Sirius B or the ‘Pup’
Sirius the ‘Dog Star’ is the brightest star in the sky
however on the evening of January 31, 1862 in Cambridgeport Massachusetts. Sirius
B or the ‘pup’ as it is sometimes known was accidentally discovered by Alvan
Graham Clark and his father Alvan Clark, two members of the famous family of
nineteenth century telescope makers. They were testing the lens for an 18
½-inch telescope, the largest refracting telescope in the world at the time.
The Clarks were not aware of the significance of their
discovery at the time but did report it to George Phillips Bond, Director of
the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge Massachusetts. Using the Harvard’s 15-inch “Great
Refractor” Bond succeeded in observing the small companion exactly one week
later
The new companion of Sirius turned out to be a remarkably
faint yet massive star. It would be more
than fifty years before astronomers appreciated that the small companion
represented an entirely new type of star, a white dwarf.
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