Accultation

"The bright star Aldebaran is to be occulted by the moon on December 20th, at about 5 o'clock pm. Aldebaran is said to be eight hundred and eighty times the mass of the sun, with a diameter of over 8,000,000 miles; a distance so great that a meteor traveling at the rate of thirty miles per second, would require over three days to cross the disk of the star. Yet, notwithstanding the immense volume, the accultation will occur in a moment, so great is the distance of the star from us, and will continue for about one hour and eight minutes."