Important: Safety Warning
This page contains instructions involving gunpowder or other explosive or pyrotechnic compositions. Preparing explosives as described has caused severe injuries and deaths, and is illegal in most places.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Fixed Star
in pyrotechnics, a composition introduced into a rocket case and emitting fire at five holes, to represent a star. The composition is niter, sulphur, gunpowder meal, and antimony.
In astronomy, fixed stars are those which till lately were supposed absolutely to maintain their relative positions toward each other in the sky, are still admitted to do so very nearly. They are contra-distinguished from planets or "wandering stars." The number of fixed stars is infinitely great, especially in the part of the heavens called the Milky Way (see GALAXY). From a remote period of antiquity they have been grouped into constellations (see CON- STELLATION). They shine by their own light, and probably are suns each one surrounded by planets of its own. Some stars are periodic, and vary in brightness, others disappear and come again. There are double and triple stars, gravity operating on their movements.