Evening Star Newspaper, December 9, 1934, Page 28

SCIENTISTS CHART SUN'S “NEIGHBO “Sky Surveyors” to Explain Methods to Carnegie Trustees. n BY THOMAS R. HENRY. Direct measurements of the dis- tances of almost 4.000 stars closest to the sun have been made by astrono- mers of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. These “sky surveyors” use about the same methods as a civil engineer would use in determining the | boundaries of a plot of land. | ‘The mechanisms and accomplish- | ments of the photographic parallax method being used by the staff of the | institution’s Mount Wilson observatory will be shown here gfter the annual trustees’ meeting on December 14. 15 and 16 at the administration building, Sixteenth and P streets. By patiently measuring the distance of one after another of the nearer stars the cosmic engineers are gradu- ally reducing to order the fields of space within the solar system's im- mediate neighborhood, extending for a few trillion miles in all directions. ‘They have found the sun's family has | on neighbor much closer than the average distance between stars in this part of the heavens. The star Alpha Centuri in the southern heavens is only about 26,000.000.000.000 miles away. It is about the size and lumin- osity of the sun and its light, moving through space at the rate of about 180,000 miles a second, requires only about four vears and three months to reach the earth. Unusually “Close Neighbor.” If there were a uniform distribution of “population” in this corner of the universe the sun would have no neighbor within approximately twice the distance, or about 48,000,000~ 000.000 miles, a distance which light would traverse in about seven years and six months, Looking at the sky on a Winter night the stars appear closely packed together, because most of them are so distant. But there is reason to be- lieve that the heavens around the sun | are fairly representative of the cosmos es a whole and there the Carnegie surveyors find one heavenly body for approximately each 440 cubic light years. The distance of a star is found by | measuring its position on two photo- graphs taken six months apart. Dur-, ing this interval the earth moves from one side of its orbit to the other, thus causing the star to shift its positition slightly with respect to fainter and more distant stars used as reference points. If the dates of the two observations are chosen cor- rectly, the change in the direction in which a star is seen will be twice the angle subtended by the radius of the earth’s orbit as seen from the star. A parallax of one second of arc is the angle made at the eye by a length | of three-tenths of an inch a mile | away. This corresponds to a distance | of one parsec. or 326 light years, which in turn is about 200,000 times | the radius of the earth's orbit, of | 19.000.000.000,000 miles. By this method fairly accurate measurements can be made down to parallaxes of a hundreth of a second of arc. Considerable dependence can be placed even ‘en measurements which show a displacement of a little more than a thousandth of a second of arc. This represents a distance of approximately 1,300.000,000,000.000 miles. or 217 light years. On the larg- est scale photographs which can be taken of the heavens the displace- ment which must be measured is less than one ten-thousandth of an inch. The parallax method is the oldest known for surveying the heavens and was used with the eardiest telescopes, but became practicable for large-scale measurements only with the perfec- tion of photographic apparatus. It | has little value for stars outside of the sun's immediate neighborhood be- | cause. even at small distances, stars of low luminosity beocome 8o faint that they cannot be distinguished from the multitude of other faint stars. Faint stars predominate, the | survey shows, in the region close to | the sun and probably in the heavens | as a whole. | Great Distances Approximated. Once beyond the local system of stars, distances can be approximated, but not measured with much accur- | acy, by the spectroscopic method, the mechanism of which also will be ex- hibited. When the apparent bright- ness of a star and its intrinsic bright- ness are known the distance can be calculatéd. Studies of stellar spectra prove that the intensities of certain spectral lines vary progressively with the intrinsic brightness of the stars themselves, This method, under favorable condi- | tions, can be used to measure d tances up to about 18,000,000.000 - 000,000 miles, or 3.000. light years, more than 10 times the distance over which the trigonometric method can be applied. More than 4.000 spec- | troscopic determinations of star dis- tance have been made by the Mount Wilson astronomers. SERVICE WILL HONOR FRANCES H. SIDWELL University Women and Twen- tieth Century Club to Pay Tribute Today. A service in memory of Frances Haldeman Sidwell. Vassar College, class of 1884, will be held by the! Washington branch of the Association of University Women, in collabora- tion with the Twentieth Century Club, ' at 4 pm. today at 1634 I street. ‘The program will include a num- ber of musical selections, and appreci- ation by Dr. Cloyd Heck Marvin, Georgette Ross Howard and Lucy Maderia Wing. Mrs. Sidwell was prominently identi- fled with club and educational circles here and was also co-director of Friends School SINGERS TO HOLD RITES Choral Society to Conduct Annual | Candlelight Ceremony. ‘The Washington Choral Society will hold its second annual candlelight service in Ephipany Church, Friday, December 21, at 4:45 pm. Under the direction of Louis F. Potter, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio Wwill be rendered by a chorus of 80 voices. ‘The singers will be accompanied by Walter Nash, organist at St. Alban's Church, Preceding the choral num- bers, Adolf Torovsky, organist of Epiphany Church, will play 15 min- utes of organ music. e Inspector Named. LEONARDTOWN, Md., December 8 (Special). — Charles Mattingly of Pearson, magistrate of the eighth elec- tion district of St. Marys County, has been appointed by the C. W. A. offi- clals here, as sanitation inspector. [ COURT ORDER ISSUED IN ALIMONY EVASION Man Faces Contempt Proceedings for Failure to Pay $150 .Monthly. By a Staff Correspondent of The Star. UPPER MARLBORO, Md., Decem- ber 8.—George P. Schulz, formerly of Hyattsville, was named in a rule signed by Judge Joseph C. Mattingly yesterday directing him to show cause by December 13 why he should not be held in contempt for failing to comply THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 9, with a court order to pay his wife $150 a month temporary alimony. Schulz is described in the court pro- ceedings as assistant director of the Federal legislative reference service, and a member of the faculty of the University of Maryland. His wife, Eula, is seeking & limited divorce on grounds of cruelty. She is represented by Attorney Clarence Roberts. According to the papers in the case, Schulz left his Hyattsville home after his wife brought suit against him. AT LS Seven thousand people took part in the recent Jewish ex-service men's re- membrance service in London. 75 TO BE IN CAST OF CHRISTMAS PLAY Rehearsals of “The Other Wise Man” Will Start With Drill Tomorrow. Rehearsals for the tenth annual presentation of the Christmas dramsa, “The Other Wise Man,” will start at Luther Place Memoriat Church, Fourteenth and N streets, tomorrow night, it was announced today. A cast of about 75 will take part in the production, the chapel players being augmented by members of sev- eral other dramatic clubs in the eity. “The Other Wise Man” will be pre- sented on three nights, Wednesda ‘Thursday and Friday, December 26-28. Miss Bess Davis Schreiner is di- recting the production and is being assisted by George Farrington and Howard Whitfield. Members of the cast include John Sikken, Katherine Riggs, Jesse Veitch, Harry Schon- rank and Eugene Kressin. 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