FROM TODAY'S PRINT EDITIONS:
Plan to be up late tonight? After midnight? If so – and skies are clear to the southeast – step outside for a minute and look for the not-quite quarter moon, low in the southeast. Immediately above the moon is Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, the only female figure in the zodiac. Spica is Latin for “ear of wheat,” held in the virgin’s hand. The star is 260 light years from Earth. A short distance above Spica is the planet Saturn, now almost 820 million miles away.
(PHOTO: NASA/Hubble, 2009)