Part 11

STAR-GROUPING, STAR-DRIFT, AND STAR-MIST.

A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution on May 6, 1870.

Nearly a century has passed since the greatest astronomer the world has ever known—the Newton of observational astronomy, as he has justly been called by Arago—conceived the daring thought that he would gauge the celestial depths. And because in his day, as indeed in our own, very little was certainly known respecting the distribution of the stars, he was forced to found his researches upon a guess. He supposed that the stars, not only those visible to the naked eye, but all that are seen in the most powerful telescopes, are suns, distributed with a certain general uniformity throughout space. It is my purpose to attempt to prove that—as Sir Wm. Herschel was himself led to suspect during the progress of his researches—this guess was a mistaken one; that but a small proportion of the stars can be regarded as real suns; and that in place of the uniformity of distribution conceived by Sir Wm. Herschel, the chief characteristic of the sidereal system is infinite variety.

In order that the arguments on which these views are based may be clearly apprehended, it will be necessary to recall the main results of Sir Wm. Herschel’s system of star-grouping.

Directing one of his 20-feet reflectors to different parts of the heavens, he counted the stars seen in the field of view. Assuming that the telescope really reached the limits of the sidereal system, it is clear that the number of stars seen in any direction affords a means of estimating the relative extension of the system in that direction, provided always that the stars are really distributed throughout the system with a certain approach to uniformity. Where many stars are seen, there the system has its greatest extension; where few, there the limits of the system must be nearest to us.

Sir Wm. Herschel was led by this process of star-grouping to the conclusion that the sidereal system has the figure of a cloven disc. The stars visible to the naked eye lie far within the limits of this disc. Stars outside the relatively narrow limits of the sphere including all the visible stars, are separately invisible. But where the system has its greatest extension these orbs produce collectively the diffused light which forms the Milky Way.

Sir John Herschel, applying a similar series of researches to the southern heavens, was led to a very similar conclusion. His view of the sidereal system differs chiefly in this respect from his father’s, that he considered the stars within certain limits of distance from the sun to be spread less richly through space than those whose united lustre produces the milky light of the galaxy.

Now it is clear that if the supposition on which these views are based is just, the three following results are to be looked for.

In the first place, the stars visible to the naked eye would be distributed with a certain general uniformity over the celestial sphere; so that if on the contrary we find certain extensive regions over which such stars are strewn much more richly than over the rest of the heavens, we must abandon Sir Wm. Herschel’s fundamental hypothesis and all the conclusions which have been based upon it.

In the second place, we ought to find no signs of the aggregation of lucid stars into streams or clustering groups. If we should find such associated groups, we must abandon the hypothesis of uniform distribution and all the conclusions founded on it.

Thirdly, and most obviously of all, the lucid stars ought not to be associated in a marked manner with the figure of the Milky Way. To take an illustrative instance. When we look through a glass window at a distant landscape we do not find that the specks in the substance of the glass seem to follow the outline of valleys, hills, trees, or whatever features the landscape may present. In like manner, regarding the sphere of the lucid stars as in a sense the window through which we view the Milky Way, we ought not to find these stars, which are so near to us, associated with the figure of the Milky Way, whose light comes from distances so enormously exceeding those which separate us from the lucid stars. Here again, then, if there should appear signs of such association, we must abandon the theory that the sidereal system is constituted as Sir Wm. Herschel supposed.

It should further be remarked that the three arguments derived from these relations are independent of each other. They are not as three links of a chain, any one of which being broken the chain is broken. They are as three strands of a triple cord. If one strand holds, the cord holds. It may be shown that all three are to be trusted.

It is not to be expected, however, that the stars as actually seen should exhibit these relations, since far the larger number are but faintly visible; so that the eye would look in vain for the signs of law among them, even though law may be there. What is necessary is that maps should be constructed on a uniform and intelligible plan, and that in these maps the faint stars should be made bright, and the bright stars brighter.

The maps exhibited during this discourse [since published as my “Library Atlas”] have been devised for this purpose amongst others. There are twelve of them, but they overlap, so that in effect each covers a tenth part of the heavens. There is first a north-polar map, then five maps symmetrically placed around it; again, there is a south-polar map, and five maps symmetrically placed round that map; and these five so fit in with the first five as to complete the enclosure of the whole sphere. In effect, every map of the twelve has five maps symmetrically placed around it and overlapping it.

Since the whole heavens contain but 5932 stars visible to the naked eye, each of the maps should contain on the average about 593 stars. But instead of this being the case, some of the maps contain many more than their just proportion of stars, while in others the number as greatly falls short of the average. One recognizes, by combining these indications, the existence of a roughly circular region, rich in stars, in the northern heavens, and of another, larger and richer, in the southern hemisphere.

To show the influence of these rich regions, it is only necessary to exhibit the numerical relations presented by the maps.

The north-polar map, in which the largest part of the northern rich region falls, contains no less than 693 lucid stars, of which upwards of 400 fall within the half corresponding to the rich region. Of the adjacent maps, two contain upwards of 500 stars, while the remaining three contain about 400 each. Passing to the southern hemisphere, we find that the south-polar map, which falls wholly within a rich region, contains no less than 1132 stars! One of the adjacent maps contains 834 stars, and the four others exhibit numbers ranging from 527 to 595.

It is wholly impossible not to recognize so unequal a distribution as exhibiting the existence of special laws of stellar aggregation.

It is noteworthy, too, that the greater Magellanic cloud falls in the heart of the southern rich region. Were there not other signs that this wonderful object is really associated with the sidereal system, it might be rash to recognize this relation as indicating the existence of a physical connection between the Nubecula Major and the southern region rich in stars. Astronomers have indeed so long regarded the Nubeculæ as belonging neither to the sidereal nor to the nebular systems, that they are not likely to recognize very readily the existence of any such connection. Yet how strangely perverse is the reasoning which has led astronomers so to regard these amazing objects. Presented fairly, that reasoning amounts simply to this: The Magellanic clouds contain stars and they contain nebulæ; therefore they are neither nebular nor stellar. Can perversity of reasoning be pushed further? Is not the obvious conclusion this, that since nebulæ and stars are seen to be intermixed in the Nubeculæ, the nebular and stellar systems form in reality but one complex system?

As to the existence of star-streams and clustering aggregations, we have also evidence of a decisive character. There is a well-marked stream of stars running from near Capella towards Monoceros. Beyond this lies a long dark rift altogether bare of lucid orbs, beyond which again lies an extensive range of stars, covering Gemini, Cancer, and the southern parts of Leo. This vast system of stars resembles a gigantic sidereal billow flowing towards the Milky Way as towards some mighty shore-line. Nor is this description altogether fanciful; since one of the most marked instances of star-drift presently to be adduced refers to this very region. These associated stars are urging their way towards the galaxy, and that at a rate which, though seemingly slow when viewed from beyond so enormous a gap as separates us from this system, must in reality be estimated by millions of miles in every year.

Other streams and clustering aggregations there are which need not here be specially described. But it is worth noticing that all the well-marked streams recognized by the ancients seem closely associated with the southern rich region already referred to. This is true of the stars forming the River Eridanus, the serpent Hydra, and the streams from the water-can of Aquarius. It is also noteworthy that in each instance a portion of the stream lies outside the rich region, the rest within it; while all the streams which lie on the same side of the galaxy tend towards the two Magellanic clouds.

Most intimate signs of association between lucid stars and the galaxy can be recognized—(i.) in the part extending from Cygnus to Aquila; (ii.) in the part from Perseus to Monoceros; (iii.) over the ship Argo; and (iv.) near Crux and the feet of Centaurus.

Before proceeding to the subject of Star-drift, three broad facts may be stated. They are, I believe, now recognized for the first time, and seem decisive of the existence of special laws of distribution among the stars:—

First, the rich southern region, though covering but a sixth part of the heavens, contains one-third of all the lucid stars, leaving only two-thirds for the remaining five-sixths of the heavens.

Secondly, if the two rich regions and the Milky Way be considered as one part of the heavens, the rest as another, then the former part is three times as richly strewn with lucid stars as the second.

Thirdly, the southern hemisphere contains one thousand more lucid stars than the northern, a fact which cannot but be regarded as most striking when it is remembered that the total number of stars visible to ordinary eyesight in both hemispheres falls short of 6000.

Two or three years ago, the idea suggested itself to me that if the proper motions of the stars were examined, they would be found to convey clear information respecting the existence of variety of structure, and special laws of distribution within the sidereal system.

In the first place, the mere amount of a star’s apparent motion must be regarded as affording a means of estimating the star’s distance. The nearer a moving object is, the faster it will seem to move, and vice versâ. Of course in individual instances little reliance can be placed on this indication; but by taking the average proper motions of a set of stars, a trustworthy measure may be obtained of their average distance, as compared with the average distance of another set.