Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1908 — The Star Mira. [ARTICLE]

The Star Mira.

For the greatest part of the time the variable Mira, which has been known to astronomers for 300,years, is altogether unnoticeable and indeed invisible, except with telescopes. It once disappeared entirely for a period of four years, but afterward attained extraordinary splendor, only to fade again to Invisibility. It is a sun of great size, brighter than our sun when it shines at its brightest, but some trouble, some sßlar disease, seems to be sapping its vitality, and it resembles a patient almost at the last gasp. Once in about 331 days—but the period is irregular—it has a sudden accession of energy and flares up tor a little while with several 'hundredfold brilliancy only to sink back into a dull red point that nearly escapes the ken of tlie telescope. One interesting explanation that has been suggested is that the surface of Mira periodically bursts into a vast flame of burning hydrogen, so great and powerful that' it is visible across millions of millions of miles of space. It Is a star for the imagination of a Dante, yet there is reason to believe that the time is coming when every star in the sky, not excepting the sun, will have to confront a similar struggle for existence, just as every mortal being must some time see death.—Garrett P. Serviss, in New York American.