The "Dumb-Bell" Nebula.
Photographed by Keeler, July 31, 1899.
Exposure, three hours.
It is never advisable to push philosophical speculation very far when supported by too slender a basis of fact. But if we are to regard the visible universe as made up on the whole of a single system of bodies, we may well ask one or two questions to be answered by speculative theory. We have said the stars are not uniformly distributed in space. Their concentration in the Milky Way, forming a narrow band dividing the sky into two very nearly equal parts, must be due to their being actually massed in a thin disk or ring of space within which our solar system is also situated. This thin disk projected upon the sky would then appear as the narrow star-band of the Milky Way. Now, suppose this disk has an axis perpendicular to itself, and let us imagine a rotation of the whole sidereal system about that axis. Then the fact that the visible nebulæ are congregated far from the Milky Way means that they are actually near the imaginary axis.
Possibly the diminished velocity of motion near the axis may have something to do with the presence of the nebulæ there. Possibly the nebulæ themselves have axes perpendicular to the plane of the Milky Way. If so, we should see the spiral nebulæ near the Milky Way edgewise, and those far from it without foreshortening. Thus, the paucity of nebulæ near the Milky Way may be due in part to the increased difficulty of seeing them when looked at edgewise. Indeed, there is no limit to the possibilities of hypothetical reasoning about the nebular structure of our universe; unfortunately, the whole question must be placed for the present among those intensely interesting cosmic problems awaiting elucidation, let us hope, in this new century.
[TEMPORARY STARS]
Nothing can be more erroneous than to suppose that the stellar multitude has continued unchanged throughout all generations of men. "Eternal fires" poets have called the stars; yet they burn like any little conflagration on the earth; now flashing with energy, brilliant, incandescent, and again sinking into the dull glow of smouldering half-burned ashes. It is even probable that space contains many darkened orbs, stars that may have risen in constellations to adorn the skies of prehistoric time—now cold, unseen, unknown. So far from dealing with an unvarying universe, it is safe to say that sidereal astronomy can advance only by the discovery of change. Observational science watches with untiring industry, and night hides few celestial events from the ardent scrutiny of astronomers. Old theories are tested and newer ones often perfected by the detection of some slight and previously unsuspected alteration upon the face of the sky. The interpretation of such changes is the most difficult task of science; it has taxed the acutest intellects among men throughout all time.
If, then, changes can be seen among the stars, what are we to think of the most important change of all, the blazing into life of a new stellar system? Fifteen times since men began to write their records of the skies has the birth of a star been seen. Surely we may use this term when we speak of the sudden appearance of a brilliant luminary where nothing visible existed before. But we shall see further on that scientific considerations make it highly probable that the phenomenon in question does not really involve the creation of new matter. It is old material becoming suddenly luminous for some hidden reason. In fact, whenever a new object of great brilliancy has been discovered, it has been found to lose its light again quite soon, ending either in total extinction or at least in comparative darkness. It is for this reason that the name "temporary star" has been applied to cases of this kind.