Bob Drieslein

This past January, my wife, Vicky, and I attended a star party at Fort Macon State Park in coastal North Carolina. The park partners with Crystal Coast Stargazers, a local astronomy club, to offer these kind of events to the public.
Several club members brought their telescopes for visitors to look through and provided help on things to see.

On April 8, 2024, some of us were fortunate to witness a stunning celestial event: a total solar eclipse. If you were one of the lucky folks who viewed this from the “path of totality,” you may have noticed that at the peak of the eclipse our Moon exactly covered the Sun.

Most of us probably think of astronomy as something that happens late at night during the darkest part of every 24 hours. But the night sky is still there the following morning, although it might look different because of the Earth’s rotation.

Tucked away in the spring and summer evening skies is a rather unimpressive group of stars that make up the constellation Corvus.
According to Greek mythology, the god Apollo sent a crow (Corvus ) on a mission to bring back a cup of water.

Something quite noteworthy will be occurring in the night sky during the “wee hours” of March 14. If you can forego a few hours of sleep, and the weather cooperates, you may witness one of the top celestial events of the year – a total lunar eclipse.

You may recall last October NASA launched a rocket carrying the spacecraft “Europa Clipper” named after Europa, one of Jupiter’s four largest moons. This mission began a six-year journey in space to Jupiter referred to by NASA as the “king of planets.”

Did you ever wonder where the Moon came from? Is it where it is by chance; is there a story to be told; or can science give us the answer?
NASA tells us that our Moon likely formed after a Mars-sized body collided with Earth several billion years ago.