Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 11, 2025
At this distance Algol, as observed from the planet, will fill half the sky, and the heat he gives out must be something stupendous. Also the effects of gravitation must be queer indeed, acting on two such huge bodies so close together.
From Hevelius this first-known periodical star received the name of "Mira," or the Wonderful, and Boulliaud in 1667 fixed the length of its cycle of change at 334 days. It was not a solitary instance. A star in the Swan was perceived by Janson in 1600 to show fluctuations of light, and Montanari found in 1669 that Algol in Perseus shared the same peculiarity to a marked degree.
The best and longest-known member of the group is Algol in the Head of Medusa, the "Demon-star" of the Arabs. This remarkable object, normally above the third magnitude, loses and regains three-fifths of its light once in 68·8 hours, the change being completed in about twelve hours.
In consequence of the great comparative mass of its dark companion, Algol itself moves in an orbit around their common center with a velocity quite sufficient to be detected by the shifting of the lines in its spectrum. By means of data thus obtained the mass, size, and distance apart of Algol and its singular comrade have been inferred.
If the dark body were the full size of Algol and passed right between him and us, it would cut off all the light, but if it were not quite the same size, a little would still be seen. And this is really the explanation of the strange changes in the brightness of Algol, for such a dark body as we are imagining does in reality exist.
From the beginning of the month, he said, he had been studying the heavens every morning before daybreak, when the constellation of Perseus was at the zenith; Agalah was scarcely visible; Algol was even less bright; Mira-Cetus had disappeared entirely; from all of which he augured the death of some man of great importance, to occur that very night in Machaerus. Who was the man?
What do you say to a dark body revolving round Algol, or, rather, revolving with him round a common centre of gravity? If such a thing were indeed true, and if such a body happened to pass between us and Algol at each revolution, the light of Algol would be cut off or eclipsed in proportion to the size of such a body.
Certain stars, called Algol stars, vary in light at regular intervals when partially eclipsed by the interposition of a large dark satellite. Recent observations of these eclipses, through glass of different colors, show variations in the time of obscuration. Apparently, some of the rays reach the earth sooner than others, although all leave the star at the same time.
"Because the name is so delightful, it has the ring of a word congealed by German frost and then melted by the Eastern sun." "Nonsense! You are talking chemistry! I prefer Algol." "You and your pastor may go to Algol." Noemi laughed, and Carlino appealed to Jeanne. Which star would she prefer? Jeanne did not know; she had not been listening.
Notification of promotion to base-admiral, and blank commission as line-commodore; that would be Patrique Morvill. And advice that one transport-cruiser, Algol, with an Army contragravity brigade aboard, and two engineering ships, would leave Odin for Aditya in fifteen days. The last two words erased much of the new base-admiral's pleasure. "Fifteen days, great Ghu!
Word Of The Day
Others Looking