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T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
February, 1937
for fifty-six years! This “ boy” would be seventy years old when the bullet returned. If Betelgeuse were to replace our sun, we would find the orbit of the earth completely inside this giant ball itself. Indeed, Mars would be inside, for the surface of Betelgeuse would extend clear out be yond the orbit of Mars. But it must be remembered that by comparison with really big things, such giant stars as Antares and Betelgeuse are as drops of water are to the ocean. L ik e a G ig a n t ic W a t c h A t one time, all the stars in the sky were conceived to be within the Milky Way. But scientists tell us that this hypothesis is far from the truth. Instead, the Milky Way marks the boundary of but one of many island universes or galactic systems which may be observed in the heavens. I f we could observe our own Milky W ay system from
earth from the moon. If we could imagine ourselves on a space ship, taking a little journey out and away from the earth, we might begin to fathom the meaning of distance. Such a ship, traveling on a beam of light, would take about eight minutes to reach our sun. And if, traveling at the same rate of speed, we nosed our ship out into space, heading for the nearest star, we would need to travel for four years and three months before reaching that destina tion, Alpha Centauri. Arriving there, and looking back from whence we had come, we would see our sun itself as but a tiny star. The planets revolving around the sun would have completely disappeared from view; and as our space ship would draw closer to this neighbor star, we would see that this “ star” is another sun much larger than the one we left, and possibly having planets revolving around it as in our own solar system. A ll of the stars, in cluding our sun, would appear to be as far away from Alpha Centauri as they are from our own earth. O r imagine that we
a star in one of these island universes, it would be dis covered that this system is but another spiral galaxy. In order to comprehend something of this fact, let us imagine that it were pos sible for us to hold this galaxy in our hands. W e would see that it might well be compared with a gentleman’s pocket watch, being approximately ten times greater one way than it is the other. The actual distance from the stem of this giant “ watch” to the opposite side is approxi mately 100,000 light years — or the distance that light would travel in 100,000 years, while proceeding at the velocity of 186 000 miles a second. The dis tance from the crystal to the back of the “ watch” be comes, therefore, ten thou sand light vears. If, while holding this galaxy in our hands, we could put our finger on this earth of ours, we would discover that it is located about where the second hand is connected with its own stem. When we are looking up at the Milky Way on a clear
W H ER E W O N D E R S O F C R EAT ION ARE REVEALED G RIFFITH Observatory and Planetarium were conceived and provided for by the late Colonel Griffith J. Griffith, a Los Angeles philanthropist. His thought was to grant the deep desire of the layman to view the marvels of the heavens. Located on the south slope of Mount Hollywood, this structure of modernized Greek architecture presents a striking appearance with its three copper domes. Beneath the great south dome is mounted the Optical Planetarium, where the movements of the heavenly bodies are demon strated. The smaller domes contain the twelve-inch refractor, with which visitors may view the solar system, and the triple coelostat for observing the sun. In 1936 an average of 1,800 people a day visited this observatory. As the vast reaches of the universe are progress ively unfolded, the Christian has the more reason to utter in awe and worship the verse which is found in the Foreword of the Griffith Observatory Handbook: "The heavéns declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork" (Psa. 19:1).
were going to Polaris. W ho is there who has not looked out into the heavens on a clear night with a feeling of pride and satis faction in being able to dis cover for himself the Pole Star by means of the giant dipper with its two point ers? If we were to travel from the earth to the Pole Star, we would need to take along much equip ment, for, traveling at the speed of light, we would not reach our destination until we had traveled forty-four years. T o com pute the distance in miles, one must multiply 186,000 by 60 by 60 by 24 by 365 by 44. The resultant figure does not mean much to us; we know only that it repre sents many, many miles. But these stars are our next-door neighbors, as tronomically speaking. One of the bright stars of the heavens is Arcturus. Astronomers tell us that this giant star is forty light years from the earth. Arc turus at one time was con sidered a big star, but other
Courtesy of the Griffith Observatory Photo by Starrett
stars have been found to be much larger. Our sun is ap proximately 863,000 miles.in diameter, but the star Aldeb- aran is thirty-eight times the diameter of our sun. Betel geuse is a variable star with a diameter from 210 to 300 times the diameter of our sun. And the super-giant, An- tares, is 450 times the diameter of the sun. T o aid us in understanding the immensity of these heavenly bodies, let us consider them in another way. Suppose a boy fourteen years of age should stand on Betelgeuse and fire a bullet from a high-powered rifle, and suppose that somehow the bullet were enabled to con tinue traveling until it completely encircled this giant star. Suppose, further, that this youth were to wait until that bullet returned to its starting point. Well, he would have a rather tedious wait, for he would need to stay there
dark night, we are looking toward the outer rim of the “ watch,” which forms a ring completely around us. Practically all of the stars that we see with the naked eye are suns, most of them being much larger than our own. It is when we look out horizontally that we ob serve the flat sides of the “ watch”— or the galaxy— and hence do not see so many suns. Within this Milky W ay galaxy there may be found about forty thousand million suns. If the globular star clusters are included in the figures dealing with our galaxy, we must double the figures which have been given regard ing its size. At one time these star clusters were believed to be within the Milky Way. Recent evidence has revealed that they are on the outer edge of the galaxy, and yet they [Continued on page 78]
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