighbors, 8 are well known double
stars; one double in each two and one half, on the average.
Aitken has made a specialty of observing the double stars whose
components in each case are very close together and are in
comparatively rapid revolution. His program includes 164 such
systems whose types of spectra are known, as in the following
table:
Spectrum Number of Double Stars
Bright-line 0
Class B 4
Class A-F 131
Class G-N 28
Class M-N? 1
The message which this table brings is clear. The double stars
whose spectra are of the Bright-Line and Class B varieties have
their components so close together that only 4, of Class B, are
visible. The great majority fall in Classes A to K; 159 out of
164. The component stars in these classes are far enough apart
to be visible in the telescopes, and yet are close enough to be
revolving in periods reasonably short. In the Class M double
stars, this program contains not more than one star, and I
believe the explanation is this: double stars of Class M are in
general so far apart, and therefore their periods of revolution
are so long, that they do not get upon programs of rapidly
revolving stars. Also, the fainter components in many red stars
must have cooled off so far that they are invisible. The
distances between the components of visual double stars are in
general the greater as we proceed from the helium stars through
the various spectral classes up to Class M. There are reasons
for believing that two stars revolving around their center of
mass have gradually increased their distance apart, and
therefore their revolution period. If this is true, the Classes
G and K; double stars are effectively older than Classes A and
F double stars, and these in turn are effectively older than
Class B double stars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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