Some of us old enough remember the excitement and amazement of the launch of the two Voyager spacecraft in 1977. These two of his craft traveled into interstellar space. If you’re wondering how their equipment works, Voyager 2’s thruster backup system was launched in 1994 after waiting 17 years for it to be needed. There are still signals from them reaching Earth. And those are low-bid products. The engineers and scientists who dreamed them into reality have done a really great job.

Take time to look up while you’re strolling around the neighborhood or jogging on the walking trails in town. About two hours after dark, Jupiter and Saturn will be visible east-southeast of the Pisces stars. Above is the Great Plaza of Pegasus, or the diamond of baseball where Little League and Pony Leaguers recently ended a glorious season.

Pegasus is an ancient constellation whose lower left corner now points directly to Jupiter. Further along that line points to the Celestial Sea, which contains the constellation of the whale, the Cetacea. Pisces, in mythology two fishes, Aphrodite (Venus) and her son Eros (Cupid) trying to escape to safety. Aquarius, the bearer of water. Capricorn, sea goat. The Eridanus River still flows into the Persian Gulf.

These constellations date back to Mesopotamia (Iran), where Eridanus was the Euphrates, even before the Greeks and Romans became city-states. Astronomy is the oldest science of all. It is also the foundation of geometry. Think about students complaining about their history, geometry, or science homework. Remind them that it’s ancient history and is as current as our space program at Boca Chica Beach.

It’s a shame that with so much light pollution, these constellations are so rarely seen and so unrecognized. When it comes to energy savings, reducing the number of lights almost everywhere can save you a lot of money.

If you’re lucky enough to have a dark sky view, you can scan the region of Cygnus’ tail with a decent telescope and spot the North America Nebula. Yes, the nebula is similar to our continent, but mostly part of the United States. As Skywatchers have always done, discovered objects are named after familiar places and things. It remains to be seen what wonders the new James Webb Space Telescope will uncover. Millions, perhaps billions, of previously unseen galaxies are emerging from images already shared by JWST. And it’s been 1 month since I started using it. Hubble opened our eyes to billions of galaxies. JWST does much more.

The moon now has much of the sun’s reflective surface facing the earth, and the two moons revolve around the sun in a perpetual dance. The full moon is 14 days after the new moon. The new moon is lost in the sun’s glare, while the full moon is directly across from the sun. Our Moon’s orbit is tilted 5 degrees from Earth’s orbit, so monthly eclipses do not occur. Long live geometry.

The Moon’s appearance changes daily, as does its position in the sky, so it may be a good time to start charting how it looks from night to night or from day to day. Yes, you can see it in the daytime, but when? Understand patterns and use them for unique science fair projects. I know school is just starting, but long-term projects are more interesting to judges. And this is easy.

Until next week, KLU.