Evening Star Newspaper, February 14, 1932, Page 85

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., FEBRUARY 14, 1932, WHEN OUR SUN SPLIT IN TWO Dr. Ross Gunn of the United States Naval Research Laboratory, who be- lieves the sun is half of a larger star swhich split in two. BY D. LINDSAY W ATSON. ILLIONS on millicns of earth- like planets exist throughout the heavens. Living things, even creatures like human be- ings, must be present on many of these. Life on earth is not, then, alone in the universe, but is one of a vast number of colonies which have arisen where physical conditions are favorable. This possibility of life scattered everywhere throughout the universe is made likely by a new theory advanced by Dr. Ross Gunn of the United States Naval Research Laboratory. Unlike his fellow scientists, he believes that our solar system was formed by the catastrophic splitting of a large star, half of which became our sun, while-the other half lost itself in space. This cosmic cell division must be happening all the time among the stars. The double stars which form 25 per cent of all the bodies visible in the heavens, Dr. Gunn has shown, were born in exactly the same way. A planetary system is, therefore, the result of an orderly evolution —not just lucky chance. The present accepted view among astrono- mers holds that the earth was formed in the course of a very rare accident. Another large star is supposed to have collided with our own sun. This is eyvtremely unlikely. The stars are so very far apart that such a collision could have occurred only one in a million, million, million years. Probably not more than a thou- sand encounters of this kind have taken place in the whole history of the universe. If this theory is true, the probability ef there being other inhabited worlds is small N the other hand, if Dr. Gunn is right, many groups of planets similar to our own have been formed, and it is not unreasenable to suppose that life has developed en these bodies as it has on the earth. ¢ Our sun, according to the new idea, was once a liquid star about cne and a half times as large as it is now. Electromagnetic forces made it rotate with constantly increasing speed until it could no longer hold together. It then burst in two. The fragments skyrocketed apart, one be- coming the sun and the other going off into the depths of space, never to be heard of again. Before saying good-by, however, the sun and its departing mate left a cigar-shaped ribbon of debris between them, which later cooled and formed the planets, including our own earth. It is too early, yet, to speculate when and how people on earth may be able to communi- cate with the inhabitants of these earth-like bodies in distant space. However, this possi- bility is a fascinating one to a generation of men just becoming conscious that no limits can be set to human achievement. Two new ideas have been introduced by Dr. Gunn't view of the birth of the solar system— his explanation of the kind of force that caused the old parent star to rotate to its own destruc- tion, and his reasons for the excessive speed with which the two halves shot apert. LD theories of this spin have been unable to explain how the sun could have come to turn so fast that some of its matter blew off at its equator. -, Experiments with the discharge of electricity fn vacuum tubes have supplied the clue that was missing. It is possible to explain a star’s potation, Dr. Gunn has found, not on gravita- tional grounds, but because of the operation of electric and magnetic forces on the electrically charged atoms known to exist in large quanti- tles in hot stars. Thus the present rotation of the sun, a prob- Jjem which had baffled physicists and astrono- mers, has heen given a new explanation by what Dr. Gunn calls an “electromagnetic wind " He has been able to explain not only the nverage speed of the sun’s rotation, but also the fact that it turns at a different speed at its equator from that observed at the poles. The same theory applied to & larger mass, Old Ideas of How the World Began Now Are Disputed by Theories That the Sun Was Bumped or That Planets Grew Be- tween Two Pieces of Bursting Sun—but Where’s the Other Half? ROTATING STAR WHICH WASZ THE PARENT OF OUR SUN AS THE SPEED INCREASED IT FLATTENED OUT AND EVENTUALLY BROKE iN TWO UNEVEN PIECES MOST DOUBLESTARS STOPPED AT THIS STAGE OUR SUN AND (TS TWIN SEPARATED COMPLETELY THE PLANETS e - ® THE PLANETS The new theory about the origin of our Solar System. as advanced by Dr. Ross Gunn, showing how the sun increased its speed, split in two and sent out @ “twin.” and how the planets were formed from the trailing streamer of matter connecting the two bodies. such as the imagined parent of the sun, shows that the speed must have increased until the huge star made a complete turn in about six hours. Spinning still faster, the primeval star became unstable. It flattened into an oval shape; later assumed the form of an unequal dumb-bell and eventually split in two— still spinning. Now the inner surfaces of the two suns were temporarily much hotter than the outsides. Such hot surfaces must have radiated their heat and matter out much faster than the rest of the surface. This is just the way a sky- rocket works. By shooting its exploding gases out behind it, the rocket flies forward. The sun and its departing mate pushed them- selves apart like a couple of skyrockets. While they were still close together, however, large bulges or tides were raised on each of the twins by the gravitational pull of the other. These tides, together with the swirling mo- tion, caused the shooting out of a long stem of matter between the two new-born suns. After a while this cooled and gathered together into lumps. These lumps were the planets, one of them the earth. It was all over in a few hours. By this time the sun’s mate was dashing off to some distant corner of the heavens leaving King Sol cus- tody of the children, and, so far as Dr. Gunn knows, leaving no address. Whether the de- parting divorcee also carries around with her another retinue of planetary brats, there seems no way of knowing now. In Dr. Gunn’'s words: “Just as the parent liquid star divided into two componem, stars, tidal and centrifugal forces broke off small sections and these cooled and formed the planets. Immediately after the planets were formed the same tidal forces broke off even smaller sections, the planetary satel- lites or moons. “The entire solar system was compact when formed. The lost component, however, at= tracted the newly formed planets and suc- ceeded in carrying them well away from the sun. Thus the present open structure of the system is due to the original presence of the lost mate of the sun.” R. GUNN is a late comer in a field which has occupied many distinguished minds. Contemporary astronomers are to be pardoned if they regard his revolutionary doctrine with some hesitation. Accepted by scientists until the beginning of the present century was the notion that the sun and planets were condensed by cooling and contraction from a luminous cloud ef gas spread throughout the space occupied at pres- ent by the whole solar system. As this nebula The planet Saturn (at the right) and its rings, which may have given Laplace the idea of his nebular hypothesis. Prof. T. C. Chamberlin of the Univer- sity of Chicago. one of the originators of the planctesimal hypothesis, which replaced Lapla-¢’s theory and which is now attacked by Dr. Gunn’s suggestion. cooled, rings of gas were thrown off by its rota- tion somewhat like the rings of Saturn. These rings were supposcd to have condensed into the planets, forming tne solar sysiem This idea of ih 1 of the plan- etary system was p 5 by the Ger- man philosopher, Kant v years later the great French math tician, Laplace (noted for his epigram 1 - had no need of God in his sysiem « stial mechanics), gave the nebular theory s mathematiea form. Sir James Jean: 1e of the testants in this arena, now shown that, though Lagp e Y tion does take place in the heavens. it is ncomparably grander scale. The lac which can be seen through pov pes. thousands of light-years away. ¢ a very similar process. modern con=- A SMALL mass of hot gas could not, how= ever, break up in way, scientists be= lieved till now. J g} z2lso shown that a ring of gases could not ier the force of its own gravitation conc € ) a spherical plan= et <ons the grand con- ception of L ) been in the Waste- basket for th st Other scientists, however, have not been idle. Two of these, Drs. T. C. Chamberlin and F. R. Moulton of the University of Chicago, in 1905 propounded the theory which first replac- ed the nebular theory—the ‘‘planetesimal” hypothesis. Accepting the idea that a single star left to itself could never have given birth to the planets, they were forced to assume that an- other celestial body must have co-operated. ANOTHER star, they believed, must have come so close to the sun at some remote time that by gravitational force it drew lumps and a great mass of diffused gas and small par= ticles out from the sun. The two stars around each other once, like country dancers, and never saw each other again. Those stray wandering lumps were smaller than the present planets. But as they whirled through the debris created by the glancing collision, they gradually picked up more and more matter. The planets had then reached their present size and they moved in nearly circular orbits. Sir James Jeans and Dr. Harold Jeffreys of Cambridge University, England, have made further modifications of this collision theory. They believe the new-born planets were liguid and shot out from the pearent practically full grown. N Jean's theory the two stars did not sctu- ally come into contact, but passed so elose that great tides were raised in the sun. These tides must have become so powerful that the gravitational pull of the sun was no longer able to hold them together. Liquid matter was ejected from the sun in a stream, which sub- sequently broke into pieces. These condensed $0 form the planets, as in Gunn’'s theory. Dr. Jeffreys criticizes this theory, saying tha tidal and gravitational forces could not have caused the rotations and revolutions that ase tronomers observe in the planets. Tidal disruption of the primitive sun would Jeave it rotating as before and the planets should now be rotating at the same speed as the sun, he holds. Actually the sun rotates in 31 days, while Jupiter, a planet, turns around once in 10 hours. These difficulties can be avoided, says Dr. given our sun a jolt which could have produced the desired rotation. Explanations of the satellites of the planets can be given on these theories, but on all the earlier theories our moon remains extraordinary and unexplained. With respect to the size its planet, the moon of the earth is one of largest satellites in the solar system, yet earth is one of the smallest planets. The forms one-eightieth part of the weight of W