There on the ranch, when Mrs Benta talked about “The Milky way” when the boys looked at the sky. Emilia came with the customary foolishness. They were in the terrace in the evening, to look for the stars.
- “And that species of white cloud that I see there? – Narizinho had asked; and after Mrs Benta talked about “The Milky way” and that “milky” meant “Milk”, Emília came with this:
- “With which milk have they made that? To me it was made with milk of the Great Ursa…”
- Mrs Benta explained that in this case the word “milky did not mean “made of milk”, as cheeses and curds are made and yes that it had the appearance of a milky thing.
- And ‘milky’ doesn’t mean ‘made of milk’?
- No. Milky means what gives a milky color idea or of the milk consistency. That there in the sky is what the astronomers call “nebula”. The Milky way is one of the many nebulas that they see with the telescope in the space. They gave it the name Milky way because of the white color as well as we see it from here.
And what is a “nebula”? – Pedrinho asked.
Mrs Benta scratched her head. It is not easy to explain to the children what is a “nebula”. Finally she said:
- There are several hypotheses, my son. The most accepted hypothesis, today, is just that these are true universes inside the Universe, - Stars archipelagos in such quantity that due to distance they seem a nebula, a cloud. They are million remote stars.
- All as the sun?
- Yes, my son. The sun is a star infinity star that exists in the infinite space. It is just about 150 million kilometers from here, so very close that its light only travels eight minutes and eighteen seconds to reach here, traveling with the speed that you know…
- Three hundred thousand kilometers per second – said Pedrinho
- That’s it. See how it is near! In eight minutes and eighteen seconds its light reaches us. After the sun the nearest star in the universe is about forty trillions of kilometers or four light-years away. It means that the light of this star travels four years to reach us.
- Gosh!…
- And also do you know that this star is very close to us?
- Is it possible? – exclaimed Pedrinho amazed. Are there still more distant things?
- Yes, my son. The modern telescopes reveal nebulas about five hundred million Light-years away.
- “Five hundred million, grandma? – Pedrinho repeated very amazed. That is too much; It ends up to being insolence
- When they invent the telescopes even more powerful that we have today, it is possible that these nebulas be considered next. And will be discovered others with billions light-years… Because the nebulas are that - true universes inside the Universe, the tremendous distances from our planetary system. And when we start to think of the number of stars, then is when we get dizzy at once. Our galaxy, that is, the Universe where is our sun and also the stars that we see in the sky, they are composed of more than forty billion stars…
- “Forty billion stars, grandma? I am getting totally dizzy…
- So, you’ll stay dizzy totally, knowing that the telescopes reveal the existence of more than a hundred million nebulas, that is, universes inside the Universe, each one with their billions and billions of stars…
Pedrinho pretended that he fell back.
That in the ranch, in the astronomical conversations of Mrs Benta. But now that they were in the sky and that took them exactly to the Milky way, they did not want to know about the astronomers' Milky way - they wanted Emília's Milky way, much more interesting. And it was in the Milky way of Emilia that they played in the infinite spaces.
Emília was just like crazy. She saw countless stars in formation and started to play with them as if they were childhood friends telling them stories of the ranch, Rabicó prowesses, extinct viscount Sabugosa feats and about Dr Livingstone. The stars they had a good time with the news, but they confessed that they did not know anything about the Earth.
- It seems incredible the ignorance of these stars. Emilia exclaimed. When her friends the stars started to wink to sleep. They didn’t know anything about anything. I talked about our great planet earth, I talked about the moon, talked about Mars. And all of them stared at me and opened their mouths. It was the first time that they heard such words.
- Oh! Emília! Pedrinho sighed. That proves that the Universe is infinitely big and that our Earth is a flea. Less than a flea: It is the smallest part of a flea. Each one of these stars when it grows hard becomes a sun – and know, Emília, how many times is the mass of our sun greater than the mass of the Earth?
Emília didn’t know.
- A million and three hundred thousand times! - declared the boy. - The sun has a size that gives even astronomers’ headache - and there are stars very much bigger than the sun, But when the sun appeared was similar to these stars, her friends, from here.
- Then, it is this, that Mrs Benta gives the name of “comical mass”? – asked Emília.
Pedrinho laughed.
- Cosmic mass – Emília – Comic means another thing. Comic is what is funny. Cosmic means relative to the world, or to the planets, or to the Universe, which is the set of the planets.
- But what has the cosmic word with world? It should be “world mass” and not cosmic mass.
- Gramdma already explained that point. Kosmos is a Greek word means world.
While Pedrinho talked, Emília was making little mounds with smaller stars and would travel the stars to adorn her museum there in the ranch´. And Narizinho far from there was jumping from star to star, just as jumping from stone to stone there in the ranch.
Further on there was a point where the cosmic mass was still pure, without forming a little star. Emília ran up to that point and started to roll in her palms that luminous mass, equal aunt Nastácia would do with wheat dough to make little cakes.
Look how beautiful! I did it now! – Emília said, and showing a star in the form of a ring of mandioc flour. – Ring shaped stars don’t exist in the sky. I am going to make some stars and unfasten them in the space to continue growing. You imagine the astronomers' face looking through their telescopes, when they see the “emilianas stars”, all in the ring form.
Pedrinho only wanted to know about comets He joined a dozen of the funnier to carry with him and laugh imagining Mrs Benta’s face seeing him removing from his pocket comet nestlings and more comet nestlings.
- They seem toads, only that these do not lose their tail when they grow. They stay with tails every time larger. That is the comet Halley, that grandma saw in 1910, it had a tail of 45 million kilometers…
And Pedrinho started to tell what he knew about the comets.
- They are some very curious stars – he said. Also revolve around the sun as well as the planets, but they have different orbits.
- What is an orbit? - asked Emília.
Orbit is the way a star travels. The orbit of the planets is almost a circle, but the one of the comets has the form that the sages call "ellipse".
And what is an ellipse? - asked Emília.
Ellipse is the form of the dirigible balloons or of those long little cakes that aunt Nastácia makes. The comets pass very near to the sun and after get distant at long distances. And they stay thus always: they approach and then they get distant of the sun. Like grandma told, Comet Halley after it passes near the sun, it distances the orbits of Plutão, that is the end of our world (world that revolves around the sun). Does it remove itself you know how much? It removes itself 1 billion and 300 million of leagues! When it arrives to the extreme of the ellipse, it feels frozen than it comes back for the heat of the sun. And thus all life. It comes back every 76 years.
- What a fool! - exclaimed the doll. - It would be much better if it always rotated to the distance in which the Earth revolves, because then it would have a little heat always.
- They use the system of the eclipse because they like it. - Narizinho said. They should have their rights. And what more do you know about the comets, Pedrinho?
- I know Comet Biela’s story, that is very interesting. This comet gives its complete turn in 6 and a half years, but about the time it passed the view of the Earth in 1846, something extraordinary happened: it divided in two! It divided in two comets with parallel orbits, each one with its “nucleus”, or head, and the respective tail.
- How funny! And they bet a race in the sky?
- Yes. one started immediately to be distant from the other. A month later was already 60 thousand leagues in front. Six years and half later the comet couple was seen again in the sky of the Earth, but separated by a distance of 500 thousand leagues.
- And later?
- After elapsed several periods six year and half without both Bielas coming back, until November 27th 1872 reappeared undone in thousands of luminous fragments, always flowing through the same orbit.
- What story is that?
- It is just that both Bielas had smashed completely and now they were transformed in comet bran. The astronomers calculated in 160 thousand the number of the pieces of Bielas that scratched the sky on that night...
- How amazing that should be! – Narizinho exclaimed animated. - What a beauty!...
- I also find – Pedrinho agreed - and I believe that never in time there were in the sky of the Land a more portentous show. One hundred and sixty thousand comet pieces, imagine!...
- Such a present for the astronomers, no?
- Yes, And there was a very comic case. Flammarion was one of the biggest astronomers of that time, he was in Rome at that month, convalescing of a malaria attack. And because of the disease he was going to sleep early every day. Because in the famous night of 27 of November, something more terrible of all happened.
- Already I know! - Emília screamed. - It fell onto his head one of the 160 thousand Biela's Pieces...
- No! Something much worse. Flammarion was sleeping during the six hours in the afternoon and stars' wonderful rain started an hour after, exactly at 7, and it lasted six hours. It lasted from 7 up to 1 hour at dawn - and he snoring there in bed, with the closed windows!...The day after, when he arose and knew about what had happened, he almost died of rage.
- But there was not a charitable soul that awoke him on time?
- There wasn’t anything. Everybody was looking at the sky and nobody remembered to call him.
- I would kill myself – Emília said. - If I was astronomer and lost a show like this, I swear that...
- … you would put a cannon shot in your ear, I already know – Pedrinho concludes.
Many other things Pedrinho told about the comets. He only stopped when he saw Emília yawn. - then he started to fill his pockets with new little comets. He wound the tails around the nucleus and kept them. Narizinho, who also was to work with that, she had suddenly a comical idea.
- Do you know what I am going to do? I will tie them to each other by the tails and put them in the ether. You imagine how they will be funny when they grow! And the headache of future astronomers' to decipher the mystery...
- Do you know what I am going to do? I will tie them to each other by the tails and put them in the ether. You imagine how they will be funny when they grow! And the headache of future astronomers' to decipher the mystery...
- They aren’t pressed. – Pedrinho said – They formulate a hypothesis and that’s all!
- What is a hypothesis, Pedrinho? - asked Emília. – Mrs Benta uses very much this word, which I find great for the calf's name of the Môcha cow.
- Hypothesis – Pedrinho explained - is when we do not know a thing and we invent an explanation.
Emília liked so much that word that kept repeating of all the manners, as it was her habit with the important words. Hypothesis – theshypo, sethepohy, pohythesi…
- Stop, Emília! – Narizinho scolded - At least here, in this flowerbed of the world, do not poke in the little faucet...
But the doll didn’t hear. She was around with a double star, rare thing as clover of four petals in a garden.
- I found a double star! – she screamed. - I will take it as a present to my little horse without tail.
After, returning to the comets, she had an excellent idea.
- What about it, Pedrinho, if I plant a comet tail in my little horse without tail? - and without waiting an answer, she plucked the tail of one of the comets, and wound it and kept it in the pocket of the apron. while she went murmuring with herself: "How it is going to be glad!"
- You spoke about a horse, Emília – Pedrinho said - And I remembered the Burro Falante. Certainly it is hooked in the tail of one of these great comets that walk with crazy rotating in the spaces; and the middle of finding him, is one only: we leave his search set up in another comet. As I said to São Jorge. It is possible, here, when we meet already grown comets that carry us on their back. We will see if we discover one that serves.
And they began to seek a comet. Suddenly, Emília screamed from far away, because she had moved away from Pedrinho and Narizinho.
- I’m seeing one that serves. Run fast!...
Pedrinho and Narizinho ran over there and they really saw a comet with a beautiful tail and of the exact size that they wanted. A true colt.
But it was not easy to catch it. It was an unfriendly and whiny comet, clever like only it can be; it had never seen people, so that it was jumping and it fled when the children approached it. But, about here, and about there, they caught it, finally, and Pedrinho, who was a good horseman, set on it with a jump. After giving his hand to Narizinho and Emília, he helped the two also to sit on the comet.
- And what about a rein? How to arrange a rein to guide this colt to the space?
- Make a tails rein, of the other little comets – Emília screamed, Dog tail cures bite of the dog, as says aunt Nastácia.
Pedrinho liked the idea, and even astride the horse he managed to reach and to pluck various tails of smaller comets, which in an instant wove in a rein form and passed by the “nucleus” of the colt. The poor comets without tails looked back very disappointed and a lot embarrased. Who gets used with tails does not know how to live without them.
- Don’t be afflicted! – Emília screamed. - There at home there is an illustrious marquis who does not have a tail as well and he lives very well. His name is Rabicó, exactly because of this. Rabicó means without tail. You will be celestial rabicós...
After taming that colt of the skies, Pedrinho asked:
- Ready? Can we leave?
- Not yet! - Emília screamed - I forgot to put in my pocket my stars. Wait! Until I come back. – and there was Emília full of little stars in the pocket of her apron. After this she set up again and shouted to Pedrinho:
- Ready! You can stick the spurs in this “hypothesis”.
Pedrinho didn't do that; he did a more important thing: He scrubbed in the nose of the comet a pinch of pirlimpimpim.
The celestial little colt sneezed and started flying.
The End
