That takes my breath away.
Hear a little more. Light comes from the sun to us in eight minutes. It will take sixty thousand years to come from one of those stars Lord de Rosse saw. In fact his telescope has enlarged our universe one hundred and twenty-five million times.
Then I think religious people ought to thank astronomers for showing them more of the greatness of God. Those who only thought of him as the Creator of the three thousand stars, to be seen by the naked eye, could not have such a notion of his vast power as those who know of millions upon millions of suns.”
After this, James was left to digest such wonderful lessons. When his first astonishment had passed away, his curiosity was excited to know more about the distances of the stars, so that he might form a simpler idea of the thing. He took, therefore, another occasion of bringing up the subject in these words:—
“Father, do you really believe the stars are so far off?
I am obliged to believe many things I do not understand, upon the testimony of trustworthy witnesses; but in this case I can form a good guess of the truth. Do you remember what I once told you of the parallax, or angle of observation of the sun or moon?
Yes. That of the moon was 57 minutes, and the sun 83⁄4 seconds. A degree is 60 minutes, and a minute 60 seconds.
Very well. Then 57 minutes, or 3420 seconds, will be four hundred times as much as the other. If the moon be 240,000 miles off, the sun will be four hundred times further or 96,000,000.
But how do you get this parallax?