The evolution of worlds from nebulae

by Lee Parker Dean

Professor Mitchell tells us that with a telescope light from distant nebulae can be seen that has been thirty millions of years on its journey. Let us imagine a sphere with a radius of one million years of light’s flight at the rate of twelve million miles per minute, viz., six quintillions of miles. A sphere of such a radius would contain as many spheres of ten trillions of miles radius as one could put cubic inches in 850 cubic miles, or 216,000 trillions. This sphere could hold as many suns of one million miles diameter as there might be grass seeds that would cover a million of earth’s for one mile in depth, each earth containing on its surface 200 millions of square miles, and every cubic inch thereof representing 27 millions of grass seeds. When we think that each seed represents two millions of earths can we comprehend the greatness of the universe? Remember the same calculations that enable us to determine the number of cubic feet in our earth, sun, or any other sphere, bring these astounding but certain results. And when we further remember this space is every where so clear and powerful that it transmits light at the rate of over eleven million miles each minute, enabling us to see in every part of the heavens the wonderful stars at an immense distance; and that if we bring to our aid the most powerful telescopes they only tend to magnify the already vast number of stars; we are led to realize that beyond all things else we can conceive space is the most astonishing and wonderful, excepting its great Creator. While some think that the sun is cooling and all its planets will be affected thereby, and refer to the destruction and instability of earthly things; where is there a single atom of this inconceivably vast, vibratory space that reveals the least change or destructiveness, although it must have existed for millions of ages.

Sir Robert S. Ball has given a very marked illustration of the wonderful magnitude of space in his late book entitled “In the High Heavens,” from which we quote as follows: “Summon up to your imagination the most distant star that can be seen with the unaided eye. Then think of the minutest star that our most potent telescope can disclose. Think of the tiniest stellar point of light which could possibly be depicted on the most sensitive photographic plate after hours of exposure to the heavens. Think, indeed, of the very remotest star which, by any conceivable device, can be rendered perceptible to our consciousness. Doubtless that star is thousands of billions of miles from earth; doubtless the light from it requires thousands of years, and some astronomers have said millions of years, to span the abyss which intervenes between our globe and those distant regions. But, nevertheless, there is a certain number of miles, even though we know it not, at which the remotest stars known to us must lie. I do not speak of the most distant star which the universe may possibly contain; I only refer to the most distant star that we can possibly bring within our ken.

Imagine a great sphere to be described with its centre at our earth, and with a radius extending all the way from the earth to this last star knowable by man. Every star that we can see, every star whose existence becomes disclosed to us on our photographs, lies inside this sphere; as to the orbs which may lie outside that sphere we can know nothing by direct observation. The imagination doubtless suggests with irresistible emphasis, that this outer region is also occupied by stars and nebulae, suns and worlds, in the same manner as the interior of that mighty sphere whose contents are more or less accessible to our scrutiny. It would do utter violence to our notions of the law of continuity to assume that all the existent matter in the universe happened to lie inside this sphere; we need only mention such a supposition to dismiss it as wholly indefensible. I do not now make any attempt to express the number of miles in the diameter of the sphere which limits the extent of space known directly to man. What that number may be is quite immaterial for our present purpose. But the point that I especially want to bring out is that the volume occupied by this stupendous globe, which includes within it all possible visible material, must be but a speck when compared with the space which contains it. Think of the water in the Atlantic Ocean, and think of the water in a single drop. As the drop is to the Atlantic Ocean so is the sphere which we have been trying to conceive to the boundless extent of space. As far as we know it would seem that there could be quite as many of such spheres in space as there are drops of water in the Atlantic Ocean.”

Now with this defining of space it is evident that it matters but little what the material substances of the universe may be. If the hundreds of millions of bright suns—which are thought to be few in proportion to the invisible, dark worlds scattered throughout space—are but as a single drop of water to all the Atlantic Ocean; then we are compelled to admit that our earth and sun, and even the great host of luminous orbs, must be of little consequence beside this infinitely vaster and more intensely active ether.

It behooves us above all things, then, to inquire what this amazingly great space may be. Let us quote further from the above author: “Every particle of matter whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, is composed of molecules. No doubt these molecules are so numerous that even in the air we breathe the capacity of a lady’s thimble would contain a multitude of molecules so great that it has to be enumerated by billions.” Again, “The air is ultimately composed of myriads of separate particles. Each of these little particles, no matter how quiet the air as a whole may seem, is in a state of intensely rapid movement. Picture to yourself incalculable myriads of little objects, each dashing about with a speed as great as that of a rifle bullet, and often indeed far greater. The little particles are so minute that it would take about fifty millions of them, placed side by side, to extend over a single inch. The smallest object which we can discern with a microscope is perhaps one hundred-thousandth of an inch in length. The little gaseous molecule would therefore require to possess a diameter about five hundred times greater than that which it actually has if it were to be large enough to admit of inspection by the utmost microscopic powers which we can bring to bear upon it. And yet, notwithstanding the fact that these particles are so extremely minute, we are able to reason about their existence, to discover many of their properties, and to ascertain the laws of their action in such a way as to throw light into many obscure places of nature. I do not, indeed, know any doctrine in modern science of a more instructive character than that which teaches us the composition of gases.” If this be true of air what then can be said of space, or ether, in which all worlds float as easily as the motes in a sunbeam; that space which transmits light everywhere with a precision that never varies? And what is light, indeed, but vibrations of ether from 400 trillions to 800 trillions per second, giving all the colors from violet to red? There is not an atom of ether in all space, so far as science can detect, that has ever ceased to vibrate, or ever will, with the startling rapidity above expressed.

But, to further illustrate the magnitude of space, let us again take the flight of light as a basis for our calculations. As there are 525,600 minutes in a year, light—moving at the rate of eleven millions of miles each minute—must travel in one year 5,781,600 millions of miles. With that number of miles as radius of a sphere, of which earth is the centre, the diameter will be 11,563,200 millions of miles, and the surface of the sphere 401,112,000 quintillions of square miles, while it will possess a volume of about 800 undecillions of cubic miles. Dividing this number by the 260,000 millions of cubic miles that earth contains we have 3,000 septillions, the number of earths that such a sphere could contain. Now in an ocean 5,000 miles long, 3,000 miles broad, and 3 miles deep there will be 45 millions of cubic miles, or 250 trillions of inches. Allowing 200 drops of water to each cubic inch, we have in one cubic mile 50 quadrillions of drops, and in that ocean 2,250 sextillions of drops of water. Dividing 3,000 septillions—the number of earths in the above sphere—by the number of drops of water in the ocean, we find we would need 1300 such oceans to furnish enough drops of water to equal the number of earths that could be placed in a sphere whose radius is but the number of miles that light travels in a single year. With a radius equal to one hundred years of light’s flight a sphere might contain as many earths as there would be drops of water in 1300 millions of such oceans; while a radius of light’s flight for 100,000 years could hold as many earths as there were drops of water in 1300 quadrillions of such oceans, or a number of oceans equalling the drops of water in 26 cubic miles. Again, in a million years of light’s flight there might be as many earths as drops of water in 1300 quintillions of such oceans, or the number of oceans equalling the drops of water in 26,000 cubic miles.

If a sphere with a radius of light’s flight for but one year could contain 3,000 septillions of bodies like our earth, and yet that sphere be but an atom in space, it would seem that space might be infinite in its extent, with our conception of infinity. But if space is finite and light, after a flight of a million of millions of years, reaches its utmost bound; then that light, if still existing and radiating 400 trillions of vibrations each second, can double that time and return. For if not cooled in a million of millions of years the supposition is that it will not cool in twice that time.

Still, again, let us conceive of a sphere, but this time with a radius—not of ten millions of years of light’s flight, which would contain as many earths as drops in 1300 quintillions of such oceans, a number equalling more than half the drops in an ocean that contained 45 millions of cubic miles—but we will take less than ten minutes of light’s flight with a radius of 100 millions of miles, which is a little more than the distance from the earth to the sun. We find that this sphere would contain 15 trillions of earths; a number ten thousand times greater than that of all the people living upon earth. When we think that each one of those earths would contain 260,000 millions of cubic miles it is seemingly all that our minds can well grasp.

We may not know how many millions of years each atom of ether has been in existence, but probably before any worlds ever floated within it; and how can we conceive the thought of death in this immensity of space where there is not the slightest indication of subsidence or decay? We must remember that this ether is a million times more active than air and possesses energies that we cannot conceive of in the more solid substances of the spheres. Then, whether the nebular hypothesis of the cooling of the sun and worlds be right or wrong, we may not detect it from any evidence that space gives thereof; and we can but believe that, if it be a fact, it must be so only because He who formed this wondrous space has in their destiny an object. The Eternal Presence may give to this vast, eternal space a glow that needs not the light of sun, moon, or the shining host of stars, even though all these mighty orbs that we now behold should be plunged into everlasting darkness.

In order to better comprehend the mighty vastness of this space we will measure it again into units of 260,000 millions of cubic miles, (the size of earth), and with a radius based on the number of miles of light’s flight in minutes, days, months, and years, ascertain the number of different sized spheres that such radii would form. A sphere with earth as its centre, and a radius of one minute of light’s flight, would contain 21 billions of earths; a sphere whose radius was nine minutes would contain 15,310 billions of earths, one of an hour’s radius 4,500 trillions, one of a day’s 62 quintillions, a week’s 20 sextillions, a month’s 1675 sextillions, and a year’s radius of the flight of light three octillions. To go still further; 10 year’s radius of light’s flight would contain three nonillions, 100 year’s three decillions, 1,000 year’s three undecillions, 1,000,000 year’s three quattuordecillions, and a thousand million years radius would contain three septendecillions of such earths. Now to compare these great numbers we will suppose, as before, that there are 200 drops of water in one cubic inch, making 50 quadrillions of drops in one cubic mile of water, 50 quintillions in one thousand cubic miles, 50 sextillions in one million of such miles, 50 septillions in one thousand millions, and 50 octillions in one million millions of cubic miles.