Continuing its course
and enlarging its sphere day after day, the sight presented to us
would have been that of a gradually expanding nebulous mass--a
globe of faint light continually increasing in size with the
velocity of light.
The first sentiment the reader will feel on this subject is
doubtless one of surprise that the distance of the star should be
so great as this explanation would imply. Six months after the
explosion, the globe of light, as actually photographed, was of a
size which would have been visible to the naked eye only as a very
minute object in the sky. Is it possible that this minute object
could have been thousands of times the dimensions of our solar
system?
To see how the question stands from this point of view, we must
have some idea of the possible distance of the new star. To gain
this idea, we must find some way of estimating distances in the
universe. For a reason which will soon be apparent, we begin with
the greatest structure which nature offers to the view of man. We
all know that the Milky Way is formed of countless stars, too
minute to be individually visible to the naked eye. The more
powerful the telescope through which we sweep the heavens, the
greater the number of the stars that can be seen in it.
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