PART XI

A BROTHERHOOD OF STARS

I. SUNS AND THEIR PLANETS

ALL that our Sun is to his company of worlds, other suns may be to their worlds, if or when they have any. Such far-distant worlds probably exist, and possibly in myriads, though we cannot see them.

A man standing somewhere near any star in the sky that you like to name- -one can hardly suggest his standing on a star! so perhaps I should rather say, any man floating in space near a star-if he still had eyesight such as ours, might be able to see our Sun. But it would be as a star only, a bright or dim star, according to his distance. And he would not be able to make out a single planet belonging to our small System. No glimmer from Jupiter or Saturn, still less from Venus or Earth, could affect the retina of his eyes.

So it is not in the least astonishing that we on Earth cannot detect any of those far-off worlds which, we can hardly doubt, must belong to at least some among the radiant Brotherhood of Suns.

Sirius, the brightest star in all our sky, was known through ages as a solitary orb. And though in later years a companion to him has been discovered, faintly shining and revolving with and about him, that

companion can only be another star, much cooler and probably a good deal smaller than himself, as well as far more dim; yet still a sun; not a planet or world. No mere world, shining by borrowed light, could possibly be seen by us at such a distance, even with the help of a most powerful telescope.

But those two suns, the brilliant Sirius and his paler friend, may have any number of planets journeying around and depending on them, even as the planets of our System journey around and depend upon our Sun.

Vega and Capella may have their worlds. Arcturus and Aldebaran may be centres of systems. So may any or every star which helps to make up the Pleiades group, or the Constellations of the Great Bear, the Little Bear, the Southern Cross, Orion, or any other collection of suns in the heavens.

Many stars, once believed to be single as was Sirius, are now known to be double. Instead of travelling alone, like our Sun, surrounded only by inferiors, two suns journey in company, one of the two being usually larger than the other, and both revolving round one centre. In some systems three suns are found, in others, four, in others, many suns.

Such facts and they are facts, not mere conjecturesseem to open out wonderful possibilities for living beings who might reside there. We can imagine planets floating amid many radiant suns, where no night could ever be known, probably no bleak winters ever be felt, because light-givers and heat-givers would be on every side.

This, however, is conjecture. We do not know that such worlds exist, or that, if they do, they have any inhabitants. And strong doubts have been expressed

whether such conditions would really result in desirable dwelling-places; unless of course the inhabitants are expressly adapted to their surroundings. Which, on the whole, we might with good reason expect to be the case!

All these countless stars in our sky, or at least the great majority of them, are SUNS, more or less like in make to our Sun. They, like him, are vast, blazing furnaces of heat and light. They, like him, have their radiant photospheres; their glowing and enfolding oceans of fire; their stormy and furious atmospheres of brilliant gases; no doubt also their raging cyclones and mountainous prominences.

These things we know. Once again the spectroscope steps in, and breaks up the slender strip of light which has travelled from a star, and tells us some of the secrets of its construction, even whispering what kinds of minerals float as glowing gases in that star's atmosphere. It sounds like a wild dream, does it not? But it is no dream, no fancy.

..

“I could not sleep for thinking of the sky,
The unending sky, with all its million Suns
Which turn their planets everlastingly

In nothing, where the fair-haired Comet runs.
If I could sail that nothing, I should cross
Silence and emptiness, with dark stars passing;
Then in the darkness see a point of gloss
Burn to a glow, and glare, and keep amassing,
And rage into a Sun, with wandering planets,
And drop behind; and then, as I proceed,
See his last light upon his last moon's granites
Die to a dark that would be night indeed;
Night, where my soul might sail a million years
In nothing, not even Death, not even tears.” 1

1 From Lollingdon Downs, by John Masefield. Pub.: William Heinemann. By permission.

II. VARIETIES OF STARS

In the whole Universe, probably, no two stars could be found exactly alike, any more than on Earth two leaves or two grass-blades are seen precisely the same in shape or in markings.

Infinite variety prevails there, as everywhere in Creation. Dull uniformity is no part of the Divine plan. Stars are no more "equal" than human beings are equal." There are great stars and small stars, swift stars and slow stars, brilliant stars and dull stars. "Star differeth from star in glory."

Many attempts have been made to sort these countless suns in classes. One plan followed was that of classifying them by colour Red Suns, Yellow Suns, White Suns, and so forth. A more recent suggestion rests mainly on size Giant Suns and Dwarf Suns being the two chief classes proposed. Many stars, however, must belong to a doubtful borderland between the two.

Among the varieties of stars known to us, are— Double Stars, Variable Stars, and Temporary or New Stars.

Herschell was the first to discover true Double Stars, and the earliest alighted on by him was looked upon as a great marvel. Others soon became known, and very large numbers now, not to speak of Trebles and Quadruples, are familiar objects in the sky for astronomers. Till telescopes revealed their secret, these were all looked upon as single stars.

Variable Stars do not shine always with an unchanging