Monday, Jan. 28, 1924
Another Universe?
A faint luminous haze visible through telescopes in the constellation Sagittarius (the Archer), known to astronomers as N. G. C. 6,822, has been demonstrated by photographs taken through the Mt. Wilson 100-inch reflecting telescope (largest in the world) to be another universe of stars, like our own, it was announced by Dr. Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard Observatory, where the pictures are being studied. Our universe is estimated, at the maximum, to be 350,000 light years* in diameter. N. G. C., 6,822 is a million light years away (six quintillion miles) --the most distant object known. The cluster was first observed by the late Dr. E. E. Barnard, but his tele- scope was too weak to resolve it into stars.
* A light year is the distance a ray of light, travelling at the rate of 186,000 miles a second, can cover in one year.