This, Janssen thought, might explain the phenomena
of the temporary stars. It would also, he suggested, account for their
brief career, because the combination of the elements would be quickly
accomplished, and then the resulting water vapor would form an
atmosphere cutting off the radiation from the star within.
This theory may be said to have a livelier human interest than some of
the others, since, according to it, the sun may carry in its very
constitution a menace to mankind; one does not like to think of it
being suddenly transformed into a gigantic laboratory for the
explosive combination of oxygen and hydrogen! But while Janssen's
theory might do for some temporary stars, it is inadequate to explain
all the phenomena of Nova Persei, and particularly the appearance of
the great spiral nebula that seemed to exhale from the heart of the
star. Upon the whole, the theory of an encounter between a star and a
dark nebula seems best to fit the observations. By that hypothesis the
expanding billow of light surrounding the core of the conflagration is
very well accounted for, and the spectroscopic peculiarities are also
explained.
Dr Gustov Le Bon offers a yet more alarming theory, suggesting that
temporary stars are the result of atomic explosion; but we shall touch
upon this more fully in Chapter 14.
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