7
Now That’s a Star of a Different Color! BY DENNIS MAMMANA Week of February 5-11, 2023 I’ve been gazing skyward for more than six decades, and in that time, I’ve learned a few things. One is that novice stargazers have some deeply ingrained misconceptions about the heavens. For example, many think that we cannot see the moon during the daytime. Others believe that the Big Dipper is always visible in our sky. Still others think we see the stars as they appear now, rather than as they were centuries ago. But one of the most common misconceptions is this: “If you’ve seen one star, you’ve seen ‘em all.” This is a pretty understandable perspective; after all, stars appear simply as points of light. How different could they possibly be? Well, ask any experienced sky watcher and they’ll tell you that no two stars are exactly alike, but that each displays its unique personality in a number of ways. I like to say that stars are people too! One of the most visible characteristics of a star is its color. Most stargazers don’t notice this immediately because the human eye is incapable of perceiving color well under low light conditions. We know this to be true if we’ve ever looked around a relatively dark room; shapes and shades of gray are pretty easy to spot but colors seem nonexistent. Turn the lights on, however, and we find that we’re surrounded by vibrant colors.
When gazing skyward we discover that star colors are quite subtle. Binoculars or telescopes capture much more light than the human eye and make these a bit more obvious. So, if we’d like to see star colors with the naked eye, we need to look toward the brightest of stars. The best place to start your search is within the great constellation of Orion, the hunter. At this time of year, look for it midway up in the southeastern sky just after dark. We can trace the stars in Orion’s large vertical rectangle of four bright stars to form the hunter’s shoulders and knees; at its center lie three stars that form a nearly straight line that represents the belt of the great hunter. The bright star marking the northeastern corner (one shoulder) of Orion is known as Betelgeuse. This red supergiant star glows with an orange light that is pretty tough to miss. At the opposite corner (in one of the hunter’s knees) lies sparkling Rigel, another supergiant that displays a slightly bluish-white color. Star colors are more than just a curiosity; they tell us something about stellar temperatures. While our sun glows with a surface temperature of around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, reddish-orange stars like Betelgeuse are relatively cool (6,300 F) and can often live much longer than the sun. Bluish-white stars like Rigel, on the other hand, are tremendously hot (18,000 F); they can burn this furiously for only a relatively short time and, therefore, must be much younger
than the sun. After you’ve noticed these two fine examples of stellar color, check out some of the other bright stars around the sky to see what you can learn about their rel-
ative temperatures and ages. Once you do this you, too, will realize that stars are people too! Visit Dennis Mammana at dennismammana.com.
If we’d like to see star colors with the naked eye, we need to look toward the brightest of stars.
L O S T I N S U B U R B I A
A Dizzying Array of Celebrity Groundhogs BY TRACY BECKERMAN Last year I had a real problem with Groundhog Day. The issue was that there were just too darn many celebrity groundhogs with differing predictions for the end of winter, and I didn’t know who to believe. Between world-renowned rodent, Punxsutawney Phil, lesser-known wonder woodchuck, Staten Island Chuck, and scores of others, the playing field was just way too crowded with clairvoyant groundhogs. I also wondered if, perhaps, Chuck, Phil and the rest of the superstar groundhogs could be trusted. Much as movie stars turn on the charm when the cameras are rolling, I wondered if the celebrity groundhogs might be less concerned with getting the change of seasons right and more interested in just striking a pretty pose for the cameras. So, this year I decided to follow a
different groundhog. This year I was betting on our groundhog. Suburban Stan, as we call him, lives under our deck, and like his celebrity brethren, he also takes a peek out from his lair around Groundhog Day. I wasn’t sure if he was really looking for his shadow like the other dudes, or if he was just checking to see if the evil family dog was still lurking around. But if he happened to see his shadow, or not, while looking around, the end result would be the same and I would have my prediction. I was fairly certain Stan would give us an unbiased reading, because unlike Phil and Chuck, he didn’t have a crowd to please or paparazzi to perform for. He also didn’t have his own security team, Twitter account or Facebook page, didn’t have his own reality show and had never hosted “SNL,” so all in all, I thought he was probably a pretty grounded groundhog.
As we got closer to Groundhog Day, though, I began to get nervous that Stan might sleep through the big event. Celebrity groundhogs have their own people to wake them up and make sure that they are camera-ready when the moment arrives, but Stan had no people. He didn’t even have a stunt double. What if Stan failed me? I’d have to rely on the actual calendar and The Weather Channel to tell me when spring would arrive. Knowing he has a way with sleepy groundhogs, I considered phoning Bill Murray to see if he could stop by and rouse Stan at the right time. However, I was concerned that having Bill Murray come over to see him might give Stan a swelled head and then he would think he, too, was a celebrity groundhog, so I nixed that idea. Then I had an epiphany. With so many celebrity groundhogs out there,
Friday, February 3, 2023 Discovery
S T A R G A Z E R S
was it possible that all groundhogs have the secret desire to be famous? Are they all just waiting to be discovered and hailed as the new Punxsutawney Phil, get their own movie with Bill Murray and refuse to answer when someone refers to them as a woodchuck? I thought if this was true and Stan was a celeb groundhog wannabe, then there was really no problem. When the time came for him to perform, I’d just roll out a red carpet and stand around with a camera. Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, “Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble,” available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www. tracybeckerman.com COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS