Bric-a-brac from "Bouvard and Pecuchet": Astronomy
Pecuchet went on: "The swiftness of light is eighty thousand leagues a second; one ray of the Milky Way takes six centuries to reach us; so that a star at the moment we observe it may have disappeared. Several are intermittent; others never come back; and they change positions. Every one of them is in motion; every one of them is passing on." "However, the sun is motionless." "It was believed to be so formerly. But to-day men of science declare that it rushes towards the constellation of Hercules!" * [From Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions, and Discoveries of the 18th Century by Jonathan Shectman]