Stephen James O'Meara’s Secret Sky: The Bear’s collective heart
May 2011: Search out the 14 core members of a traveling stellar neighborhood.
Contributed by Stephen James O'Meara
Published:
March 28, 2011
Go outside after sunset this month and face north. High overhead, you’ll find Ursa Major the Great Bear performing a back flip over the North Star. It’s also the time of year when the constellation’s Big Dipper (or Plow) asterism, a stunning collection of seven bright naked-eye stars of near-equal magnitude, appears to spill its contents over the thirsty Earth — “a kind of celestial metaphor,” the late Jack Horkheimer liked to say, for the nurturing power of spring.
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