Aurora Borealis Visible in Borrego Springs

By Dennis Mammana Week of June 7-13, 2026 During one of my recent night sky tours, an elderly guest gazed into the sky and asked if the stars ever move. He said the constellations look the same now as when he was a child, and he was convinced that nothing in the heavens ever changes. It was an excellent observation but one that didn't consider an important fact: Human time scales are considerably different than cosmic time scales. Even the healthiest of humans will live at most about a century, and during our lives, we measure time in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades. The cosmos, on the other hand, has been around for nearly 14 billion years, and everything takes much longer to occur. To recognize changes in the universe, astronomers must think on a more cosmic scale. When we do, we find that the universe is remarkably active. Stars are forming, consuming their nuclear fuel, and dying, and all are racing through our galaxy at tremendous speeds. Expecting to see changes in any star's appearance or the shapes of constellations over even a full human lifespan just isn't possible. To understand this, consider Barnard's Star, visible only through a telescope from the Earth's Southern Hemisphere. This star tears through our galaxy at a speed of some 88 miles per second, yet from our terrestrial vantage point six lightyears away, Barnard's Star requires three and a half centuries to cross a segment of the sky only the width of your outstretched little finger. Of course, we can't watch this movement with our eyes — or even through powerful telescopes — but by using sophisticated earthbound and satellite technology, astronomers can precisely measure these stellar speeds and directions of motion. Measure the speeds and directions of enough stars, and we find some interesting patterns. For example, stars that appear roughly in the direction of the summer star Vega (now shining low in the northeastern sky after dark) seem to be spreading out from a central point, while those on the opposite side of the sky (near Sirius, setting in the southwest around sunset) appear to be converging on one another. What this means is fascinating. Our sun's own motion is carrying it (along with the planets of our solar system) toward the stars near Vega — a point we know as the solar apex — and away from those near Sirius (known as the solar antapex). This phenomenon isn't difficult to visualize. Imagine you're driving along a highway from one city to another. The buildings in front of you appear to become more widely separated as you approach, while those behind you appear to converge more tightly. This is exactly what's happening in our section of the galaxy. Our sun is moving at some 12 miles per second toward a point in our sky not far from the bright star Vega. Of course, we can't see this movement, but it's fun to stand outdoors on a clear night and imagine our sun and Earth racing outward toward Vega. Now, if you're worried about a collision with this star ... well, fuhgetaboutit. Even at this remarkable speed, we'd need some 5,300 human lifetimes to get there! Visit Dennis Mammana at dennismammana.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. Learn More About Borrego Springs

By Dennis Mammana Week of May 24-30, 2026 When you hear the phrase "once in a blue moon," what do you think? If you're like most people, you think of something that doesn't happen often. So what exactly is a blue moon, and why is it so rare? First off, a blue moon isn't all that rare. It occurs on average about once every 2.72 years. Secondly, the moon doesn't appear blue at all; it's just a regular ol' full moon that happens to be the second one in any particular month. You know this phenomenon if you receive a paycheck every two weeks. You'll usually get two checks a month, but occasionally you'll receive a third. It's not that uncommon, and neither is a blue moon, despite the popular meaning of the term. A second full moon in a month occurs occasionally because our calendar isn't synced with the lunar phases, even though the word "month" derives from the word "moon". What we call a month — approximately one-twelfth of a year — is longer than the moon's "synodic" period — the average time between one full moon and the next (29.53059 days). So every once in a while — every blue moon, one might say — two full moons will occur during the same calendar month. We'll see the next one on Saturday night, May 30. Be sure to watch as the moon rises in the southeast just after sunset that night. Chances are that it will first appear rather orange or red because its light must pass through a long column of air on its way to our eyes, and normal particulate matter suspended in the air scatters the moon's light and colors it orange. Some have defined the blue moon differently. Most seasons of the year will experience three full moons, but occasionally a fourth will sneak in. In that case, the fourth of the season would be known as a "blue moon." This seasonal definition may have originated from a 1943 question-and-answer column in Sky and Telescope magazine in which Laurence J. Lafleur traced the term to a 1937 "Maine Farmers' Almanac." Three years later, it seems, folklorist Philip Hiscock wrote in the same magazine an article that gave birth to the "second full moon in a month" idea. Neither of these situations is particularly unusual, so where did the rarity idea originate? Occasionally, especially thick smoke or volcanic ash particles suspended in our atmosphere can remove enough red moonlight to make the moon appear bluish. It is said that, after the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883, the moon appeared blue for more than a year. As you might imagine, this is extremely rare. In fact, one might say that it happens ... only once in a blue moon! Now there's one more thing about the full moon that we'll see this coming weekend. It reaches its orbital "apogee" at 4:45 a.m. EDT / 1:45 a.m. PDT, its farthest point from the Earth (about 250,517 miles away). This means that it will appear as the smallest full moon of this year. You might hear it called a blue "mini moon," though most stargazers won't be able to see much difference from a normal full moon. Visit Dennis Mammana at dennismammana.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. Learn More About Borrego Springs