Note 13 — VI END OF THE SUN—ORIGIN OF NEBULÆ

When, standing on a station platform, we watch an express train rushing through the station, the pitch of the engine whistle seems to become higher as long as the train is approaching us, and deeper again when the train is moving away from us. The pitch of a note depends upon the number of oscillations which our ear receives per second. Now, when the train is fast approaching us, more vibrations are sent into our ear than when the train is at a stand-still, and the pitch, therefore, appears to become higher. The same reasoning holds for light waves, of which Doppler, of Prague (Bohemia), was in fact thinking when first announcing his principle in 1842. The wave-length of a particular color of the spectrum is fixed with the aid of some Fraunhofer line characteristic of a certain metal. If we compare the spectrum of a star and the spectrum of a glowing metal, photographed on the same plate, the stellar lines will appear shifted towards the violet end (violet light is produced by nearly twice as many vibrations of the ether per second as red light) when the star is moving towards us in the line of sight. This principle has successfully been applied by Huggins, H. C. Vogel, and others, for determining the motion of a star in our line of sight. When a star is revolving about its own axis, the equatorial belt will seem to come nearer to us (or to recede from us), while the polar regions will seem to be at a stand-still; the lines will then appear oblique (not vertical). In this way Keeler proved that the rings of Saturn consists of swarms of meteorites moving at different velocities in the different rings.—H. B.