“This does not imply,” quipped the New York Spotlight, “that their motions have been in any way improper in the past. ‘Proper motion’ to an astronomer means the movement of a star across the face of the sky with relation to other stars. Hitherto, a star named ‘Barnard’s Star’ in the constellation Ophiuchus has exhibited the greatest proper motion of any known star, moving at the rate of ten and a quarter seconds a year. ‘Barnard’s Star’ is not visible to the naked eye.”
Probably no astronomer on earth slept that day.
The observatories locked their doors, with their full staffs on the inside, and admitted no one, except occasional newspaper reporters who stayed a while and went away with puzzled faces, convinced at last that something strange was happening.
Blink-microscopes blinked, and so did astronomers. Coffee was consumed in prodigious quantities. Police riot squads were called to six United States observatories. Two of these calls were occasioned by attempts to break in on the part of frantic amateurs without. The other four were summoned to quell fistfights developing out of arguments within the observatories themselves. The office of Lick Observatory was a shambles, and James Truwell, Astronomer Royal of England, was sent to London Hospital with a mild concussion, the result of having a heavy photographic plate smashed over his head by an irate subordinate.
But these incidents were exceptions. The observatories, in general, were well-ordered madhouses. The center of attention in the more enterprising ones was the loudspeaker in which reports from the Eastern Hemisphere could be relayed to the inmates. Practically all observatories kept open wires to the night side of earth, where the phenomena were still under scrutiny.
Astronomers under the night skies of Singapore, Shanghai, and Sydney did their observing, as it were, directly into the business end of a long-distance telephone hookup.
Particularly of interest were reports from Sydney and Melbourne, whence came reports on the southern skies not visible—even at night—from Europe or the United States. The Southern Cross was, by these reports, a cross no longer, its Alpha and Beta being shifted northward. Alpha and Beta Centauri, Canopus and Achernar, all showed considerable proper motion—all, generally speaking, northward. Triangulum Amtrak and the Magellanic Clouds were undisturbed. Sigma Octanis, the weak pole star, had not moved.
Disturbance of the southern sky, then, was much less than in the northern one, in point of the number of stars displaced. However, relative proper motion of the stars which were disturbed was greater. While the general direction of movement of the few stars which did move was northward, their paths were not directly north, nor did they converge upon any exact point in space.
United States and European astronomers digested these facts and drank more coffee.
Evening papers, particularly in America, showed greater awareness that something indeed unusual was happening in the skies. Most of them moved the story to the front page—but not the banner headlines—giving it a half-column with a runover that was long or short, depending upon the editor’s luck in obtaining quotable statements from astronomers.
The statements, when obtained, were invariably statements of fact and not of opinion. The facts themselves, said these gentlemen, were sufficiently startling, and opinions would be premature. “Wait and see. Whatever was happening was happening fast.”
“How fast?” asked an editor.
“Faster than possible,” was the reply.
Perhaps it is unfair to say that no editor procured expressions of opinion thus early. Charles Wangren, enterprising editor of The Chicago Blade, spent a small fortune in long-distance telephone calls. Out of possibly sixty attempts, he finally reached the chief astronomers at five observatories. He asked each of them the same question.
“What, in your opinion, is a possible cause, any possible cause, of the stellar movements of the last night or two?”
He tabulated the results.
“I wish I knew.”—Geo. F. Stubbs, Tripp Observatory, Long Island.
“Somebody or something is crazy, and I hope it’s me—I mean I.”—Henry Collister McAdams, Lloyd Observatory, Boston.
“What’s happening is impossible. There can’t be any cause.”—Letton Tischaucr Tinney, Burgoyne Observatory, Albuquerque.
“I’m looking for an expert on astrology. Know one?”—Patrick R. Whitaker, Lucas Observatory, Vermont.
“It’s all wacky!”—Giles Mahew Frazier, Grant Observatory, Richmond.
Sadly studying this tabulation, which had cost him $187.35, including tax, to obtain, Editor Wangren signed a voucher to cover the long distance calls and then dropped his tabulation into the wastebasket. He telephoned his regular space-rates writer on scientific subjects.
“Can you give me a series of articles—two-three thousand words each—on all this astronomical excitement?”
“Sure,” said the writer. “But what excitement?” It transpired that he’d just got back from a fishing trip and had neither read a newspaper nor happened to look up at the sky. But he wrote the articles. He even got sex appeal into them through illustrations, by using ancient star-charts, showing the constellations in deshabille, by reproducing certain famous paintings, such as “The Origin of the Milky Way,” and by using a photograph of a girl in a bathing suit sighting a hand telescope, presumably at one of the errant stars. Circulation of The Chicago Blade increased by 21.7 percent.
It was five o’clock again in the office of the Cole Observatory, just twenty-four and a quarter hours after the beginning of all the commotion. Roger Phlutter—yes, we’re back to him again—woke up suddenly when a hand was placed on his shoulder.
“Go on home, Roger,” said Mervin Armbruster, his boss, in a kindly tone. Roger sat up suddenly.
“But, Mr. Armbruster,” he said, “I’m sorry I fell asleep.”
“Bosh,” said Armbruster. “You can’t stay here forever, none of us can. Go on home.”
Roger Phlutter went home. But when he’d taken a bath, he felt more restless than sleepy. It was only six-fifteen. He phoned Elsie.
“I’m awfully sorry, Roger, but I have another date. What’s going on, Roger? The stars, I mean.”
“Gosh, Elsie—they’re moving. Nobody knows.”
“But I thought all the stars moved,” Elsie protested. “The sun’s a star, isn’t it? Once you told me the sun was moving toward a point in Samson.”
“Hercules.”
“Hercules, then. Since you said all the stars were moving, what is everybody getting excited about?”
“This is different,” said Roger. “Take Canopus. It’s started moving at the rate of seven light years a day. It can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” said Roger patiently, “nothing can move faster than light.”
“But if it is moving that fast, then it can,” said Elsie. “Or else maybe your telescope is wrong or something. Anyway, it’s pretty far off, isn’t it?”
“A hundred and sixty light years. So far away that we see it a hundred and sixty years ago.”
“Then maybe it isn’t moving at all,” said Elsie. “I mean, maybe it quit moving a hundred and fifty years ago and you’re getting all excited about something that doesn’t matter anymore because it’s all over with. Still love me?”
“I sure do, honey. Can’t you break that date?”
“’Fraid not, Roger. But I wish I could.”
He had to be content with that. He decided to walk uptown to eat.
It was early evening, and too early to see stars overhead, although the clear blue sky was darkening. When the stars did come out tonight, Roger knew few of the constellations would be recognizable.