Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1917 — SUNS AND WORLDS IN MAKING [ARTICLE]

SUNS AND WORLDS IN MAKING

Astronomer* Admitted to "Workshop of the Universe" to View Wonders Therein. 7 We look today on the things of a century, a millennium, ago. Light traveling at the rate of 180,300 miles a second requires mdre than four years to come from the nearest star, perhaps thousands and tens of thousands of years from the farthest. Hence in every case we see not what is, but what was. Thousands of nebulae have been discovered in the heavens. The spiral pattern of some few nebulae has long been confirmation of the theory that they are the real beginners of a solar system. But there has recently come in much evidence of the spiral character of other nebulae, that the conclusion fceenjs forced upon us that practically all are in a state of rotation, and are hence, supplying the centrifugal force to throw off the rings which roll themselves up into planets revolving about central suns. When opportunity is given to look directly down upon a nebulae there results startling evidence of its being in rotation. Th,yre is no other way of explaining its remarkable details of Structure. Seme look like the propeller biAdes of a motorboat; some are actually caught in the act of throwing off rings, which are seen condensing at certain centers, rolling themselves into planets, henceforth to travel around their suns. The great nebulae in Andromeda gives striking evidence that it is working out another and a greater solar system than our own. In short, it seems that in studying the nebulae w-e’*are being admitted to the very workshop of the universe, and are permitted to watch the actual process of turning out worlds. Nothing in the heavens is better fitted to fill the very soul with awe. As in the case of the “fixed stars,” our lives are too brief, too feeble our eyes, to detect the actual motion. —Frederick Campbell's “Suns and Worlds in the Making.”