_Of the_ FIXED STARS.
[Sidenote: The fixed Stars are at immense distance from us.]
The fixed Stars are those bright and shining bodies, which in a clear
night appear to us every where dispersed through the boundless regions
of space. They are term’d fix’d, because they are found to keep the
same immutable distance one from another in all ages, without having
any of the motions observed in the Planets. The fixed Stars are all
placed at such immense distances from us, that the best of telescopes
represent them no bigger than points, without having any apparent
diameters.
[Sidenote: The fixed Stars are luminous bodies like the Sun.]
It is evident from hence, that all the Stars are luminous bodies, and
shine with their own proper and native light, else they could not be
seen at such a great distance. For the _Satellites_ of _Jupiter_ and
_Saturn_, tho’ they appear under considerable angles through good
telescopes, yet are altogether invisible to the naked eye.
[Sidenote: The distance from us to the Sun is nothing in comparison of
the vast distance of the fixed Stars.]
Although the distance betwixt us and the Sun is vastly large, when
compared to the diameter of the Earth, yet it is nothing when compared
with the prodigious distance of the fixed Stars; for the whole diameter
of the Earth’s annual orbit, appears from the nearest fixed Star no
bigger than a point, and the fixed Stars are at least 100,000 times
farther from us than we are from the Sun; as may be demonstrated from
the observation of those who have endeavoured to find the Parallax of
the Earth’s annual Orb, or the angle under which the Earth’s orbit
appears from the fixed Stars.
[Sidenote: As to appearance, the Earth may be consider’d as being the
center of the Heavens.]
Hence it follows, that tho’ we approach nearer to some fixed Stars at
one time of the year than we do at the opposite, and that by the whole
length of the diameter of the Earth’s orbit; yet this distance being
so small in comparison with the distance of the fixed Stars, their
magnitudes or positions cannot thereby be sensibly altered; therefore
we may always, without error, suppose ourselves to be in the same
center of the Heavens, since we always have the same visible prospect
of the Stars without any alteration.
[Sidenote: The fixed Stars are Suns.]
If a spectator was placed as near to any fixed Star, as we are to the
Sun, he would there observe a body as big, and every way like, as the
Sun appears to us: and our Sun would appear to him no bigger than a
fixed Star: and undoubtedly he would reckon the Sun as one of them in
numbering the Stars. Wherefore since the Sun differeth nothing from a
fixed Star, the fixed Stars may be reckoned so many Suns.
[Sidenote: The fixed Stars are at vast distance from each other.]
It is not reasonable to suppose that all the fixed Stars are placed at
the same distance from us; but it is more probable that they are every
where interspersed thro’ the vast indefinite space of the universe; and
that there may be as great a distance betwixt any two of them, as there
is betwixt our Sun and the nearest fixed Star. Hence it follows, why
they appear to us of different magnitudes, not because they really are
so, but because they are at different distances from us; those that are
nearest excelling in brightness and lustre those that are most remote,
who give a fainter light, and appear smaller to the eye.
[Illustration: NEW and CORRECT GLOBES according to the latest
Observations
Made and Sold by RICHARD CUSHEE _at the Globe and Sun between St.
Dunstans Church & Chancery Lane and_ Tho:Wright _Instrument-maker to
His Majesty at the Orrery and Globe near Salisbury Court_