Heavenly Outlook
As winter comes to an end, new constellations rise that mark the beginning of spring. I can only imagine the time before smart devices and calendars when people in weather constant countries had only the stars to tell the time of year. Now, we simply acknowledge them in the night sky but fail to comprehend their infinite beauty. Some people cannot even see the constellations because of the amount of light pollution in their sky, so take a moment with me tonight and gaze into the heavens and enjoy our unique view.
Looking to the east, we find Jupiter rising about 8:15 pm in the faint constellation of Virgo. Farther to the north, you can see the not so faint constellation of Bootes, the Herdsman. You will be able to easily find Arcturus here - the brightest star in the area. This bright star happens to be a red supergiant which could explode any year now give or take a few million years. Just think that such a star could already have exploded, but even though it is rather close - about 37 light years away - we can only see what it looked like 37 years ago. It is funny to think of light, the fastest thing in the universe, as taking a long time to reach us, but anything can be downscaled in relation to the vastness of space. Since humans first evolved on this planet, they have always looked to the night sky and wondered what it all meant; now we are just beginning to understand.