Bob Drieslein

What would you have to do to get a crater on the Moon named after you? First you would have to be deceased (I’ll wait) and second you would have to be a leading scientist, scholar, explorer, world leader, or a person who has made a significant contribution to humanity.
Few of us can meet that requirement.

Astronomers say there are billions of galaxies in our Universe each containing billions of stars. Even our own Milky Way galaxy is believed to include more than 200 billion.
But aren’t most of these stars too far away for us to see?

High in the September evening skies about halfway between the bright stars Arcturus and Vega lies a group of seven stars that make up the constellation Corona borealis, the “Northern Crown.”
Wikipedia.org reports that several Native American cultures saw different patterns in this star arrangement including a circle of elders, an eagle’s nest, a bear’s den, or a smokehole over a fireplace.

Of the 88 constellations established by the International Astronomer’s Union(IAU), nine are named in Latin after birds. Five of these constellations are located in the southern sky and are not visible from our northern locations. The ancient Greeks couldn’t see them either.

In previous articles, we’ve talked about planets orbiting stars outside our Solar System that scientists call “exoplanets.” To date, NASA says there are about 6,300 that have been identified, but that number is about to change! Thanks to some new technology and a new telescope, we may very soon learn of the existence of as many as 100,000 new worlds within our Milky Way galaxy.

If you think the scientists and engineers named a $16 billion telescope after someone whose accomplishments were really, really important to the science of astronomy, you’d be right!

Wrapped around Polaris and the Little Dipper in our northern sky is a group of 17 or so so stars that make up the constellation Draco, Latin for “dragon.”
Being so close to Polaris and the north celestial pole, Draco is one of the circumpolar constellations meaning that it never sets below the horizon and can be seen all year long.