Plan of the Universe So Vast It Baffles Human Comprehension

1920

Orion
By S. F. Maxwell
[Copyright, 1920, by W. D. Boyce Co.]

What is the plan of the universe? Time and space go on and on forever, but there is a limit to the stars, in this little corner of the sky, at least.

The stellar universe is vast almost beyond comprehension. We think the 92,000,000 miles to the sun is an immense distance, yet light crosses it in eight minutes. The distance light goes in a year is the ordinary unit for stellar distances, yet in measuring the size of the universe it is entirely too small.

Example in Reduced Proportions.

Here is an example of the proportions of outer space. Let the earth's orbit be represented by a silver dime. Then Mars is one inch away, Jupiter 5 inches, Saturn eight inches, Uranus seventeen inches and Neptune thirty inches. This ends the sun's little family of planets. The nearest star on this scale is three miles away, the next is seven, the next nine, and most of the others are hundreds and thousands Of miles away.

Now multiply this scale enough to make the dime 186,000,000 miles in diameter, and you have a fair idea of the size of the universe. We can see the stars clearly over such enormous expanses of space because they are exceedingly bright and also because an absolute vacuum exists between, with nothing to stop their speeding light waves.

There are forces permeating all this great expanse, chief of which is gravity. It is nowhere as strong as the gravity we experience on the surface of the earth, but as there is no force adequate to counteract it, it swings the stars about just as the sun swings its planets.

There are two streams of stars in the sky, rushing along like motes in a sunbeam. The two streams mix at times, and mingle together without apparently suffering in the least. Stars are to a great extent independent of their nearest neighbors. There are many close clusters that move from birth to death without the component parts falling together at all.

Streams of Moving Stars.

Astronomers, watching the stars of the sky moving in great streams, were much impressed by the amount of force necessary to hold so great a bulk of stars together. Left to themselves they could go on and on forever, and the universe would eventually disintegrate. Nothing like this seems to be taking place. The source of energy remained a mystery until it was discovered that the Orion stars did not partake of the general motion. They alone, of all the stars in the sky, stand still, and all the others wheel around them.

Orion is a gigantic constellation, and its suns are all huge, heavy bodies, whose tremendous pull of gravity is felt in every part of the celestial vault.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 9.

From Another Planet

1901

William A. Eddy Receives Mysterious Electric Signals

NEW YORK, Jan 14. — William A. Eddy of Bayonne, N. Y. says that since 1892 he has drawn from his kite wire hundreds of electric signals, both regular and irregular, which may have come from some planet and that the signals have been usually in groups of three, regularly timed like a Morse sounder. When the ends of the kite-sustained steel wires are separated by silk strands the sparks jump at 12-second intervals. Then there are mysterious disappearances of all electric action for several minutes. These electric sparks come from a high point in the air not near to the low tension electric currents and live trolley wire.

—Emmetsburg Democrat, Emmetsburg, IA, Jan. 16, 1901, p. 2.

Light That is Lost in Space

1914

If one divides the known nebulae in groups according to the dimensions of their apparent diameters and one also notes their intrinsic brightness, it is clear that their apparent diameters should decrease as the distance increases. Their brightness, on the other hand, will diminish with increasing distance only if interstellar space absorbs light.

As the result of a great number of observations a correlation between brightness and apparent diameter has been observed, and is so marked that it is impossible to put it down to chance or to some systematic error. It appears that there is a real absorption in space, and if more precise descriptions of the nebulae were available the law of absorption could be assigned.


Almost Hopeless Case

Mrs. Flimmins is worried about her new husband. She fears he will never become elegant and refined, because be cannot learn to put on a monocle without twisting his mouth up to one side.

Another Comet Coming

Nov. 1917

Another big comet is said to be on its way. That is, a scientist claims to have discovered a comet of gigantic proportions speeding through the solar system at a rate of more than a million miles a day, and he promises us that some time this winter it will be visible in the northwestern skies in glorious aspect.

We haven't taken a great deal of interest in comets since the one known as Halley's failed to live up to the publicity it received. It was over-advertised — and disappointing, as all things are that are over-advertised. We lost a good deal of sleep on account of the bluish thing that came into the heavens heralded as a body of magnificent proportions and of great beauty, and we have not been enthusiastic about comets since that time.

Further, the present comet is entirely too far away to arouse our interest. It is said to be something like five hundred million miles removed from the earth, and we have a number of big things much closer than that. However, we do not want to discourage it. Let it come along if it so desires. If it gets close enough to the earth to enable us to hang an excuse for the war upon it, it will be worth something. And if it is so striking in its appearance as to frighten the world into righteousness, it will be the biggest thing that ever strolled through the great unknown that lies about us. — Columbus Dispatch.

What It'd Be Like To Discover Intelligent Life on Mars

1920

FROM HOMES IN THE STARS

At midnight April 20, when Mars is approaching the nearest point to the earth, the wireless operators of the world are to listen for messages from the Martians.

When the day arrives on which word comes from the heavenly bodies that day will displace Armistice day as the greatest in all history.

Our earth is insignificant compared with some of the celestial bodies. There is no good reason presented in support of the contention that human intelligence exists on no planet other than earth. With active minds on Mars it is possible that for years the inhabitants have been signaling to us and have been puzzled at our stupidity in not catching the messages.

Mysterious wireless waves have been received of late, and scientists of the learning and practical experience of Marconi are hopeful that the messages are from out of space.

Now if, on April 21, there is positive information that Mars is talking to us, we shall await further disclosures with deepest interest.

The man of strong religious convictions will ask, first of all:

What do the Martians know of a Supreme Being? Has a Christ appeared to them?

The man of letters will inquire as to the literature of Mars.

The scientists will seek word as to the discoveries and researches.

Doctors will ask as to the physical structures, the ailments and cures.

And, if the people of Mars are 500 years ahead of us in civilization they will tell of things as strange and wonderful as wireless and electric lights, telephones and airplanes would have been to Christopher Columbus in 1492, when, landing on the shores of the West Indies, that daring navigator, 100 years in advance of his own time, thought he had reached the East Indies.

When Mars has spoken, then will come the call to other planets, and at night, when the stars shine out, each twinkle will be an eye wink from the worlds in the depths of the universe.

—The Ogden Standard-Examiner, Ogden City, Utah, April 10, 1920, p. 4.

A Spacescape (poetry) — The Mysterious Sea of Cryptic Xanadu

1907

A Spacescape

Beside the white mysterious sea
Of cryptic Xanadu,
My Sophie walked abroad with me
To rubber at the view.

"We've never seen a view like this!"
Cried Sophie — "My, oh my!"
And really 'twas a view, I wis,
To catch a lady's eye.

There was no sun or moon to heed,
No clouds went sailing by,
No stars were in the sky — indeed,
There wasn't any sky.

Our eyes fell on no hills or trees,
No stand or turf was there,
And all the landscape, if you please,
Consisted just of air.

We did not firmly tread the ground —
The ground to tread was not —
And how we two could get around
I really have forgot.

No other tourists, rich or poor,
Were in sight anywhere —
Indeed I am not very sure
That even we were there.

—Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Riches From The Skies — Giant Mass, Precious Metals Fell From Sky

1877

Riches From The Skies

THE GIGANTIC MASS THAT FELL IN DIAMOND VALLEY, NEV. — A QUEER STORY

[Eureka, (Nev.) Sentinel.]

About four o'clock on the morning of the 7th of January, an immense body, glowing with intense brilliancy, came rushing across the face of heaven illuminating the earth with the light of day. It traveled in an oblique direction, from the southwest to the northwest, and instantaneously a shock was felt that almost threw the few spectators at that early hour from their feet.

About ten days ago Mr. Wheeler, who cultivates a ranch in Diamond Valley, and who is also in the stock business, came into town and left a most remarkable substance with an assayer. Mr. Wheeler had a smattering of metallurgical knowledge and, it seems, had tested the compound with a blow-pipe and other means within his reach, and detected the presence of the precious metals, but was unable to determine the value.

The piece submitted to the assayer was about as large as a hen's egg, and immediately attracted his attention by its unusual weight and peculiar color, it being of a purplish-black shade, and where it had been broken off the main body presenting a luminated stratification that he failed to recognize. Mr. Wacke expended the whole night in a series of experiments, applying every known test to the article, and detecting the presence of iron, nickel, cadmium, lead, silver, gold, zinc, cobalt, silica and phosphorus. There was also a residuum to each assay, of which Prof. Wacke was unable to determine the properties, but he hopes by the use of the spectroscope to classify it.

A surprising feature of the ore is excessive malleability aud ductility, a small portion of it being reduced by hammering to a fllm not exceeding one-hundredth of an inch in thickness. He has sent a portion of it to the San Francisco Academy of Science, and also to Prof. Silliman of New Haven, and in the meantime is prosecuting his researches. Prof. Wacke has found that the substance will reach $887 in silver and $42 in sold per ton.

The strangest part of the story remains to be told; and, now that Mr. Wheeler has duly recorded his claim and perfected the title, we feel at liberty to disclose the facts. On the morning of the 7th of January, Mr. Wheeler was almost thrown from his bed by a violent shock. Getting up and looking out of the window, he observed at the foot of the mountain an immense mass glowing at a white heat and of intense brightness. Hastily dressing he approached as near as possible, and found that the object lay just at the foot of the Diamond mountain range, but the heat was so great that he could not go within 1,000 yards of the spot.

He kept his own council, and made repeated attempts to reach it, but did not succeed until the 14th instant, when it had cooled sufficiently to allow him to break off the portion brought to town. The main body will measure about sixty feet in height, eighty-seven feet in width, and is 313 feet in length. These are the proportions of the body visible, and it is probable that as much more is imbedded in the earth. Mr. Wheeler calculates that there are at least 2,000,000 tons in sight, and if it will work anywhere near the assay he will extract an immense sum from the mass.

Perrine's Comet Misses the Earth

1896

CHANGED ITS COURSE.

The Comet Concluded Not To Hit the Earth.

The fine accuracy with which your modern astronomers can calculate the movements of the heavenly bodies as they whirl onward through space has been excellently illustrated in the case of Perrine's comet.

This nebulous hobo was due to hit the earth today, according to the calculations of some of the leading sky-gazers, and the Scimitar, with its usual enterprise, had made all arrangements to get out a special edition as soon as the impact transpired, containing interviews with some of the prominent citizens of the visiting orb and some estimates about how they stood on the money question. But up to the hour of going to press the concussion has failed to concuss, and The Scimitar is in receipt of heliographic advices from this wandering pilgrim in infinite space that the visit has been postponed, but that it will surely be made as soon as the national democratic committee shall have adopted a free silver platform.

It appears that the comet approached within 27,000,000 miles of the earth and then, tucking its tail between its legs, made a sneak. The comet was discovered by Professor Perrine, of Lick Observatory, on February 13th, but its identity could not be fixed with certainty, as no one appears to have mislaid a comet lately. Without knowing its identity, the astronomers were at a loss as to its habits or condition in life. Professor Leuschren, of California, did some ciphering and concluded that the stranger was an irresponsible gob of atoms, moving toward the earth at a rate of 1,700,000 miles per day and evidently purposing to give this planet a dig in the ribs or an upper-cut on the proboscis. But it now appears that ten days before its discovery the comet had passed perihelion, and a few days after that event made a turn in its orbit and started in a parabolic orbit on its road back into impenetrable and illimitable space. It was at no time nearer to the earth than 27,000,000 miles, and as its tail is always stretched out away from the sun, once it had turned on its orbit it could not touch the earth. There is little danger from the tail of a comet, but one having a nucleus would very likely make an end of things earthly. The chances, however, of any comet striking the earth are always infinitely small.

The danger is also past of the comet falling into the sun, a possibility that had been more than hinted at by some astronomers. This would be a real catastrophe, for all learned astronomers acknowledge that if a comet fell into the sun it would produce such an increase of solar heat people on earth would all be broiled or frizzled or fried up. With this danger staring the world in the face, it seems that if the matter were left to popular vote the people on the earth would elect to have the comet hit the earth and take the attending chances, rather then have it fall into the sun and burn everything up.

Other astronomers who wish, evidently, to reassure the public, claim that in 1861 a comet several times larger than the one now in question hit the earth while traveling at the rate of 10,000,000,000 miles a day and nobody knew it. How they discovered it so many years after they refuse to make plain. But if these astronomers are telling the truth, it places the other astronomers who say that a comet only hits once in fifteen hundred million years in an awkward position. Clearly either one set of astronomers or the other is making a terrible blunder.

Few people have a clear idea as to what a comet really is and for their benefit the opinion of Professor Young is set forth as follows: "A comet is nothing but a 'sand bank,' that is, a swarm of solid particles of unknown size and widely separated, say pinheads several hundred feet apart, each particle carrying with it an envelope of gas largely hydrocarbon, in which gaslight is produced, either by electrical discharges between the particles or by some other light, the evolving action due to the sun's influence. This hypothesis derives its chief plausibility from the modern discovery of the close relationship between meteors and comets."

Another astronomer on the subject of the make-up of the comets says

"It is not a solid body like the earth. It is made up of minute bodies. We might compare it with a dust-cloud. While in size it compares with the earth, there is no comparison with the solidity of the two. So far as we have been able to learn there are no large particles of matter in the comet. They are made up of atoms of dust of iron, nickel or some other metal. Our atmosphere is practically impervious to such a body. Seventy or eighty miles above the earth, where the atmosphere is so rare that the vacuum is almost as good as that of a Crookes tube, there is still enough resistance to disintegrate and destroy a body like a comet traveling with the swiftness with which a comet travels. The particles would become indefinitely fine, no larger than the ultimate atoms of matter. They would ultimately reach the earth." – From The Memphis Scimitar.

–The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, March 16, 1896, page 9.

Microscopic Writing: Eight Bibles to the Square Inch

1895

MICROSCOPIC WRITING

The Wonders That May Be Accomplished In a Square Inch of Space

Among the collection of microscopic objects in the United States Army Medical museum at Washington is a specimen of microscopic writing on glass which contains the Lord's Prayer, written in characters so small that the entire 227 letters of that petition are engraved within an area measuring 1-294 by 1-441 of an inch.

So far this statement does not trouble us. If, however, we go a little further, we easily find that the area having the above dimensions would be only the 1-129,654 of a square inch, and consequently that an inch square covered with writing of the same size, or counting 227 letters to each such fraction, would contain 29,431,458 letters.

Let us put this figure into a concrete form by seeing how much of a book this number of letters would represent. The Bible is a book of which we may safely assume that every one has an approximate idea as regards its general size or extent. Some one has actually determined the number of letters contained in the entire Old and New Testaments and finds this to be 3,566,480. Hence the number of letters which a square inch of glass would accommodate, written out like the text of the Lord's Prayer on this strip of glass, is more than eight times this last number, or, in other words, a square inch of glass would accommodate the entire text of the Bible eight times over written out as is the Lord's Prayer on this strip of glass.

I am free to confess that, though this fact has been known to me since 1873, and I have had in my possession photographs taken with the microscope of this writing, I cannot say that I fully apprehend or mentally grasp the fact just stated. I can form no mental picture of a square inch of glass with the entire text of eight Bibles engraved upon it, and yet when I have verified the measurements and calculations leading up to this conclusion I feel absolutely certain as to its truth, not as the result of intuition, but as a deduction from experience which has not yet developed into an intuitive consciousness. — Dr. Henry Morton in Cassier's Magazine.

Three Wonderful Mirrors, Mount Wilson Observatory

1916

Used In Place of a Telescope In Mount Wilson Observatory.

From Los Angeles by trolley car and burro back up through the pine forests one reaches the Wilson observatory. No dome or gigantic telescope greets the visitor when he gains the summit. A huge Noah's ark of canvas destroys all preconceived ideas of what an observatory should look like, and within three wonderful mirrors take the place of the great tubular telescope of other observatories.

The observatory building is constructed of canvas, the sides being set in the form of tiers of steeply overlapping eaves. This arrangement is calculated to allow for perfect ventilation and is re-enforced by a vertical wall of canvas, which can be raised or lowered at will to obtain an even temperature.

The peculiar arrangement of mirrors that replaces the familiar telescope is the center around which all interest in the observatory revolves. These mirrors are constructed at the Yerkes observatory and are the finest products of the optician's manufacturing skill. The enlarging mirror, which is supported by a pier of stone at the farther end of the building, is of concave glass four inches thick, and the scientists tell us it is of twenty-four inch aperture by sixty foot focus.

The glass is polished ever so often with jewelers' rouge upon pads of chamois skin and is burnished every week or ten days, in order to remove all possible dust. In addition a galvanized cover is kept over it when it is not in use. — Christian Herald.

—Stevens Point Daily Journal, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, July 29, 1916, page 3.

Atmospheric Phenomenon Startles Jersey Folks

1922

Asbury Park, N. J., April 23. — Gaseous odors flashed through space to the south of this place at 9 o'clock tonight, disappearing in a thunderous roar and frightening residents of many coast towns.

Window panes in residences at Toms river were shattered by the explosion and the gas, polluting the atmosphere for more than a quarter of an hour, compelled the residents to hold dampened handkerchiefs to their nostrils.

In Lakehurst, many of the buildings were shaken, as if by an earthquake, but the gas was not noticed.

A party led by two town officials has set out for the spot at which the meteor fell. It is believed the spot is near Brown's-Mill-in-the-Pines, a village 30 miles from here.

The atmospheric phenomenon, according to many of the persons who witnessed it, lasted for about a minute. But a tiny streak of light at first, it became beautifully colored as it neared earth and at times it seemed to halt momentarily in space, adopted a new course, and then zig-zagged back again, witnesses declared.

The meteor fell in the sea, about a mile off shore at Seaside Park, 35 miles south of here, it is reported.

The celestial mass, as it struck the water, caused an explosion that shook the residences of the village and threw spray to a great height, residents say. Volumes of steam then arose and, drifting ashore, nauseated many.

Members of two coast guard companies say they believe the phenomenon was caused by a large explosive rocket. No trace of a giant rocket could be found, however.

—Oneonta Daily Star, Oneonta, New York, April 24, 1922, page 1.

Astronomer Who Has Plan to Talk to Martians

Professor William H. Pickering, the Harvard astronomer, believes he has discovered a way to communicate with the planet Mars. The only trouble is that it will cost about $10,000,000, and no one has so far signified a willingness to put up the money. Professor Pickering has long believed that the planet is inhabited by a highly civilized people. His plan is to flash signals to the planet by means of a gigantic arrangement of mirrors fixed so as to revolve upon a great axis in exact time with the movement of the earth.

--The Mansfield News, Mansfield, Ohio, April 21, 1909, page 5.