Grandest of all the problems that have occupied the mind of man is the distribution of the stars throughout space. To the earliest astronomers who knew nothing about the distances of the stars, it was not much of a problem because they thought all the fixed stars were attached to a revolving sphere, and therefore all at essentially the same distance; a very moderate distance, too. Even Kepler held the idea that the distances of individual stars from each other are much less than their distances from our sun.
Thomas Wright, of Durham, England, seems to have been the first to suggest the modern theory of the structure of the stellar universe, about the middle of the eighteenth century. His idea was taken up by Kant who elaborated it more fully. It is founded on the Galaxy, the basal plane of stellar distribution, just as the ecliptic is the fundamental circle of reference in the solar system.
What is the Galaxy or Milky Way?
Here is a great poet's view of the most poetic object in all nature:
A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,
And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear
Seen in the Galaxy, that Milky Way
Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powder'd with stars.
Milton, P. L. vii, 580.
Were the earth transparent as crystal, so that we could see downward through it and outward in all directions to the celestial sphere, the Galaxy or Milky Way would appear as a belt or zone of cloud-like luminosity extending all the way round the heavens. As the horizon cuts the celestial sphere in two, we see at anyone time only one-half of the Milky Way, spanning the dome of the sky as a cloud-like arch.
As the general plane of the Galaxy makes a large angle with our equator, the Milky Way is continually changing its angle with the horizon, so that it rises at different elevations. One-half of the Milky Way will always be below our horizon, and a small region of it lies so near the south pole of the heavens that it can never be seen from medium northern latitudes.
Galileo was the first to explain the fundamental mystery of this belt, when he turned his telescope upon it and found that it was not a continuous sheet of faint light, as it seemed to be, but was made up of countless numbers of stars, individually too faint to be visible to the naked eye, but whose vast number, taken in the aggregate, gave the well-known effect which we see in the sky. In some regions, as Perseus, the stars are more numerous than in others, and they are gathered in close clusters. The larger the telescope we employ, the greater the number of stars that are seen as we approach the Galaxy on either side; and the farther we recede from the Galaxy and approach either of its poles fewer and fewer stars are found. Indeed, if all the stars visible in a 12-inch telescope could be conceived as blotted out, nearly all the stars that are left would be found in the Galaxy itself.
The naked eye readily notes the variations in breadth and brightness of the galactic zone. Nearly a third of it, from Scorpio to Cygnus, is split into two divisions nearly parallel. In many regions its light is interrupted, especially in Centaurus, where a dark starless region exists, known as the "coal sack." Sir John Herschel, who followed up the stellar researches of his father, Sir William, in great detail, places the north pole of the Galactic plane in declination 37 degrees N., and right ascension 12 h. 47 m. This makes the plane of the Milky Way lie at an angle of about 60 degrees with the ecliptic, which it intersects not far from the solstices.
Now Kant, in view of the two great facts about the Galaxy known in his time, (1) that it wholly encircles the heavens, and (2) that it is composed of countless stars too faint to be individually visible to the naked eye, drew the safe conclusions that the system of the stars must extend much farther in the direction of the Milky Way than in other directions.
This theory of Kant was next investigated from an observational standpoint by Sir William Herschel, the ultimate goal of whose researches was always a knowledge of the construction of the heavens. The present conclusion is that we may regard the stellar bodies of the sidereal universe as scattered, without much regard to uniformity, throughout a vast space having in general the shape of a thick watch, its thickness being perhaps one-tenth its diameter. On both sides of this disk of stars, and clustered about the poles of the sidereal system are the regions occupied by vast numbers of nebulæ. The entire visible universe, then, would be spheroidal in general shape. The plane of the Milky Way passes through the middle of this aggregation of stars and nebulæ, and the solar system is near the center of the Milky Way. Throughout the watch-form space the stars are clustered irregularly, in varied and sometimes fantastic forms, but without approach to order or system. If we except some of the star groups and star clusters and consider only the naked-eye stars, we find them scattered with fair approach to uniformity.
Star Clouds and Black Holes in Sagittarius. The dark rifts and lanes resemble those in the nearby Milky Way. (Photo, Yerkes Observatory.)
The Great Nebula of Andromeda, Largest (Apparently) of all the Spiral Nebulæ. This nebula can be seen very faintly with the naked eye, but no telescope has yet resolved it into separate stars. (Photo, Yerkes Observatory.) The watch-shaped disk is not to be understood as representing the actual form of the stellar system, but only in general the limits within which it is for the most part contained.
A vigorous attack on the problem of the evolution and structure of the stellar universe as a whole is now being conducted by cooperation of many observatories in both hemispheres. It is known as the Kapteyn "Plan of Selected Areas," embracing 206 regions which are distributed regularly over the entire sky. Besides this a special plan includes forty-six additional regions, either very rich or extremely poor in stars, or to which other interest attaches.
Of all investigators Kapteyn has gone into the question of our precise location in the Milky Way most thoroughly, concluding that the solar system lies, not at the center in the exact plane, but somewhat to the north of the Galaxy. Discussing the Sirian stars he finds that if stars of equal brightness are compared, the Sirians average nearly three times more distance from the sun than those of the solar type. So, probably, the Sirians far exceed the Solars in intrinsic brightness. Farther, Kapteyn concludes that the Galaxy has no connection with our solar system, and is composed of a vast encircling annulus or ring of stars, far exceeding in number the stars of the great central solar cluster, and everywhere exceedingly remote from these stars, as well as differing from them in physical type and constitution. So it would be mainly the mere element of distance that makes them appear so faint and crowded thickly together into that gauzy girdle which we call the Galaxy.
The Milky Way reveals irregularities of stellar density and star clustering on a large scale, with deep rifts between great clouds of stars. Modern photographs, particularly those of Barnard in Sagittarius, make this very apparent. Within the Milky Way, nearly in its plane and almost central, is what Eddington terms the inner stellar system, near the center of which is the sun. Surrounding it and near its plane are the masses of star clouds which make up the Milky Way. Whether these star clouds are isolated from the inner system or continuous with it, is not yet ascertained.
The vast masses of the Milky Way stars are very faint, and we know nothing yet as to their proper motions, their radial motions, or their spectra. Probably a few stars as bright as the sixth magnitude are actually located in the midst of the Milky Way clusters, the fainter ninth magnitude stars certainly begin the Milky Way proper, while the stars of the twelfth or thirteenth magnitude carry us into the very depths of the Galaxy.
It is now pretty generally believed that many of the dark regions of the Milky Way are due not to actual absence of stars so much as to the absorption of light by intervening tracts of nebulous matter on the hither side of the Galactic aggregations and, probably in fact, within the oblate inner stellar system itself. Easton has made many hundred counts of stars in galactic regions of Cygnus and Aquila where the range of intensity of the light is very marked; in fact, the star density of the bright patches of the Galaxy is so far in excess of the density adjacent and just outside the Milky Way, that the conclusion is inevitable that this excess is due to the star clouds.
Of the distance of the Milky Way we have very little knowledge. It is certainly not less than 1,000 parsecs, and more likely 5,000 parsecs, a distance over which light would travel in about 16,000 years. Quite certainly all parts of the Galaxy are not at the same distance, and probably there are branches in some regions that lie behind one another. While the general regions of the nebulæ are remote from the Galactic plane, the large irregular nebulæ, as the Trifid, the Keyhole, and the Omega nebulæ, are found chiefly in the Milky Way.
In addition to the irregular nebulæ many types of stellar objects appear to be strongly condensed toward the Milky Way, but this may be due to the inner stellar system, rather than a real relation to Galactic formations. Quite different are the Magellanic clouds, which contain many gaseous nebulæ and are unique objects of the sky, having no resemblance to the true spiral nebulæ which, as a rule, avoid the Galactic regions. Worthy of note also is the theory of Easton that the Milky Way has itself the form of a double-branched spiral, which explains the visible features quite well, but is incapable of either disproof or verification. The central nucleus he locates in the rich Galactic region of Cygnus, with the sun well outside the nucleus itself. By combining [356] the available photographs of the Galaxy, he has produced a chart which indicates in a general way how the stellar aggregations might all be arrayed so as to give the effect of the Galaxy as we see it.
Shapley, at Mount Wilson, has studied the structure of the Galactic system, in which he has been aided by Mrs. Shapley. An interesting part of this work relates to the distribution of the spiral nebulæ, and to certain properties of their systematic recessional motion, suggesting that the entire Galactic system may be rapidly moving through space. Apparently the spiral nebulæ are not distant stellar organizations or "island universes," but truly nebular structures of vast volume which in general are actively repelled from stellar systems. A tentative cosmogonic hypothesis has been formulated to account for the motions, distribution, and observed structure of clusters and spiral nebulæ.
An additional great problem of the Galaxy is a purely dynamical one. Doubtless it is in some sort of equilibrium, according to Eddington, that is to say, the individual stars do not oscillate to and fro across the stellar system in a period of 300 million years, but remain concentrated in clusters as at present. Poincaré has considered the entire Milky Way as in stately rotation, and on the assumption that the total mass of the inner stellar system is 1,000,000,000 times the sun's mass, and that the distance of the Milky Way is 2,000 parsecs, the angular velocity for equilibrium comes out 0".5 per century. That is to say, a complete revolution would take place in about 250 million years.
