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Week of February 12-18, 2012: As the World Turns …
Most people know that Earth's rotation causes the sun to rise in the east and set in the west. Of course, the same is true for the moon, planets and stars.
To understand what's happening, try this experiment. Stand in the middle of a room and, …Read more.
Week of February 5-11, 2012: The ‘Linking' Star
Constellations are like states.
Just as the continental U.S. is divided into 48 such states — some large and some small — the heavens are also divided into 88 constellations. And just as every city in the U.S. (except for the District of …Read more.
Week of January 29-February 4, 2012: The Great Celestial Hunter
One of my favorite constellations in all the heavens has made its grand return to our evening sky, much as Robert Frost described in the opening lines of his famous poem "Star-Splitter":
You know Orion always comes up sideways.
Throwing a …Read more.
Week of January 22-28, 2012: The Moon and Venus at Dusk
Last week, I wrote about a rather faint group of stars known as Camelopardalis, the giraffe. I don't know how many of my readers took my challenge to get out and find this constellation, but I thought it wise to come back this week with something a …Read more.
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Week of May 24-30, 2009I've read a lot of astronomy books over my career. A lot! Amazingly, my favorite of all isn't even a book about astronomy. It's the inspirational and romantic autobiography of the late amateur astronomer and comet-discoverer-extraordinaire Leslie Peltier. In his marvelous "Starlight Nights," Peltier wrote ever so eloquently of his passion for stargazing and how, as a wide-eyed child many years ago, he had learned about his very first star: "According to the descriptive text, Vega, at that very hour in the month of May, would be rising in the northeastern sky. I took the open book outside, walked around to the east side of the house, glanced once more at the diagram by the light that came through the east window of the kitchen, looked up toward the northeast and there, just above the plum tree blooming by the well, was Vega. And there she had been every springtime of my life, circling around the pole with her five attendant stars, fairly begging for attention, and I had never seen her. "Now I knew a star!" The same star that inspired Peltier's young imagination is still there, glistening in the northeastern sky during May evenings, waiting to inspire us too.
Vega is the brightest star in the tiny constellation of Lyra, the Harp. Gaze at it and you'll be looking roughly in the direction that our sun and solar system are racing at about 12 miles per second. No need to worry about a collision, though. Vega lies 25 light years away, about 150 trillion miles. Nearly 4,000 centuries will pass during our journey. This brilliant white star is about three times larger and more massive than our sun, and produces 50 times more power. As a result, it will exhaust its fuel in only one-tenth the time — making its expected life span only about 1 billion years. And, because of the 25,800-year wobble of the Earth's axis, Vega will become our North Star about 12,000 years from now. Vega is such an amazing star in many ways. If, for one reason or another, you've been putting off getting outdoors to learn the stars, take a page out of Peltier's book this spring. Step outside and begin with Vega! To find out more about Dennis Mammana and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC. 
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