A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century Part 54

The principle upon which "motion in the line of sight" can be detected and measured with the spectroscope has already been explained.[1435] It depends, as our readers will remember, upon the removal of certain lines, dark or bright (it matters not which), from their normal places by almost infinitesimal amounts. The whole spectrum of the moving object, in fact, is very slightly _shoved_ hither or thither, according as it is travelling towards or from the eye; but, for convenience of measurement, one line is usually picked out from the rest, and attention concentrated upon it. The application of this method to the stars, however, is encompa.s.sed with difficulties. It needs a powerfully dispersive spectroscope to show line-displacements of the minute order in question; and powerful dispersion involves a strictly proportionate enfeeblement of light. This, where the supply is already to a deplorable extent n.i.g.g.ardly, can ill be afforded; for which reason the operation of determining a star's approach or recession is, even apart from atmospheric obstacles, an excessively delicate one.

It was first executed by Sir William Huggins early in 1868.[1436]

Selecting the brightest star in the heavens as the most promising subject of experiment, he considered the F line in the spectrum of Sirius to be just so much displaced towards the red as to indicate (the orbital motion of the earth being deducted) recession at the rate of twenty-nine miles a second; and the reality and direction of the movement were ratified by Vogel and Lohse's observation, March 22, 1871, of a similar, but even more considerable displacement.[1437] The inquiry was resumed by Huggins with improved apparatus in the following year, when the velocities of thirty stars were approximately determined.[1438]

The retreat of Sirius, which proved slower than had at first been supposed, was now announced to be shared, at rates varying from twelve to twenty-nine miles, by Betelgeux, Rigel, Castor, Regulus, and five of the princ.i.p.al stars in the Plough. Arcturus, on the contrary, gave signs of rapid approach, as well as Pollux, Vega, Deneb in the Swan, and the brightness of the Pointers.

Numerically, indeed, these results were encompa.s.sed with uncertainty.

Thus, Arcturus is now fully ascertained to be travelling towards the sun at the comparatively slow pace of less than five miles a second; and Sirius moves twice as fast in the same direction. The great difficulty of measuring so distended a line as the Sirian F might, indeed, well account for some apparent anomalies. The scope of Sir William Huggins's achievement was not, however, to provide definitive data, but to establish as practicable the method of procuring them. In this he was thoroughly successful, and his success was of incalculable value.

Spectroscopic investigations of stellar movements may confidently be expected to play a leading part in the unravelment of the vast and complex relations which we can dimly detect as prevailing among the innumerable orbs of the sidereal world; for it supplements the means which we possess of measuring by direct observation movements transverse to the line of sight, and thus completes our knowledge of the courses and velocities of stars at ascertained distances, while supplying for all a valuable index to the amount of perspective foreshortening of apparent movement. Thus some, even if an imperfect, knowledge may at length be gained of the revolutions of the stars--of the systems they unite to form, of the paths they respectively pursue, and of the forces under the compulsion of which they travel.

The applicability of the method to determining the orbital motions of double stars was pointed out by Fox Talbot in 1871;[1439] but its use for their discovery revealed itself spontaneously through the Harvard College photographs. In "spectrograms" of Zeta Ursae Majoris (Mizar), taken in 1887, and again in 1889, the K line was seen to be double; while on other plates it appeared single. A careful study of Miss A. C. Maury of a series of seventy impressions indicated for the doubling a period of fifty-two days, and showed it to affect all the lines in the spectrum.[1440] The only available, and no doubt the true, explanation of the phenomenon was that two similar and nearly equal stars are here merged into one telescopically indivisible; their combined light giving a single or double spectrum, according as their orbital velocities are directed across or along our line of sight. The movements of a revolving pair of stars must always be opposite in sense, and proportionately equal in amount. That is, they at all times travel with speeds in the inverse ratio of their ma.s.ses. Hence, unless the plane of their orbits be perpendicular to a plane pa.s.sing through the eye, there must be two opposite points where their velocities in the line of sight reach a maximum, and two diametrically opposite points where they touch zero. The lines in their common spectrum would thus appear alternately double and single twice in the course of each revolution. To that of Mizar, at first supposed to need 104 days for its completion, a period of only twenty days fourteen hours was finally a.s.signed by Vogel.[1441] Anomalous spectral effects, probably due to the very considerable eccentricity of the orbit, long impeded its satisfactory determination. The mean distance apart of the component stars, as now ascertained, is just twenty-two million miles, and their joint ma.s.s quadruples that of the sun. But these are minimum estimates.

For if the orbital plane be inclined, much or little, to the line of sight, the dimensions and ma.s.s of the system should be proportionately increased.

An a.n.a.logous discovery was made by Miss Maury in 1889. But in the spectrum of Beta Aurigae, the lines open out and close up on alternate days, indicating a relative orbit[1442] with a radius of less than eight million miles, traversed in about four days. This implies a rate of travel for each star of sixty-five miles a second, and a combined ma.s.s 47 times that of the sun. The components are approximately equal, both in ma.s.s and light,[1443] and the system formed by them is transported towards us with a speed of some sixteen miles a second. The line-shiftings so singularly communicative proceed, in this star, with perfect regularity.

This new cla.s.s of "spectroscopic binaries" could never have been visually disclosed. The distance of Beta Aurigae from the earth, as determined, somewhat doubtfully, by Professor Pritchard, is nearly three and a third million times that of the earth from the sun (parallax = 006"); whence it has been calculated that the greatest angular separation of the revolving stars is only five-thousandths of a second of arc.[1444] To make this evanescent interval perceptible, a telescope eighty feet in aperture would be required.

The zodiacal star, Spica (Alpha Virginis), was announced by Dr.

Vogel, April 24, 1890,[1445] to belong to the novel category, with the difference, however, of possessing a nearly dark, instead of a brilliantly l.u.s.trous companion. In this case, accordingly, the tell-tale spectroscopic variations consist merely in a slight swinging to and fro of single lines. No second spectrum leaves a legible trace on the plate.

Spica revolves in four days at the rate of fifty-seven miles a second,[1446] or quicker, in proportion as its...o...b..t is more inclined to the line of sight, round a centre at a minimum distance of three millions of miles. But the position of the second star being unknown, the ma.s.s of the system remains indeterminate. The lesser component of the splendid, slowly revolving binary, Castor, is also closely double.

Its spectral lines were found by Belopolsky in 1896[1447] to oscillate once in nearly three days, the secondary globe being apparently quite obscure. Further study of the movements thus betrayed elicited the fact that the major axis of the eclipse traversed revolves in a period of 2,100 days, as a consequence, most likely, of the flattened shape of the stars.[1448] Still more unexpected was the simultaneous a.s.signment, by Campbell and Newall, of a duplex character to Capella.[1449] Here both components shine, though with a different quality of light, one giving a pure solar spectrum, the other claiming prismatic affinity with Procyon.

Their mutual circulation is performed in 104 days, and the radius of their orbit cannot be less, and may be a great deal more, than 51,000,000 miles. Hence the possibility is not excluded that the star--which has an authentic parallax of 008"--may be visually resolved. Indeed, signs of "elongation" were thought to be perceptible with the Greenwich 28-inch refractor,[1450] while only round images could be seen at Lick.[1451] Another noteworthy case is that of Polaris, found by Campbell to have certainly one, and probably two obscure attendants.[1452] Through his systematic investigations of stellar radial velocities with the Mills spectrograph, knowledge in this department has, since 1897, progressed so rapidly that the spectroscopic binaries of our acquaintance already number half a hundred, and ten times as many more doubtless lie within easy range of detection.

Now it is evident that a spectroscopic binary, if the plane of its motion made a very small angle with the line of sight, would be a variable star. For, during a few hours of each revolution, some at least of its light should be cut off by a transit of its dusky companion. Such "eclipse-stars" are actually found in the heavens.

The best and longest-known member of the group is Algol in the Head of Medusa, the "Demon-star" of the Arabs.[1453] This remarkable object, normally above the third magnitude, loses and regains three-fifths of its light once in 688 hours, the change being completed in about twelve hours. Its definite and limited nature, and punctual recurrence, suggested to Goodricke of York, by whom the periodicity of the star was discovered in 1783,[1454] the interposition of a large dark satellite.

But the conditions involved by the explanation were first seriously investigated by Pickering in 1880.[1455] He found that the phenomena could be satisfactorily accounted for by supposing an obscure body 0764 the bright star's diameter to revolve round it in a period identical with that of its observed variation. This theoretical forecast was verified with singular exact.i.tude at Potsdam in 1889.[1456] A series of spectral photographs taken there showed each of Algol's minima to be preceded by a rapid recession from the earth, and succeeded by a rapid movement of approach towards it. They take place, accordingly, when the star is at the furthest point from ourselves of an orbit described round an invisible companion, the transits of which across its disc betray themselves to notice by the luminous vicissitudes they occasion. The diameter of this...o...b..t, traversed at the rate of twenty-six miles a second, is just 2,000,000 miles; and it is an easy further inference from the duration and extent of the phases exhibited that Algol itself must be (in round numbers) one million, its attendant 830,000 miles in diameter. a.s.suming both to be of the same density, Vogel found their respective ma.s.ses to be four-ninths and two-ninths that of the sun, and their distance asunder to be 3,230,000 miles.

This singularly a.s.sorted pair of stars possibly form part of a larger system. Their period of revolution is shorter now by six seconds than it was in Goodricke's time; and Dr. Chandler has shown, by an exhaustive discussion, that its inequalities are comprised in a cycle of about 130 years.[1457] They arise, in his view, from a common revolution, in that period, of the close couple about a third distant body, emitting little or no light, in an orbit inclined 20 to our line of vision, and of approximately the size of that described by Ura.n.u.s round the sun. The time spent by light in crossing this...o...b..t causes an apparent delay in the phases of the variable, when Algol and its eclipsing satellite are on its further side from ourselves, balanced by acceleration while they traverse its. .h.i.ther side. Dr. Chandler derives confirmation for his plausible and ingenious theory from a supposed undulation in the line traced out by Algol's small proper motion; but the reality of this disturbance has yet to be established.[1458] Meanwhile, M.

Tisserand,[1459] late Director of the Paris Observatory, preferred to account for Algol's inequalities on the principle later applied by Belopolsky to those of Castor. That is to say, he a.s.sumed a revolving line of apsides in an elliptical orbit traversed by a pretty strongly compressed pair of globes. The truth of this hypothesis can be tested by close observation of the phases of the star during the next few years.

The variable in the Head of Medusa is the exemplar of a cla.s.s including 26 recognised members, all of which doubtless represent occulting combinations of stars. But their occultations result merely from the accident of their orbital planes pa.s.sing through our line of sight; hence the heavens must contain numerous systems similarly const.i.tuted, though otherwise situated as regards ourselves, some of which, like Spica Virginis, will become known through their spectroscopic changes, while others, because revolving in planes nearly tangent to the sphere, or at right angles to the visual line, may never disclose to us their true nature. Among eclipsing stars should probably be reckoned the peculiar variables, Beta Lyrae and V Puppis, each believed to consist of a pair of bright stars revolving almost in contact.[1460]

Three stars, on the other hand, distinguished by rapid and regular fluctuations, have been proved by Belopolsky to be attended by non-occulting satellites, which circulate, nevertheless, in the identical periods of light-change.

Gore's "Catalogue of Known Variables"[1461] included, in 1884, 190 entries, and the number was augmented to 243 on its revision in 1888.[1462] Chandler's first list of 225 such objects,[1463] published about the same time, received successive expansions in 1893 and 1896,[1464] and finally included 400 entries. A new "Catalogue of Variable Stars," still wider in scope, will shortly be issued by the German _Astronomische Gesellschaft_. Mr. A. W. Roberts's researches on southern variables[1465] have greatly helped to give precision, while adding to the extent of knowledge in this branch. Dr. Gould held the opinion that most stars fluctuate slightly in brightness through surface-alterations similar to, but on a larger scale than those of the sun; and the solar a.n.a.logy might be pushed somewhat further. It perhaps affords a clue to much that is perplexing in stellar behaviour. Wolf pointed out in 1852 the striking resemblance in character between curves representing sun-spot frequency and curves representing the changing luminous intensity of many variable stars. There were the same steep ascent to maximum and more gradual decline to minimum, the same irregularities in heights and hollows, and, it may be added, the same tendency to a double maximum, and complexity of superposed periods.[1466] It is impossible to compare the two sets of phenomena thus graphically portrayed without reaching the conclusion that they are of closely related origin. But the correspondence indicated is not, as has often been hastily a.s.sumed, between maxima of sun-spots and minima of stellar brightness, but just the reverse. The luminous outbursts, not the obscurations of variable stars, obey a law a.n.a.logous to that governing the development of spots on the sun. Objects of the kind do not, then, gain light through the closing-up of dusky chasms in their photospheres, but by an actual increase of surface-brilliancy, together with an immense growth of these brilliant formations--prominences and faculae--which, in the sun, accompany, or are appended to spots. A comparison of light-curves with curves of spot-frequency leaves no doubt on this point, and the strongest corroborative evidence is derived from the emergence of bright lines in the spectra of long-period variables rising to their recurring maxima.

Every kind and degree of variability is exemplified in the heavens. At the bottom of the scales are stars like the sun, of which the l.u.s.tre is--tried by our instrumental means--sensibly steady. At the other extreme are ranged the astounding apparitions of "new," or "temporary"

stars. Within the last thirty-six years eleven of these stellar guests (as the Chinese call them) have presented themselves, and we meet with a twelfth no farther back than April 27, 1848. But of the "new star" in Ophiuchus found by Mr. Hind on that night, little more could be learnt than of the brilliant objects of the same kind observed by Tycho and Kepler. The spectroscope had not then been invented. Let us hear what it had to tell of later arrivals.

About thirty minutes before midnight of May 12, 1866, Mr. John Birmingham of Millbrook, near Tuam, in Ireland, saw with astonishment a bright star of the second magnitude unfamiliarly situated in the constellation of the Northern Crown. Four hours earlier, Schmidt of Athens had been surveying the same part of the heavens, and was able to testify that it was not visible there. That is to say, a few hours, or possibly a few minutes, sufficed to bring about a conflagration, the news of which may have occupied hundreds of years in travelling to us across s.p.a.ce. The rays which were its messengers, admitted within the slit of Sir William Huggins's spectroscope, May 16, proved to be of a composition highly significant as to the nature of the catastrophe. The star--which had already declined below the third magnitude--showed what was described as a double spectrum. To the dusky flutings of Secchi's third type four brilliant rays were added.[1467] The chief of these agreed in position with lines of hydrogen; so that the immediate cause of the outburst was inferred to have been the eruption, or ignition, of vast ma.s.ses of that subtle kind of matter, the universal importance of which throughout the cosmos is one of the most curious facts revealed by the spectroscope.

T Coronae (as the new star was called) quickly lost its advent.i.tious splendour. Nine days after its discovery it was again invisible to the naked eye. It is now a pale yellow, slightly variable star near the tenth magnitude, and finds a place as such in Argelander's charts.[1468]

It was thus obscurely known before it made its sudden leap into notoriety.

The next "temporary," discovered by Dr. Schmidt at Athens, November 24, 1876, could lay no claim to previous recognition even in that modest rank. It was strictly a parvenu. There was no record of its existence until it made its appearance as a star of nearly the third magnitude, in the constellation of the Swan. Its spectrum was examined, December 2, by Cornu at Paris,[1469] and a few days later by Vogel and O. Lohse at Potsdam.[1470] It proved of a closely similar character to that of T Coronae. A range of bright lines, including those of hydrogen, and probably of helium, stood out from a continuous background impressed with strong absorption. It may be presumed that in reality the gaseous substances, which, by their sudden incandescence, had produced the apparent conflagration, lay comparatively near the surface of the star, while the screen of cooler materials intercepting large portions of its light was situated at a considerable elevation in its atmosphere.

The object, meanwhile, steadily faded. By the end of the year it was of no more than seventh magnitude. After the second week of March, 1877, strengthening twilight combined with the decline of its radiance to arrest further observation. It was resumed, September 2, at Dunecht, with a strange result. Practically the whole of its scanty light (it had then sunk below the tenth magnitude) was perceived to be gathered into a single bright line in the green, and that the most characteristic line of gaseous nebulae.[1471] The star had, in fact, so far as outward appearance was concerned, become transformed into a planetary nebula, many of which are so minute as to be distinguishable from small stars only by the quality of their radiations. It is now, having sunk to about the fourteenth magnitude,[1472] entirely beyond the reach of spectroscopic scrutiny.

Perhaps none of the marvellous changes witnessed in the heavens has given a more significant hint as to their construction than the stellar blaze kindled in the heart of the great Andromeda nebula some undetermined number of years or centuries before its rays reached the earth in the month of August, 1885. The first published discovery was by Dr. Hartwig at Dorpat on August 31; but it was found to have been already seen, on the 19th, by Mr. Isaac W. Ward of Belfast, and on the 17th by M. Ludovic Gully of Rouen. The _negative_ observations, on the 16th, of Tempel[1473] and Max Wolf, limited very narrowly the epoch of the apparition. Nevertheless, it did not, like most temporaries, attain its maximum brightness all at once. When first detected, it was of the ninth, by September 1 it had risen to the seventh magnitude, from which it so rapidly fell off that in March it touched the limit of visibility (sixteenth magnitude) with the Washington 26-inch. Its light bleached very perceptibly as it faded.[1474] During the earlier stages of its decline, the contrast was striking between the sharply defined, ruddy disc of the star, and the hazy, greenish-white background upon which it was projected,[1475] and with which it was inevitably suggested to be in some sort of physical connection.

Let us consider what evidence was really available on this point. To begin with, the position of the star was not exactly central. It lay sixteen seconds of arc to the south-west of the true nebular nucleus.

Its appearance did not then signify a sudden advance of the nebula towards condensation, nor was it attended by any visible change in it save the transient effect of partial effacement through superior brightness.

Equally indecisive information was derived from the spectroscope. To Vogel, Ha.s.selberg, and Young, the light of the "Nova" seemed perfectly continuous; but Huggins caught traces of bright lines on September 2, confirmed on the 9th;[1476] and Copeland succeeded, on September 30, in measuring three bright bands with an acute-angled prism specially constructed for the purpose.[1477] A shimmer of F was suspected, and had also been perceived by Mr. O. T. Sherman of Yale College. Still, the effect was widely different from that of the characteristic blazing spectrum of a temporary star, and prompted the surmise that here, too, a variable might be under scrutiny. The star, however, was certainly so far "new" that its rays, until their sudden accession of strength, were too feeble to affect even our reinforced senses. Not one of the 1,283 small stars recorded in charts of the nebula could be identified with it; and a photograph taken by Dr. Common, August 16, 1884, on which a mult.i.tude of stars down to the fifteenth magnitude had imprinted themselves, showed the uniform, soft gradation of nebulous light to be absolutely unbroken by a stellar indication in the spot reserved for the future occupation of the "Nova."[1478]

So far, then, the view that its relation to the nebula was a merely optical one might be justified; but it became altogether untenable when it was found that what was taken to be a chance coincidence had repeated itself within living memory. On the 21st of May, 1860, M. Auwers perceived at Konigsberg a seventh magnitude star shining close to the centre of a nebula in Scorpio, numbered 80 in Messier's Catalogue.[1479]

Three days earlier it certainly was not there, and three weeks later it had vanished. The effect to Mr. Pogson (who independently discovered the change, May 28)[1480] was as if the nebula had been _replaced_ by a star, so entirely were its dim rays overpowered by the concentrated blaze in their midst. Now, it is simply incredible that two outbursts of so uncommon a character should have _accidentally_ occurred just on the line of sight between us and the central portions of two nebulae; we must, then, conclude that they showed _on_ these objects because they took place _in_ them. The most favoured explanation is that they were what might be called effects of overcrowding--that some of the numerous small bodies, presumably composing the nebulae, jostled together, in their intricate circlings, and obtained compensation in heat for their sacrifice of motion. But this is scarcely more than a plausible makeshift of perplexed thought. Mr. W. H. S. Monck, on the other hand, has suggested that new stars appear when dark bodies are rendered luminous by rushing through the gaseous fields of s.p.a.ce,[1481] just as meteors kindle in our atmosphere. The idea, which has been revived and elaborated by Dr. Seeliger of Munich,[1482] is ingenious, but was not designed to apply to our present case. Neither of the objects distinguished by the striking variations just described is of gaseous const.i.tution. That in Scorpio appears under high magnifying powers as a "compressed cl.u.s.ter"; that in Andromeda is perhaps, as Sir J. Herschel suggested, "optically nebulous through the smallness of its const.i.tuent stars"[1483]--if stars they deserve to be called.

On the 8th of December, 1891, Dr. Max Wolf took a photograph of the region about Chi Aurigae. No stranger so bright as the eighth magnitude was among the stars depicted upon it. On the 10th, nevertheless, a stellar object of the fifth magnitude, situated a couple of degrees to the north-east of Beta Tauri and previously unrecorded, where eleventh magnitude stars appeared, imprinted itself upon a Harvard negative. Subsequent photographs taken at the same place showed it to have gained about half a magnitude by the 20th; but the plates were not then examined, and the discovery was left to be modestly appropriated by an amateur, the Rev. Dr. Anderson of Edinburgh, by whom it was announced, February 1, 1892, through the medium of an anonymous postcard, to Dr. Copeland, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland.[1484] By him and others, the engines of modern research were promptly set to work. And to good purpose. Nova Aurigae was the first star of its kind studied by the universal chemical method. It is the first, accordingly, of which authentic records can be handed down to posterity. They are of a most remarkable character. The spectrum of the new object was photographed at Stonyhurst and South Kensington on February 3; a few days later, at Harvard and Lick in America, at Potsdam and Hereny on the Continent of Europe. But by far the most complete impression was secured, February 22, with an exposure of an hour and three-quarters, by Sir William and Lady Huggins, through whose kindness it is reproduced in Plate V., Fig. 1. The range of bright lines displayed in it is of astonishing vividness and extent. It includes all the hydrogen rays dark in the spectrum of Sirius (separately printed for comparison), besides many others still more refrangible, as yet unidentified. Very significant, too, is the marked character of the great prominence lines H and K. The visual spectrum of the Nova was splendidly effective.

A quartette of brilliant green rays, two of them due to helium, caught the eye; and they had companions too numerous to be easily counted. The hydrogen lines were broad and bright; C blazed, as Mr.

Espin said, "like a danger-signal on a dark night"; the sodium pair were identified at Tulse Hill, and the yellow helium ray was suspected to lurk close beside them. Fig. 2 in the same plate shows the spectrum as it was seen and mapped by Lady Huggins, February 2 to 6, together with the spectra employed to test the nature of the emissions dispersed in it. One striking feature will be at once remarked. It is that of the pairing of bright with dark lines. Both in the visible and the photographic regions this singular peculiarity was unmistakable; and since the two series plainly owned the same chemical origin, their separate visibility implied large displacement. Otherwise they would have been superposed, not juxtaposed. Measurements of the bright rays, accordingly, showed them to be considerably pushed down towards the red, while their dark companions were still more pushed up towards the blue end. Thus the spectrum of Nova Aurigae, like that of Beta Lyrae, with which it had many points in common, appeared to be really double.

It was supposed to combine the light of two distinct bodies, one, of a gaseous nature, moving rapidly away from the earth, the other, giving a more sunlike spectrum, approaching it with even higher speed. The relative velocity determined at Potsdam for these oppositely flying ma.s.ses amounted to 550 miles a second.[1485] And this prodigious rate of separation was fully maintained during six weeks! It did not then represent a mere periastral rush-past.[1486] To the bodies exhibiting its effects, and parting company for ever under its stress, it must have belonged, with slight diminution, in perpetuity. The luminous outburst by which they became visible was explained by Sir William Huggins, in a lecture delivered at the Royal Inst.i.tution, May 13, 1892, on the tidal theory of Klinkerfues and Wilsing. Disturbances and deformations due to the mutual attraction of two bulky globes at a close approach would, he considered, "give rise to enormous eruptions of the hotter matters from within, immensely greater, but similar in kind, to solar eruptions; and accompanied, probably, by large electrical disturbances." The multiple aspect and somewhat variable character of both bright and dark lines were plausibly referred to processes of "reversal," such as are nearly always in progress above sun-spots; but the long duration of the star's suddenly acquired l.u.s.tre did not easily fit in with the adopted rationale. A direct collision, on the other hand, was out of the question, since there had obviously been little, if any, sacrifice of motion; and the subst.i.tution of a nebula for one of the "stars"[1487]

compelled recourse to scarcely conceivable modes of action for an explanation of the perplexing peculiarities of the compound spectrum.

PLATE V.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photographic and Visual Spectrum of Nova Aurigae.

Fig. 1.--From a Photograph taken by Sir William and Lady Huggins, Feb.

22, 1892.

Fig. 2.--From a Drawing made by Lady Huggins, Feb. 2 to 6, 1892.]

An unexpected _denouement_, however, threw all speculations off the track. The Nova contained most of its brightness, fluctuations notwithstanding, until March 9; after which date it ran swiftly and uniformly down towards what was apprehended to be total extinction. No marked change of spectrum attended its decline. When last examined at Tulse Hill, March 24, all the more essential features of its prismatic light were still faintly recognisable.[1488] The object was steadily sinking on April 26, when a (supposed) final glimpse of it was caught with the Lick 36-inch.[1489] It was then of about the sixteenth magnitude. But on August 17 it had sprung up to the tenth, as Professors Holden, Schaeberle, and Campbell perceived with amazement on turning the same instrument upon its place. And to Professor Barnard it appeared, two nights later, not only revived, but transformed into the nucleus of a planetary nebula, 3" across.[1490] The reality of this seeming distension, however, at once disputed, was eventually disproved. It unquestionably arose from the imperfect focussing power of the telescope for rays of unusual quality.[1491]

The rekindled Nova was detected in this country by Mr. H. Corder, on whose notification Mr. Espin, on August 21, examined its nearly monochromatic spectrum.[1492] The metamorphosis of Nova Cygni seemed repeated.[1493] The light of the new object, like that of its predecessor, was mainly concentrated in a vivid green band, identified with the chief nebular line by Copeland,[1494] Von Gothard,[1495] and Campbell.[1496] The second nebular line was also represented. Indeed, the last-named observer recognised nearly all the eighteen lines measured by him in the Nova as characteristic of planetary nebulae.[1497]

Of particular interest is the emergence in the star-spectrum photographed by Von Gothard of an ultra-violet line originally discovered at Tulse Hill in the Orion nebula, which is also very strong in the Lyra annular nebula.

Obviously, then, the physical const.i.tution of Nova Aurigae became profoundly modified during the four months of its invisibility. The spectrum of February was or appeared compound; that of August was simple; it could be reasonably a.s.sociated only with a single light-source. Many of the former brilliant lines, too, had vanished, and been replaced by others, at first inconspicuous or absent. As a result, the solar-prominence type, to which the earlier spectrum had seemed to conform, was completely effaced in the later. The cause of these alterations remains mysterious, yet its effects continue. The chromatic behaviour of the semi-extinct Nova, when scrutinised with great refractors, shows its waning light to be distinctly nebular.[1498] Like nearly all its congeners, the star is situated in the full stream of the Milky Way, and we learn without surprise that micrometrical measures by Burnham and Barnard[1499] failed to elicit from it any sign of parallactic shifting. It is hence certain that the development of light, of which the news reached the earth in December, 1891, must have been on a vast scale, and of ancient date. Nova Aurigae at its maximum a.s.suredly exceeded the sun many times in brightness; and its conflagration can scarcely have occurred less, and may have occurred much more, than a hundred years ago.

By means of the photographic surveys of the skies, carried on in both hemispheres under Professor Pickering's superintendence, such amazing events have been proved to be of not infrequent occurrence. Within six years five new stars were detected from Draper Memorial, or chart-plates by Mrs Fleming, besides the retrospective discovery of a sixth which had rapidly burnt itself out, eight years previously, in Perseus.[1500] Nova Normae was the immediate successor of Nova Aurigae; Nova Carinae and Nova Centauri lit up in 1895, the latter in a pre-existent nebula; Nova Sagittarii and Nova Aquilae attained brief maxima in 1898 and 1899 respectively. Now, three out of these five stars reproduced with singular fidelity the spectrum of Nova Aurigae; they displayed the same brilliant rays shadowed, invariably on their blue sides, by dark ones.

Palpably, then, the arrangement was systematic and significant; it could not result merely from the casually directed, opposite velocities of bodies meeting in s.p.a.ce. The hypothesis of stellar encounters accordingly fell to the ground, and has been provided with no entire satisfactory subst.i.tute. Most speculators now fully recognise that motion-displacements cannot be made to account for the doubled spectra of Novae, and seek recourse instead to some kind of physical agency for producing the observed effect.[1501] And since this is also visible in certain permanent, though peculiar objects--notably in P Cygni, Beta Lyrae, and Eta Carinae--the acting cause must also evidently be permanent and inherent.

The "new star of the new century"[1502] was a visual discovery. Dr.

Anderson duplicated, with added _eclat_, his performance of nine years back. In the early morning of February 22, 1901, he perceived that Algol had a neighbour of nearly its own brightness, which a photograph taken by Mr. Stanley Williams, at Brighton, proved to have risen from below the twelfth magnitude within the preceding 28 hours. And it was still swiftly ascending. On the 23rd, it outshone Capella; for a brief s.p.a.ce it took rank as the premier star of the northern hemisphere. A decline set in promptly, but was pursued hesitatingly. The light fluctuated continually over a range of a couple of magnitudes, and with a close approach, during some weeks, to a three-day periodicity. A year after the original outburst, the star was still conspicuous with an opera-gla.s.s. The spectrum underwent amazing changes. At first continuous, save for fine dark lines of hydrogen and helium, it unfolded within forty-eight hours a composite range of brilliant and dusky bands disposed in the usual fashion of Novae. These lasted until far on in March, when hydrogen certainly, and probably other substances as well, ceased to exert any appreciable absorptive action. Blue emissions of the Wolf-Rayet type then became occasionally prominent, in remarkable correspondence with the varying l.u.s.tre of the star;[1503] finally, a band at Lambda 3969, found by Wright at Lick to characterise nebular spectra,[1504] a.s.sumed abnormal importance; and in July the nebular transformation might be said to be complete. Striking alterations of colour attended these spectral vicissitudes. White to begin with, the star soon turned deep red, and its redness was visibly intensified at each of its recurring minima of light. Blanching, however, ensued upon the development of its nebulous proclivities; and its surviving rays are of a steely hue.

All the more important investigations of Nova Persei were conducted by photographic means. Libraries of spectral plates were collected at the Yerkes and Lick Observatories, at South Kensington, Stonyhurst, and Potsdam, and await the more exhaustive interpretation of the future.

Meanwhile, extraordinary revelations have been supplied by immediate photographic delineation. On August 22 and 23, 1901, Professor Max Wolf, by long exposures with the 16-inch Bruce twin objectives of the Konigstuhl Observatory (Heidelberg), obtained indications of a large nebula finely ramified, extending south-east of the Nova;[1505] and the entire formation came out in four hours with the Yerkes 2-foot reflector, directed to it by Mr. Ritchey on September 20.[1506] It proved to be a great spiral encircling, and apparently emanating from, the star. But if so, tumultuously, and under stress of catastrophic impulsions. A picture obtained by Mr. Perrine with the Crossley refractor, in 7h. 19m., on November 7 and 8, disclosed the progress of a startling change.[1507] Comparison with the Yerkes photograph showed that during the intervening 48 days four clearly identifiable condensations had become displaced, all to the same extent of about 90 seconds of arc, and in fairly concordant directions, suggesting motion _round_ the Nova as well as away from it. The velocity implied, however, is so prodigious as virtually to exclude the supposition of a bodily transport of matter. It should be at the rate of no less than twenty thousand miles a second, admitting the object to be at a distance from us corresponding to an annual parallax of one-tenth of a second, and actual measurements show it to be indefinitely more remote. The fact of rapid variations in the nebula was reaffirmed, though with less precision, from Yerkes photographs of November 9 and 13, Mr. Ritchey inferring a general expansion of its southern portions.[1508] Much further evidence must be at hand before a sane judgment can be formed as to the nature of the strange events taking place in that secluded corner of the Galaxy.[1509] And it is highly probable that the illumination of the nebulous wreaths round the star will prove no less evanescent than the blazing of the star itself.

We have been compelled somewhat to antic.i.p.ate our narrative as regards inquiries into the nature of nebulae. The excursions of opinion on the point were abruptly restricted and defined by the application to them of the spectroscope. On August 29, 1864, Sir William Huggins sifted through his prisms the rays of a bright planetary nebula in Draco.[1510] To his infinite surprise, they proved to be mainly of one colour. In other words, they avowed their origin from a ma.s.s of glowing vapour. As to what _kind_ of vapour it might be by which Herschel's conjecture of a "shining fluid" diffused at large throughout the cosmos was thus unexpectedly verified, an answer only partially satisfactory could be afforded. The conspicuous bright line of the Draco nebula seemed to agree in position with one emitted by nitrogen, but has since proved to be distinct from it; of its two fainter companions, one was unmistakably the F line of hydrogen, while the other, in position intermediate between the two, still remains unidentified.

By 1868 Huggins had satisfactorily examined the spectra of about seventy nebulae, of which one-third displayed a gaseous character.[1511] All of these gave the green ray fundamental to the nebular spectrum, and emanating from an unknown form of matter named by Sir William Huggins "nebulum." It is a.s.sociated with seven or eight hydrogen lines, with three of "yellow" helium, and with a good many of undetermined origin.

The absence of the crimson radiation of hydrogen--perceived with difficulty only in some highly condensed objects--is an anomaly very imperfectly explained as a physiological effect connected with the extreme faintness of nebular light.[1512] An approximate coincidence between the chief nebular line and a "fluting" of magnesium having been alleged by Lockyer in support of his meteoritic hypothesis of nebular const.i.tution, it became of interest to ascertain its reality. The task was accomplished by Sir William and Lady Huggins in 1889 and 1890,[1513]

and by Professor Keeler, with the advantages of the Mount Hamilton apparatus and atmosphere, in 1890-91.[1514] The upshot was to show a slight but sure discrepancy as to place, and a marked diversity as to character, between the two qualities of light. The nebular ray (wave-length 5,007 millionths of a millimetre) is slightly more refrangible than the magnesium fluting-edge, and it is sharp and fine, with no trace of the unilateral haze necessarily clinging even to the last "remnant" of a banded formation.

Planetary and annular nebulae are, without exception, gaseous, as well as those termed "irregular," which frequent the region of the Milky Way.

Their const.i.tution usually betrays itself to the eye by their blue or greenish colour; while those yielding a continuous spectrum are of a dull white. Among the more remarkable of these are the well-known nebula in Andromeda, and the great spiral in Canes Venatici; and, as a general rule, the emissions of all such nebulae as present the appearance of star-cl.u.s.ters grown misty through excessive distance are of the same kind. It would, however, be eminently rash to conclude thence that they are really aggregations of sun-like bodies. The improbability of such an inference has been greatly enhanced by the occurrence, at an interval of a quarter of a century, of stellar outbursts in the midst of two of them. For it is practically certain that the temporary stars were equally remote with the hazy formations they illuminated; hence, if the const.i.tuent particles of the latter be suns, the incomparably vaster orbs by which their feeble light was well-nigh obliterated must, as was argued by Mr. Proctor, have been on a scale of magnitude such as the imagination recoils from contemplating. Nevertheless, Dr. Scheiner, not without much difficulty, obtained, in January, 1899, spectrographic prints of the Andromeda nebula, indicative, he thought, of its being a cl.u.s.ter of solar stars.[1515] Sir William and Lady Huggins, on the other hand, _saw_, in 1897, bright intermixed with dark bands in the spectrum of the same object.[1516] And Mr. Maunder conjectures all "white" nebulae to be made up of sunlets in which the coronal element predominates, while chromospheric materials a.s.sert their presence in nebulae of the "green" variety.[1517]