Side-Lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science Part 5

In no field of science has human knowledge been more extended in our time than in that of astronomy. Forty years ago astronomical research seemed quite barren of results of great interest or value to our race.

The observers of the world were working on a traditional system, grinding out results in an endless course, without seeing any prospect of the great generalizations to which they might ultimately lead. Now this is all changed. A new instrument, the spectroscope, has been developed, the extent of whose revelations we are just beginning to learn, although it has been more than thirty years in use. The application of photography has been so extended that, in some important branches of astronomical work, the observer simply photographs the phenomenon which he is to study, and then makes his observation on the developed negative.

The world of astronomy is one of the busiest that can be found to-day, and the writer proposes, with the reader's courteous consent, to take him on a stroll through it and see what is going on. We may begin our inspection with a body which is, for us, next to the earth, the most important in the universe. I mean the sun. At the Greenwich Observatory the sun has for more than twenty years been regularly photographed on every clear day, with the view of determining the changes going on in its spots. In recent years these observations have been supplemented by others, made at stations in India and Mauritius, so that by the combination of all it is quite exceptional to have an entire day pa.s.s without at least one photograph being taken. On these observations must mainly rest our knowledge of the curious cycle of change in the solar spots, which goes through a period of about eleven years, but of which no one has as yet been able to establish the cause.

This Greenwich system has been extended and improved by an American.

Professor George E. Hale, formerly Director of the Yerkes Observatory, has devised an instrument for taking photographs of the sun by a single ray of the spectrum. The light emitted by calcium, the base of lime, and one of the substances most abundant in the sun, is often selected to impress the plate.

The Carnegie Inst.i.tution has recently organized an enterprise for carrying on the study of the sun under a combination of better conditions than were ever before enjoyed. The first requirement in such a case is the ablest and most enthusiastic worker in the field, ready to devote all his energies to its cultivation. This requirement is found in the person of Professor Hale himself. The next requirement is an atmosphere of the greatest transparency, and a situation at a high elevation above sea-level, so that the pa.s.sage of light from the sun to the observer shall be obstructed as little as possible by the mists and vapors near the earth's surface. This requirement is reached by placing the observatory on Mount Wilson, near Pasadena, California, where the climate is found to be the best of any in the United States, and probably not exceeded by that of any other attainable point in the world. The third requirement is the best of instruments, specially devised to meet the requirements. In this respect we may be sure that nothing attainable by human ingenuity will be found wanting.

Thus provided, Professor Hale has entered upon the task of studying the sun, and recording from day to day all the changes going on in it, using specially devised instruments for each purpose in view.

Photography is made use of through almost the entire investigation. A full description of the work would require an enumeration of technical details, into which we need not enter at present. Let it, therefore, suffice to say in a general way that the study of the sun is being carried on on a scale, and with an energy worthy of the most important subject that presents itself to the astronomer. Closely a.s.sociated with this work is that of Professor Langley and Dr. Abbot, at the Astro-Physical Observatory of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, who have recently completed one of the most important works ever carried out on the light of the sun. They have for years been a.n.a.lyzing those of its rays which, although entirely invisible to our eyes, are of the same nature as those of light, and are felt by us as heat. To do this, Langley invented a sort of artificial eye, which he called a bolometer, in which the optic nerve is made of an extremely thin strip of metal, so slight that one can hardly see it, which is traversed by an electric current. This eye would be so dazzled by the heat radiated from one's body that, when in use, it must be protected from all such heat by being enclosed in a case kept at a constant temperature by being immersed in water. With this eye the two observers have mapped the heat rays of the sun down to an extent and with a precision which were before entirely unknown.

The question of possible changes in the sun's radiation, and of the relation of those changes to human welfare, still eludes our scrutiny.

With all the efforts that have been made, the physicist of to-day has not yet been able to make anything like an exact determination of the total amount of heat received from the sun. The largest measurements are almost double the smallest. This is partly due to the atmosphere absorbing an unknown and variable fraction of the sun's rays which pa.s.s through it, and partly to the difficulty of distinguis.h.i.+ng the heat radiated by the sun from that radiated by terrestrial objects.

In one recent instance, a change in the sun's radiation has been noticed in various parts of the world, and is of especial interest because there seems to be little doubt as to its origin. In the latter part of 1902 an extraordinary diminution was found in the intensity of the sun's heat, as measured by the bolometer and other instruments.

This continued through the first part of 1903, with wide variations at different places, and it was more than a year after the first diminution before the sun's rays again a.s.sumed their ordinary intensity.

This result is now attributed to the eruption of Mount Pelee, during which an enormous ma.s.s of volcanic dust and vapor was projected into the higher regions of the air, and gradually carried over the entire earth by winds and currents. Many of our readers may remember that something yet more striking occurred after the great cataclasm at Krakatoa in 1883, when, for more than a year, red sunsets and red twilights of a depth of shade never before observed were seen in every part of the world.

What we call universology--the knowledge of the structure and extent of the universe--must begin with a study of the starry heavens as we see them. There are perhaps one hundred million stars in the sky within the reach of telescopic vision. This number is too great to allow of all the stars being studied individually; yet, to form the basis for any conclusion, we must know the positions and arrangement of as many of them as we can determine.

To do this the first want is a catalogue giving very precise positions of as many of the brighter stars as possible. The princ.i.p.al national observatories, as well as some others, are engaged in supplying this want. Up to the present time about 200,000 stars visible in our lat.i.tudes have been catalogued on this precise plan, and the work is still going on. In that part of the sky which we never see, because it is only visible from the southern hemisphere, the corresponding work is far from being as extensive. Sir David Gill, astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope, and also the directors of other southern observatories, are engaged in pus.h.i.+ng it forward as rapidly as the limited facilities at their disposal will allow.

Next in order comes the work of simply listing as many stars as possible. Here the most exact positions are not required. It is only necessary to lay down the position of each star with sufficient exactness to distinguish it from all its neighbors. About 400,000 stars were during the last half-century listed in this way at the observatory of Bonn by Argelander, Schonfeld, and their a.s.sistants. This work is now being carried through the southern hemisphere on a large scale by Thome, Director of the Cordoba Observatory, in the Argentine Republic.

This was founded thirty years ago by our Dr. B. A. Gould, who turned it over to Dr. Thome in 1886. The latter has, up to the present time, fixed and published the positions of nearly half a million stars. This work of Thome extends to fainter stars than any other yet attempted, so that, as it goes on, we have more stars listed in a region invisible in middle northern lat.i.tudes than we have for that part of the sky we can see. Up to the present time three quarto volumes giving the positions and magnitudes of the stars have appeared. Two or three volumes more, and, perhaps, ten or fifteen years, will be required to complete the work.

About twenty years ago it was discovered that, by means of a telescope especially adapted to this purpose, it was possible to photograph many more stars than an instrument of the same size would show to the eye.

This discovery was soon applied in various quarters. Sir David Gill, with characteristic energy, photographed the stars of the southern sky to the number of nearly half a million. As it was beyond his power to measure off and compute the positions of the stars from his plates, the latter were sent to Professor J. C. Kapteyn, of Holland, who undertook the enormous labor of collecting them into a catalogue, the last volume of which was published in 1899. One curious result of this enterprise is that the work of listing the stars is more complete for the southern hemisphere than for the northern.

Another great photographic work now in progress has to do with the millions of stars which it is impossible to handle individually.

Fifteen years ago an a.s.sociation of observatories in both hemispheres undertook to make a photographic chart of the sky on the largest scale.

Some portions of this work are now approaching completion, but in others it is still in a backward state, owing to the failure of several South American observatories to carry out their part of the programme.

When it is all done we shall have a picture of the sky, the study of which may require the labor of a whole generation of astronomers.

Quite independently of this work, the Harvard University, under the direction of Professor Pickering, keeps up the work of photographing the sky on a surprising scale. On this plan we do not have to leave it to posterity to learn whether there is any change in the heavens, for one result of the enterprise has been the discovery of thirteen of the new stars which now and then blaze out in the heavens at points where none were before known. Professor Pickering's work has been continually enlarged and improved until about 150,000 photographic plates, showing from time to time the places of countless millions of stars among their fellows are now stored at the Harvard Observatory. Not less remarkable than this wealth of material has been the development of skill in working it up. Some idea of the work will be obtained by reflecting that, thirty years ago, careful study of the heavens by astronomers devoting their lives to the task had resulted in the discovery of some two or three hundred stars, varying in their light. Now, at Harvard, through keen eyes studying and comparing successive photographs not only of isolated stars, but of cl.u.s.ters and agglomerations of stars in the Milky Way and elsewhere, discoveries of such objects numbering hundreds have been made, and the work is going on with ever-increasing speed. Indeed, the number of variable stars now known is such that their study as individual objects no longer suffices, and they must hereafter be treated statistically with reference to their distribution in s.p.a.ce, and their relations to one another, as a census cla.s.sifies the entire population without taking any account of individuals.

The works just mentioned are concerned with the stars. But the heavenly s.p.a.ces contain nebulae as well as stars; and photography can now be even more successful in picturing them than the stars. A few years ago the late lamented Keeler, at the Lick Observatory, undertook to see what could be done by pointing the Crossley reflecting telescope at the sky and putting a sensitive photographic plate in the focus. He was surprised to find that a great number of nebulae, the existence of which had never before been suspected, were impressed on the plate. Up to the present time the positions of about 8000 of these objects have been listed. Keeler found that there were probably 200,000 nebulae in the heavens capable of being photographed with the Crossley reflector.

But the work of taking these photographs is so great, and the number of reflecting telescopes which can be applied to it so small, that no one has ventured to seriously commence it. It is worthy of remark that only a very small fraction of these objects which can be photographed are visible to the eye, even with the most powerful telescope.

This demonstration of what the reflecting telescope can do may be regarded as one of the most important discoveries of our time as to the capabilities of astronomical instruments. It has long been known that the image formed in the focus of the best refracting telescope is affected by an imperfection arising from the different action of the gla.s.ses on rays of light of different colors. Hence, the image of a star can never be seen or photographed with such an instrument, as an actual point, but only as a small, diffused ma.s.s. This difficulty is avoided in the reflecting telescope; but a new difficulty is found in the bending of the mirror under the influence of its own weight.

Devices for overcoming this had been so far from successful that, when Mr. Crossley presented his instrument to the Lick Observatory, it was feared that little of importance could be done with it. But as often happens in human affairs outside the field of astronomy, when ingenious and able men devote their attention to the careful study of a problem, it was found that new results could be reached. Thus it was that, before a great while, what was supposed to be an inferior instrument proved not only to have qualities not before suspected, but to be the means of making an important addition to the methods of astronomical investigation.

In order that our knowledge of the position of a star may be complete, we must know its distance. This can be measured only through the star's parallax--that is to say, the slight change in its direction produced by the swing of our earth around its...o...b..t. But so vast is the distance in question that this change is immeasurably small, except for, perhaps, a few hundred stars, and even for these few its measurement almost baffles the skill of the most expert astronomer. Progress in this direction is therefore very slow, and there are probably not yet a hundred stars of which the parallax has been ascertained with any approach to certainty. Dr. Chase is now completing an important work of this kind at the Yale Observatory.

To the most refined telescopic observations, as well as to the naked eye, the stars seem all alike, except that they differ greatly in brightness, and somewhat in color. But when their light is a.n.a.lyzed by the spectroscope, it is found that scarcely any two are exactly alike.

An important part of the work of the astro-physical observatories, especially that of Harvard, consists in photographing the spectra of thousands of stars, and studying the peculiarities thus brought out. At Harvard a large portion of this work is done as part of the work of the Henry Draper Memorial, established by his widow in memory of the eminent investigator of New York, who died twenty years ago.

By a comparison of the spectra of stars Sir William Huggins has developed the idea that these bodies, like human beings, have a life history. They are nebulae in infancy, while the progress to old age is marked by a constant increase in the density of their substance. Their temperature also changes in a way a.n.a.logous to the vigor of the human being. During a certain time the star continually grows hotter and hotter. But an end to this must come, and it cools off in old age. What the age of a star may be is hard even to guess. It is many millions of years, perhaps hundreds, possibly even thousands, of millions.

Some attempt at giving the magnitude is included in every considerable list of stars. The work of determining the magnitudes with the greatest precision is so laborious that it must go on rather slowly. It is being pursued on a large scale at the Harvard Observatory, as well as in that of Potsdam, Germany.

We come now to the question of changes in the appearance of bright stars. It seems pretty certain that more than one per cent of these bodies fluctuate to a greater or less extent in their light.

Observations of these fluctuations, in the case of at least the brighter stars, may be carried on without any instrument more expensive than a good opera-gla.s.s--in fact, in the case of stars visible to the naked eye, with no instrument at all.

As a general rule, the light of these stars goes through its changes in a regular period, which is sometimes as short as a few hours, but generally several days, frequently a large fraction of a year or even eighteen months. Observations of these stars are made to determine the length of the period and the law of variation of the brightness. Any person with a good eye and skill in making estimates can make the observations if he will devote sufficient pains to training himself; but they require a degree of care and a.s.siduity which is not to be expected of any one but an enthusiast on the subject. One of the most successful observers of the present time is Mr. W. A. Roberts, a resident of South Africa, whom the Boer war did not prevent from keeping up a watch of the southern sky, which has resulted in greatly increasing our knowledge of variable stars. There are also quite a number of astronomers in Europe and America who make this particular study their specialty.

During the past fifteen years the art of measuring the speed with which a star is approaching us or receding from us has been brought to a wonderful degree of perfection. The instrument with which this was first done was the spectroscope; it is now replaced with another of the same general kind, called the spectrograph. The latter differs from the other only in that the spectrum of the star is photographed, and the observer makes his measures on the negative. This method was first extensively applied at the Potsdam Observatory in Germany, and has lately become one of the specialties of the Lick Observatory, where Professor Campbell has brought it to its present degree of perfection.

The Yerkes Observatory is also beginning work in the same line, where Professor Frost is already rivalling the Lick Observatory in the precision of his measures.

Let us now go back to our own little colony and see what is being done to advance our knowledge of the solar system. This consists of planets, on one of which we dwell, moons revolving around them, comets, and meteoric bodies. The princ.i.p.al national observatories keep up a more or less orderly system of observations of the positions of the planets and their satellites in order to determine the laws of their motion. As in the case of the stars, it is necessary to continue these observations through long periods of time in order that everything possible to learn may be discovered.

Our own moon is one of the enigmas of the mathematical astronomer.

Observations show that she is deviating from her predicted place, and that this deviation continues to increase. True, it is not very great when measured by an ordinary standard. The time at which the moon's shadow pa.s.sed a given point near Norfolk during the total eclipse of May 29, 1900, was only about seven seconds different from the time given in the Astronomical Ephemeris. The path of the shadow along the earth was not out of place by more than one or two miles But, small though these deviations are, they show that something is wrong, and no one has as yet found out what it is. Worse yet, the deviation is increasing rapidly. The observers of the total eclipse in August, 1905, were surprised to find that it began twenty seconds before the predicted time. The mathematical problems involved in correcting this error are of such complexity that it is only now and then that a mathematician turns up anywhere in the world who is both able and bold enough to attack them.

There now seems little doubt that Jupiter is a miniature sun, only not hot enough at its surface to s.h.i.+ne by its own light The point in which it most resembles the sun is that its equatorial regions rotate in less time than do the regions near the poles. This shows that what we see is not a solid body. But none of the careful observers have yet succeeded in determining the law of this difference of rotation.

Twelve years ago a suspicion which had long been entertained that the earth's axis of rotation varied a little from time to time was verified by Chandler. The result of this is a slight change in the lat.i.tude of all places on the earth's surface, which admits of being determined by precise observations. The National Geodetic a.s.sociation has established four observatories on the same parallel of lat.i.tude--one at Gaithersburg, Maryland, another on the Pacific coast, a third in j.a.pan, and a fourth in Italy--to study these variations by continuous observations from night to night. This work is now going forward on a well-devised plan.

A fact which will appeal to our readers on this side of the Atlantic is the success of American astronomers. Sixty years ago it could not be said that there was a well-known observatory on the American continent.

The cultivation of astronomy was confined to a professor here and there, who seldom had anything better than a little telescope with which he showed the heavenly bodies to his students. But during the past thirty years all this has been changed. The total quant.i.ty of published research is still less among us than on the continent of Europe, but the number of men who have reached the highest success among us may be judged by one fact. The Royal Astronomical Society of England awards an annual medal to the English or foreign astronomer deemed most worthy of it. The number of these medals awarded to Americans within twenty-five years is about equal to the number awarded to the astronomers of all other nations foreign to the English. That this preponderance is not growing less is shown by the award of medals to Americans in three consecutive years--1904, 1905, and 1906. The recipients were Hale, Boss, and Campbell. Of the fifty foreign a.s.sociates chosen by this society for their eminence in astronomical research, no less than eighteen--more than one-third--are Americans.

VII

LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

So far as we can judge from what we see on our globe, the production of life is one of the greatest and most incessant purposes of nature. Life is absent only in regions of perpetual frost, where it never has an opportunity to begin; in places where the temperature is near the boiling-point, which is found to be destructive to it; and beneath the earth's surface, where none of the changes essential to it can come about. Within the limits imposed by these prohibitory conditions--that is to say, within the range of temperature at which water retains its liquid state, and in regions where the sun's rays can penetrate and where wind can blow and water exist in a liquid form--life is the universal rule. How prodigal nature seems to be in its production is too trite a fact to be dwelt upon. We have all read of the millions of germs which are destroyed for every one that comes to maturity. Even the higher forms of life are found almost everywhere. Only small islands have ever been discovered which were uninhabited, and animals of a higher grade are as widely diffused as man.

If it would be going too far to claim that all conditions may have forms of life appropriate to them, it would be going as much too far in the other direction to claim that life can exist only with the precise surroundings which nurture it on this planet. It is very remarkable in this connection that while in one direction we see life coming to an end, in the other direction we see it flouris.h.i.+ng more and more up to the limit. These two directions are those of heat and cold. We cannot suppose that life would develop in any important degree in a region of perpetual frost, such as the polar regions of our globe. But we do not find any end to it as the climate becomes warmer. On the contrary, every one knows that the tropics are the most fertile regions of the globe in its production. The luxuriance of the vegetation and the number of the animals continually increase the more tropical the climate becomes. Where the limit may be set no one can say. But it would doubtless be far above the present temperature of the equatorial regions.

It has often been said that this does not apply to the human race, that men lack vigor in the tropics. But human vigor depends on so many conditions, hereditary and otherwise, that we cannot regard the inferior development of humanity in the tropics as due solely to temperature. Physically considered, no men attain a better development than many tribes who inhabit the warmer regions of the globe. The inferiority of the inhabitants of these regions in intellectual power is more likely the result of race heredity than of temperature.

We all know that this earth on which we dwell is only one of countless millions of globes scattered through the wilds of infinite s.p.a.ce. So far as we know, most of these globes are wholly unlike the earth, being at a temperature so high that, like our sun, they s.h.i.+ne by their own light. In such worlds we may regard it as quite certain that no organized life could exist. But evidence is continually increasing that dark and opaque worlds like ours exist and revolve around their suns, as the earth on which we dwell revolves around its central luminary.

Although the number of such globes yet discovered is not great, the circ.u.mstances under which they are found lead us to believe that the actual number may be as great as that of the visible stars which stud the sky. If so, the probabilities are that millions of them are essentially similar to our own globe. Have we any reason to believe that life exists on these other worlds?

The reader will not expect me to answer this question positively. It must be admitted that, scientifically, we have no light upon the question, and therefore no positive grounds for reaching a conclusion.

We can only reason by a.n.a.logy and by what we know of the origin and conditions of life around us, and a.s.sume that the same agencies which are at play here would be found at play under similar conditions in other parts of the universe.

If we ask what the opinion of men has been, we know historically that our race has, in all periods of its history, peopled other regions with beings even higher in the scale of development than we are ourselves.

The G.o.ds and demons of an earlier age all wielded powers greater than those granted to man--powers which they could use to determine human destiny. But, up to the time that Copernicus showed that the planets were other worlds, the location of these imaginary beings was rather indefinite. It was therefore quite natural that when the moon and planets were found to be dark globes of a size comparable with that of the earth itself, they were made the habitations of beings like unto ourselves.

The trend of modern discovery has been against carrying this view to its extreme, as will be presently shown. Before considering the difficulties in the way of accepting it to the widest extent, let us enter upon some preliminary considerations as to the origin and prevalence of life, so far as we have any sound basis to go upon.

A generation ago the origin of life upon our planet was one of the great mysteries of science. All the facts brought out by investigation into the past history of our earth seemed to show, with hardly the possibility of a doubt, that there was a time when it was a fiery ma.s.s, no more capable of serving as the abode of a living being than the interior of a Bessemer steel furnace. There must therefore have been, within a certain period, a beginning of life upon its surface. But, so far as investigation had gone--indeed, so far as it has gone to the present time--no life has been found to originate of itself. The living germ seems to be necessary to the beginning of any living form. Whence, then, came the first germ? Many of our readers may remember a suggestion by Sir William Thomson, now Lord Kelvin, made twenty or thirty years ago, that life may have been brought to our planet by the falling of a meteor from s.p.a.ce. This does not, however, solve the difficulty--indeed, it would only make it greater. It still leaves open the question how life began on the meteor; and granting this, why it was not destroyed by the heat generated as the meteor pa.s.sed through the air. The popular view that life began through a special act of creative power seemed to be almost forced upon man by the failure of science to discover any other beginning for it. It cannot be said that even to-day anything definite has been actually discovered to refute this view. All we can say about it is that it does not run in with the general views of modern science as to the beginning of things, and that those who refuse to accept it must hold that, under certain conditions which prevail, life begins by a very gradual process, similar to that by which forms suggesting growth seem to originate even under conditions so unfavorable as those existing in a bottle of acid.