STARS
And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars. …
—Rev. 8:12
5969 Meteorites Galore
Over a million comets swing around the sun in flat, elliptical orbits. Also, racing through interplanetary space in regular orbits are billions upon billions of particles called meteoroids. When these particles plunge into the earth’s atmosphere, they grow white-hot and vaporize, becoming “shooting stars.”
The penetration of the earth’s surface by meteorites happens about 150 times yearly over planet earth. About 2,000 meteorites of average mass of 100 kilograms are scattered around the earth.
5970 Earth Got A 40,000-Ton Bump
The largest-recorded meteorite that ever struck this earth crashed in a forest in central Siberia in the morning of June 30, 1908. It was named the Tunguska Meteorite, after the area which is so tremendous and inaccessible that no expedition was sent there to report on the damage until 1927. Whether this meteorite landed in one or several pieces that broke up could not be determined by the depression which contained 200 “shell holes” or small craters. But the impact of the mass, which weighed about 40,000 tons, was so great that it not only produced an airwave which registered on a barometer 800 miles away, but felled some 80,000,000 trees within the radius of 35 miles.
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5971 Biggest Meteorite Display
The biggest meteorite strike so far witnessed by man also occurred in Siberia, in 1947. Hundreds of people saw a brilliant ball of light as it sped southwards across the sky, shedding a trail of sparks. Within four or five seconds it vanished and a giant pillar of brownish smoke rose 20 miles into the atmosphere.
On the slopes of the Sikhote Aim mountains, investigators found more than 100 holes, up to 75 ft across and 40 ft deep.
The meteorite apparently broke up just before impact and strewed meteoric iron for miles. Scientists believe the meteorite weighed about 1000 tons.
5972 Greatest Meteor Shower
The greatest meteor “shower” on record occurred on the night of November 16–17, 1966, when the Leonid meteors were visible over North America. It was calculated that meteors passed over Arizona at a rate of 2,300 per minute for a period of 20 minutes on November 17.
5973 Largest One-Piece Meteorite
And in South-West Africa, they found the largest-known meteorite in one piece. It was a block 8×9 feet, weighing 50 tons.
5974 Earth’s Near Miss
As recently as October 30, 1937, the earth missed possible destruction by less than three seconds. It happened when a minor object, Hermes, weighing about 500,000 tons, passed within half a million miles—travelling at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second. A slight change in the angle of its course and it would have pierced the atmosphere and smashed into the earth with an explosion that would have obliterated the entire population.
5975 Fireballs From Heaven
On August 10, 1972, residents of Idaho and Montana saw a huge fireball with a long tail streak across the sky. At the time it was not known how large and how near the earth the meteor was.
But in February of this year scientific information about the meteor was released. The meteor probably weighed more than 1,000 tons and was about 13 feet across. As it streaked across the western U.S., it was within 36 miles of the ground.
Writing in the British magazine, Nature, Dr. R. D. Rawcliffe said that if the meteor had struck the earth, it would have had as much force as the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Second World War.
Although massive, the meteor’s mass was only about 2 percent of the meteor that blasted a huge crater in northern Arizona at some time in the distant past.
5976 Facts About Our Neighbors
Outside the earth’s planetary system, the nearest star to the sun is Proxima Centauri, at a distance of 4.25 light years.
The most distant body that can be seen with the naked eye from earth is the Great Spiral Galaxy in the star cluster or constellation known as Andromeda—more than 2 million light years away. It appears only as a faint blotch of light.
The largest star visible to the naked eye is probably Alpha Herculis, a red giant—the name given to stars that are cooling.
By the standards of earth’s solar system, the largest stars are enormous. The variable star VV Cephei, at 1000 million miles in diameter, for example, is 1220 times the size of the sun. (A variable star is a pulsating star, growing bright, then dim, in a regular pattern or rhythm. )
The most densely-populated area of the heavens is considered to be that part of the Milky Way, or earth’s galaxy, in the constellation, or star cluster, known as Cygnus, the swan.
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5977 Ancients’ Number Of Stars
About a-century-and-a-half before Christ, Hipparchus gave the number of stars as 1,022, and Ptolemy in the beginning of the second century of the Christian era, could find but 1,026. We may on a clear night, with the unaided eye see only 1,160, or if we could survey the whole celestial sphere, about 3,000.
—J. H. Bomberger
5978 Ancient Beliefs On Stars
Two widespread beliefs that prevailed throughout the Middle Ages were that the moon and other celestial bodies were carried about by angels and that the stars were beams of light shining through holes in the floor of Heaven. Another belief, held chiefly by Moslems, was that meteors were firebrands thrown by angels at evil spirits when they came too close to the gates of Paradise.
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5979 Radio Stars
California Institute of Technology astronomers have announced the discovery of “radio stars” which, in terms of radiation output, are the strongest bodies yet discovered in space. The strongest of 24 such “stars” studied has an energy output equal to 20 billion suns!
It may take another century for science to find some way of using the amazing treasures it has discovered in the universe.
—San Mateo, Calif., Times
5980 The Quasars
Of all the objects in the sky, probably the most puzzling are the quasars. They were identified as recently as 1963, and as yet we have no real idea of their true nature. They are believed to be the brightest and the most remote objects known to man. But we cannot yet be sure that there is not some major mistake in interpreting the evidence.
The Milky Way numbers 100,000 million stars, many of them brighter than the sun. Yet one quasar is 200 times as bright as the entire Milky Way galaxy. And all this light comes from an object one thousandth of the diameter of our galaxy.
5981 Zeta And The Wolf
Zeta Aurigae, a star about ten million times larger than the sun, consists of a substance so thin that it is 1/1200th as dense as air, while the star called Wolf 457 consists of a substance so dense that a cubic inch of it on the surface of the earth would weight 900 tons.
5982 How To Light Birthday Cakes
Benjamin Franklin’s birthday is January 17. On that day in 1967, light from the star Gamma Andromeda was used to light the candles on a cake marking his 261st birthday.
The star, 261 light-years from earth and its rays lighted 261 electric candles in honor of Franklin’s research in electricity. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year at the rate of 186,000 miles per second. The light left the star in 1706, the year Franklin was born. The lighting impulse was captured by the Franklin Institute’s 24-inch telescope. Static was caused when the light rays crossed the earth’s atmosphere and was picked up, then used to trip an electric relay to light the candles.
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5983 The Spectroscope
By means of an invention known as the spectroscope the stars have yielded up secrets they had held through the ages, not only regarding constitution but about their direction of travel and velocity.
The spectrum, seen through the spectroscope, is an image formed when a beam of light or, in general, radiant energy is dispersed so that its rays are arranged in the order of their wavelengths, as in a rainbow. Across the spectrum of light numerous lines are seen, always in exactly the same position for each given element whose burning produces the light. These lines are called the Fraunhofer lines.
5984 “Boy, You May Take Our Word! “
The main Hall of the Hayden Planetarium was filled with youngsters as the lights dimmed and the magnificent star show began. The narrator introduced his talk to the hushed, awed audience by stating that on a clear night one can see 3000 stars in the sky. From the first row came a small voice: “One, two, three … ”
The narrator, recovering gamely, said, “Well, most people take our word for it.”
See also: Heavenly Phenomenon ; Moon ; UFO Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:25; Luke 21:25; Rev. 6:13; 8:10.