FOURTH LESSON IN ASTRONOMY.

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Because our earth has one sun and one moon, you may think all earths have only one; but wise men have looked through their telescopes, and have discovered that some of the stars which look to us like single stars are really double; and many of them are clusters of three or four, all lighting up the same planets.

Those earths, then, have more than one sun: they have two, three, or four, as the case may be. Think of two suns. How bright it must be! And imagine one of them red, and the other blue, as some of them are. Wouldn't you feel as if you were living in a rainbow?

And how would you like to look out of the window in the evening and see four moons? The wise men can see through their telescopes that Jupiter has four and Saturn eight. (You remember I told you Jupiter and Saturn are two of the earths lighted up by our sun.) Shouldn't you think so many moons would make the nights so bright that one could hardly go to sleep?

On the whole, I think we get along very well as we are; and I hope the people who live in the brightness of two suns have strong eyes given them. It must be very beautiful, though. Perhaps you can get an idea how it seems to have a red sun, if you look through a piece of red glass; but I do not believe we can any of us imagine what it would be like to have two suns of different colors.

Do you think a red sun shining on a moon makes a red moon? A colored sun or a colored moon seems very strange to us; but I suppose the people that are used to them would think our white light strange.

I wonder whether the two suns rise and set at the same time. But we may all wonder and wonder. Nobody knows much about it. I hope you will all look at a double star through a telescope, if you ever have an opportunity.

M. E. R.
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