Double the Universe

The astronomers long ago cut the earth down to size, proved it to be only a minor planet revolving around the sun. The sun, on closer inspection, turned out to be only a middle-rank star, like several million others. But the "home" galaxy--the Milky Way--continued to seem twice as big as any other galaxy: it was something that earthlings could be proud of.

Last week, at an Amherst, Mass, meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Harvard's famed Astronomer Harlow Shapley demoted the Milky Way. It is a big galaxy, he said, but no bigger than many others.

Shapley explained that astronomers have long had doubts about the yardstick they use to measure the enormous distances between the galaxies. It is based on Cepheid variable stars, whose luminosity (and therefore whose distance) can be told from their periods of pulsation. The system worked all right for a while, but recently many contradictions have shown up. For instance, the globular star clusters in the Magellanic Clouds (small, comparatively nearby galaxies) seemed to be much fainter intrinsically than similar clusters in the Milky Way. This offended the astronomers' sense of order. They felt that the clusters in both galaxies should be about equally bright. When clusters in the great Andromeda galaxy also proved too faint, the astronomers suspected their calculations.

Dr. Shapley was especially concerned since he had much to do with setting up the Cepheids as reliable measuring sticks. After long consultations with other astronomers, he decided that the size of the whole universe must be doubled. If the remote galaxies are considered twice as far away, then their globular clusters will have about the proper intrinsic brightness. The galaxies will also be twice as big, reducing the Milky Way to an ordinary specimen.

Other astronomical trouble points will also be cleared up. One is the embarrassing youthfulness of the expanding universe. When measured by the old yardstick, it is so small and is expanding so rapidly that it must have started its expansion only 2 billion years ago, which is not long enough. Geologists have pretty well proved by means of radioactive rocks that the earth is about 4 billion years old.

If the universe is doubled in size, its galaxies can be allowed more time (4 billion years) for reaching their present positions. This would make the earth and the universe about the same age, which sounds reasonable to the astronomers.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.