Adventist pioneer Joseph Bates was fascinated by his observation of what appeared to him to be a "gap" in the constellation of Orion. He first observed the phenomena while sailing on a ship in the southern hemisphere in the 1820s. He later wrote about it in his tract "The Opening Heavens" which was published in late 1845. In his autobiography he describes the Orion gap: "But the most remarkable of all the cloudy stars, he says, 'is that in the middle of Orion's sword, where seven stars (three of which are very close together) seem to shine through a cloud. It looks like a gap in the sky, through which one may see as it were a part of a much brighter region. Although most of these spaces are but a few minutes of a degree in breadth, yet since they are among the fixed stars they must be spaces larger than what is occupied by our solar system; and in which there seems to be a perpetual, uninterrupted day among numberless worlds which no human art can ever discover.'
- ISBN10 1300207744
- ISBN13 9781300207740
- Publish Date 14 March 2013 (first published 2 February 2012)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Lulu.com
- Format eBook
- Language English