The Bullet of Scale: The Wonder of the Night Sky (Part 1)
My family and I were once spending some sweet and rare time together in our back yard. The dark of the night enabled us to enjoy the wonder of the star-studded sky. The heavens were unusually brilliant and stars of various sizes and intensity became an object for our discussion.
Falling back on my old Air Force pilot-celestial navigation training I pointed out one of my favorite stars – Antares, the first magnitude (brightest) star of the constellation Scorpius (Scorpion). To think that there are eighty-eight constellations (groups of stars in a pattern) identified by humans (such as the Big Dipper) and yet that millions of stars exist staggers the mind.
My family and I were once spending some sweet and rare time together in our back yard. The dark of the night enabled us to enjoy the wonder of the star-studded sky. The heavens were unusually brilliant and stars of various sizes and intensity became an object for our discussion.
Falling back on my old Air Force pilot-celestial navigation training I pointed out one of my favorite stars – Antares, the first magnitude (brightest) star of the constellation Scorpius (Scorpion). To think that there are eighty-eight constellations (groups of stars in a pattern) identified by humans (such as the Big Dipper) and yet that millions of stars exist staggers the mind.
Image: The M7 Open Star Cluster in Scorpius: Credit & Copyright: Allan Cook & Adam Block, NOAO, AURA, NSF
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