{"id":1123,"date":"2013-07-14T00:00:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-14T00:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/?p=1123"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:22:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:22:20","slug":"the-sign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/14\/the-sign\/","title":{"rendered":"The sign"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a1SkyCaramba! Weekly astronomy blog for the week ending July 20, 2013<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry we haven\u2019t seen any meteors tonight, Tim.\u201d The lady put her arm around the boy as they both looked at the sky. \u201cYou just never know sometimes. I\u2019ve seen some when I didn\u2019t expect to and I never saw any at all when there was supposed to be a shower.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAw, that\u2019s okay Grandma,\u201d Tim answered. \u201cI\u2019ve had fun listening to you talk about the stars. Which one is the one you said it lit up the World\u2019s Fair?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that one right there,\u201d she said, raising her arm to point to an orange dot. \u201cIt\u2019s called Arcturus. In 1933, when there was a World\u2019s Fair in Chicago, people thought it was 40 light years away. The last World\u2019s Fair in Chicago was 40 years before, so they thought it would be good to hook up light sensors to telescopes at several observatories and point them at the same point in the sky where Arcturus would pass. Light they thought was as old as the last World\u2019s Fair triggered the sensors to send currents to Chicago and switch on all the lights!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that next to it?\u201d Tim inquired.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s Jupiter. Next time, let\u2019s bring your dad\u2019s binoculars and we can look at its moons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGrandma,\u201d Tim\u2019s voice became serious, \u201cHow long have you been learning about the stars?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Grandma,\u201d Tim worried, \u201cHow will I ever learn all that you know?\u00a0 You\u2019re already seventy-eight years old and you won\u2019t live until I\u2019m seventy-eight to teach me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman laughed as her arm pulled Tim close, \u201cYou\u2019ll learn the same way I learned. By listening to other people\u2019s stories, by reading, by watching TV shows about them. The best thing though is when you tell other people. You\u2019ll tell Jimmy, if he\u2019s interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim didn\u2019t want to think about trying to teach his pesky little brother anything. The boy couldn\u2019t hold attention to any subject more than a few seconds. And Jimmy always interrupted with questions that showed he wasn\u2019t listening anyway.<\/p>\n

The woman continued, \u201cYou know, you just made me think about something I read a long time ago. I don\u2019t remember which culture believed this. Maybe it was an American Indian tribe. They believed that when you see a meteor, you\u2019re seeing a signal from someone who has died telling you they\u2019re safe in the afterlife.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs that true, Grandma? Can people do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell you what. After I die, if I can, I\u2019ll nudge a little space rock into the atmosphere when I know you\u2019re watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim thought a moment and wanted to know \u201cHow will I know it was you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. But I have a feeling you will.\u201d<\/p>\n

*   *   *   *   *<\/center><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cold. Let\u2019s go in,\u201d Jimmy said to his big brother.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo in if you want to,\u201d commanded Tim. But he knew Jimmy would stay.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can it be cold? It\u2019s summertime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. It just happens sometimes at night. It\u2019s probably not that cold. You\u2019re just used to it being hot in the daytime. And the sun\u2019s not shining to warm you up.\u201d Tim sounded authoritative. \u201cNext time, why don\u2019t you wear that jacket Grandma gave you for Christmas?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s too big,\u201d said Jimmy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI doubt it,\u201d Tim assured him. \u201cYou must have grown into it by now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think Grandma would be mad at me for not wearing it yet?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. She always bought clothes for us a size or two too big so we would grow into them. If she bought us stuff that fit, we wouldn\u2019t have gotten to wear them very much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that one?\u201d Jimmy asked, pointing to one of the dots above them. He had picked a blue one.<\/p>\n

\u201cVega, one of the brightest stars in the sky. People used to think it\u2019s possible to see stars in the daytime from the bottom of a well shaft or a smokestack, but it\u2019s been tried with that one and\u2014\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoa!\u201d cried Jimmy as a meteor streaked right next to the star. \u201cWhat was that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA meteor,\u201d answered Tim. \u201cOr a shooting star. It happens when a piece of space dust or a space rock enters\u2014\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes that happen a lot?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, if you stay out long enough any night, you\u2019ll see\u2014\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know they\u2019re blue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of them are yellow or white. That one\u2019s unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWow! Isn\u2019t that funny? We were just talking about Grandma, then about that star, then that shooting star showed up. Blue was her favorite color. She must have liked that star. I bet she would have liked seeing that meteor with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jimmy kept talking, but Tim tuned it out for a moment. He thought of an unsuccessful night of meteor watching years before and one of the stories Grandma told him. Then Tim\u2019s attention returned to what Jimmy was saying.<\/p>\n

The younger boy said, \u201cI miss Grandma. But sometimes I can\u2019t believe she died. Sometimes I feel like she\u2019s still here.\u201d Then he stopped talking as though someone had finally shut off the running spigot of words.<\/p>\n

Tim sounded like he had something in his throat when he answered, \u201cMe too, Jimmy. Me too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A story about stargazing, family, and timeliness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[96,5,400,132],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1123"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1132,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions\/1132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}