Astronomy Story
Has Local Angle

I think it’s great that the Herald printed the fine article on astronomy last week by Chris Costanzo.

Many people are confused about the fast differences in scale between our local solar system of sun and planets, the vast space of our galaxy, and the stupefying distances involved in our "nearest" neighbor galaxy Andromeda.

This galaxy can be seen with your naked eye in the fall, but only a faint blur and from a place where the air is clear, like Braintree Hill. We are seeing it—or saw it—2.2 million years ago, when Homo Habilis folks were wondering about the lights in the sky. I guess we have to take it on faith that it’s there now. Whatever "now" is.

Mr. Costanzo mentions that several astronomers calculated the distance to "nearby" stars back in the 1830s using a paralax method that laid the groundwork for Henrietta Leavitt’s work. A descendant of one of these astronomers lives right here in Randolph.

The astronomer, who found the distance to Vega, was Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, director of the great Pulkovo Observatory near Leningrad. The descendent is Nancy, my wife. She hasn’t made any astronomical measurements, but she did remind me last week that there was an eclipse of the moon.

Ernest Wright

Randolph

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