One of the classic constellations of the night sky is Pegasus, the flying horse. The heavenly horsey is currently soaring in the southeastern early evening sky.

The traditional interpretation of Pegasus is a horse flying upside down with puny little wings. If you can see it that way, more power to you.. I see a majestic horse flying right side up with a huge wingspan. With apologies to purists, in order to do this, I had to “borrow” some stars from the constellation Andromeda. My unofficial version of Pegasus is what you see on Mobile gas station signs. Pegasus is rescuing the lovely Princess Andromeda from a giant ravenous sea monster.

As soon as it’s dark enough, look directly above the eastern horizon for a giant diamond of four fairly bright stars that outline the torso of Pegasus, otherwise known as the “Square of Pegasus.” They’re easy to spot since they are the brightest stars in that area of the sky. The star at the top of the diamond is the star Scheat, the base of the flying horse’s neck. Look above Scheat for two fainter stars that outline the rest of the neck and another relatively faint star to the lower right of the neck that marks the flying horse’s snout.

(Mike Lynch)

The horse has a multi-jointed front leg that extends upward in a curved line. To see it, start at Markab, on the right-hand corner of the square of Pegasus. From there, look for a curved line of slightly fainter stars that extends up to the upper right. There’s a moderately bright star, Enif, that marks Pegasus’ hoof.

On the left corner of the square of Pegasus is the star Alpheratz. You can easily see a curved line of three bright stars extending to the lower left of Alpheratz. That outlines the mighty wings of Pegasus. Above the wing stars, there’s another nearly parallel line of fainter stars. That outlines Andromeda, the princess, who’s hitched to the rear end of the horse. In the traditional view of the upside-down flying Pegasus, both the bright and faint curved lines of stars attached to Alpheratz make up the constellation Andromeda.

No matter how you see the constellations Pegasus and Andromeda, the saga of how the lovely princess found herself tied to a flying horse’s rear end is part of the great Greek mythological story involving Perseus, Cassiopeia, Pegasus and Princess Andromeda.

Perseus, son of Zeus, king of the gods, was flying back from a mission when he flew over a distressing scene. The giant ugly sea monster Cetus was closing in on a beach where Princess Andromeda was chained to a rock by her own parents, Cassiopeia and Cepheus, the king and queen of ancient Ethiopia. They were forced to offer their daughter as a sacrifice to Cetus to keep their entire kingdom from being ravaged by the sea monster. Perseus had to save this damsel in distress, but he had to be smart about it.

Perseus’ mission was to cut off the head of Medusa, a terrible monster that was so ugly that anyone who looked at it turned to stone. Entire communities were being stoned! It had to be stopped. To keep from being stoned himself, He managed to lop off Medusa’s head while looking the other way.

As quick-thinking Perseus approached the sea monster, he whipped out Medusa’s head and waved it at Cetus just as the beast was about to make lunch out of Andromeda. Cetus sank into the depths, never to be seen again.

But that’s not all. Blood from the severed head of Medusa hit the ocean waves and magically produced Pegasus, a beautiful white-winged horse. The magical horse instinctively flew down to the boulder where Andromeda was, chewed off the chains, and then flew the Princess up to Perseus, where it was love at first sight. Perseus and Andromeda were soon married.

Andromeda galaxy (Mike Lynch)

Astronomically, one of the best celestial gems in the traditional constellation Andromeda is the Andromeda Galaxy, otherwise known as Messier object 31. Scan that area of the heavens just above the princess with your binoculars or a small telescope and look for a ghostly fuzzy patch. If you’re out in the countryside and really have dark skies, you may see it with your naked eye. That fuzzy little patch is our Milky Way Galaxy’s next-door neighbor, over 2 million light-years away, with just one light year equaling almost 6 trillion miles. That small fuzzy patch is the home of possibly a trillion stars and many, many, many more planets.

A pair of comets in the early evening this week

(Mike Lynch)

There’s no guarantee about how bright they’ll be, but we have two comets available this week in the early evening sky. Comet Lemmon (C/2025 A6 Lemmon) will be hanging out this week around the bright constellations Bootes and Corona Borealis in the low west-northwest sky after evening twilight, setting around 9:30 p.m. See the attached diagram to help you find it, but better yet, use a good free stargazing app like Sky Guide or Celestron Sky Portal to help you pinpoint it. This dirty cosmic snowball, spewing gas and dust, is making its closest approach to Earth this week, about 56 million miles away. Predicting comet brightness is extremely difficult but there is a chance you may be able to see it with the naked eye; otherwise, you should be able to spot it with binoculars. You could also snap a picture with your smart phone in its general direction. You just might be able to detect Comet Lemmon in your photo.

(Mike Lynch)

Meanwhile, Comet Swan (C/2025 R2 SWAN) is spending early evening a little higher up in the lower third of the southern sky, just below the constellation Aquila the Eagle. See the diagram. It’s also making its closest approach to Earth, less than 25 million miles away. Like Lemmon, you’ll probably need binoculars to see Comet Swan unless you’re in a super dark countryside. Good Luck!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Mike is available for private star parties. You can contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.

Starwatch programs

Tuesday, Oct. 21, 7-9 p.m., Gilfillan Estates in Redwood Falls, Minn. For more information, call Redwood Falls Library at 507-616-7420 or visit redwoodfallslibrary.org/events/month/2025-10.

Wednesday, Oct. 22, 7-9 p.m., Loring Park in Minneapolis. For more information, call 612-230-6400 or visit www.minneapolisparks.org/parks-destinations/parks-lakes/loring_park/

Friday, Oct. 24, 8-10 p.m., in Red Wing. For information and location, call 651-385-4565  or visit www.redwing.k12.mn.us/community-education-homepage/

Saturday, Oct. 25, 7-9 p.m. at Isanti Middle School. For reservation,s call 763-689-6188 or visit www.c-ischools.org/community/community-education

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Finance ministers and central bankers, gathering in Washington for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund, face a global trading system in disarray, uncertainty over the dollar’s standing and the likely course of interest rates, and financial markets that are (for now) unnervingly complacent.

Amid all these challenges, policymakers must pay particular attention to one more: Following years of neglect, public debt has emerged as an increasingly serious risk.

Five years ago, budget deficits soared worldwide because of the pandemic. Lockdowns throttled economic activity and squeezed tax revenue, while public spending surged as governments tried to protect the most vulnerable. Deficits increased from 3.5% of global output in the year before the emergency to 9.5% in 2020. No question, a strong fiscal response was necessary — but, as many argued at the time, it should’ve been reversed in due course. It wasn’t. Even now, deficits are higher than they were in 2019.

Before the pandemic, government debt was 84% of global gross domestic product. It currently stands at 95%. In country after country — including the U.S., the UK and most of the European Union — it’s on track to keep growing faster than output. By 2030, even if all goes well, the global debt ratio might surpass the level it surged to in 2020, when the fiscal emergency was at its worst.

Public debt, to be clear, isn’t bad in itself, and there’s no fixed ceiling on how high it can safely go. But as it rises, so-called fiscal capacity shrinks, leaving governments less room to maneuver when the next crisis comes around. Eventually, a combination of protracted indiscipline, bad economic news and souring financial markets can dig countries into a hole so deep that the only way out is some form of debt default, either explicit or disguised by high inflation.

Attitudes shifted after the global recession of 2008, and they will need to shift back again. Because the post-crash recovery was so sluggish, “austerity” — the effort to roll back the earlier stimulus — got a bad name. There was talk of “secular stagnation” as interest rates fell to historic lows, which were then thought to be permanent. Cheap money for years to come made bigger deficits affordable. Balance the budget? From now on, public borrowing would pay for itself.

The facts have changed, but this mind-set persists. Most U.S. policymakers have simply stopped caring about ever-rising debt. Elsewhere, governments might pay lip service to the need for discipline — in some cases adopting budget rules or creating “fiscal councils” to address the problem — but their actions have fallen short. If long-term inflation-adjusted interest rates outpace economic growth and drift even higher, debt will keep trending upward and deficits will be ever harder to cut.

That’s all too likely. In the U.S. and Europe, aging populations are raising dependency ratios, pushing revenue down and social spending up. Governments are acknowledging the need for bigger defense outlays. New and better infrastructure is urgently required, including for the clean-energy transition. And coping with the next recession, to say nothing of the next pandemic, is a matter of when, not whether.

The only alternative to an eventual fiscal breakdown is to combine spending restraint with new revenue. First, though, policymakers must understand just how vulnerable their economies have become. It’s way past time for them to rediscover budget discipline — and actually plan to do something about it.

— The Bloomberg Opinion Editorial Board

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Famous for its outdoor sculpture garden, Walker Art Center will draw attention indoors with its new exhibit, “Sculpture Court,” featuring works from the center’s archive in a take on the centuries-old tradition of observation.

Curated by Henriette Huldisch, chief curator and director of curatorial affairs, “Sculpture Court” includes 20 pieces interpreting the human form from the early 1900s through 2024.

“Stretching back to the Renaissance, sculpture courts stood as symbols of power and prestige,” according to the exhibition’s description. “Their contents conveyed religious and mythological narratives, demonstrated political authority and consolidated cultural ideals about beauty and style.”

The yearlong exhibition features traditional studies of the human body, like Polish-American sculptor Elie Nadelman’s “Figure,” circa 1925, that greets visitors at the beginning of the space. Its marble female form is flowing and naturalistic in its posing, welcoming its audience into the room.

Made out of marble, the statue stands apart from Nadelman’s traditional sculpture work. Drawing back to the traditional sculpture work of 19th and 20th centuries, Nadelman’s “Figure” resembles the traditional studies of the Venus figurine and its later interpretations by artists such as Alexandros of Antioch and his work “Venus de Milo.”

Nadelman came to New York City in 1914, after working in Paris in his youth. He became a celebrated sculptor for his works that focused on classical forms with folk art influenced before falling into obscurity in the years preceding his death, according to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery.

The piece was gifted to the Walker in 1955 by the T. B. Walker Foundation.

It is contrasted by the bronze sculpture placed behind it, “Femme debout (Standing Woman),” by Spanish artist Joan Miró. The landscape of the form’s body parts morphs, emphasizing different aspects while reducing others, like arms and legs.

Miró was a prolific artist, recognized as a painter, sculptor, printmaker and ceramicist. The Walker’s piece was one of a series of bronze sculptures he made prior to his death in 1983.

Incorporating elements of the female figure in abstraction, Miró originally envisioned this piece as a small, table top sized figurine and not the massive bronze sculpture it would be come, according to an article by Christie’s.

The sculptures somewhat hulking figure contrasts the surrounding pieces, as it exaggerates but does not mock the human figure, inviting further study.

The piece was a gift of the Pierre Matisse gallery and the T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund in 1973.

“It’s, in a way, like a very somewhat quirky and selected survey of 20th century sculpture as represented in our collection,” Huldisch said.

The exhibit is held in Gallery D, a high-ceilinged room that evokes the traditional layout of a sculpture court. It was designed as a twist on the Edinburgh College of Arts at the University of Edinburgh, which invites artists to sit and sketch the figures present.

“It has cathedral-like proportions or much like the proportions of many sculpture courts,” Huldisch said. “So this is, you know, somewhat of a twist on that. Maybe somewhat of a humorous twist.”

All of the pieces featured are from the Walker’s collection, many of which have not been on display in some time.

“A lot of of them, many of us have seen for years, just sitting in storage. So it was really nice to bring some of these up,” Huldisch said.

The assorted figures range in medium, from traditional bronze and marble statues to those made of fiberglass and resin. One sculpture is entirely made out of human hair.

“Hair Necklace,” by Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum, was carefully crafted out of her own hair, with each piece shaped into delicate beads for the necklace. This piece was a favorite of curatorial fellow Laurel Rand-Lewis, who helped organize the exhibit.

“It’s figurative; it’s also a rendering of herself by materials from the body,” Rand-Lewis said. “So this is a bit more abstracted version of that.”

The necklace itself is made out of hair collected from the artist by the artist, as a twist on the self-portrait. While somewhat off-putting in concept, the delicate beads of hair reflect the time and care that was poured into the piece by Hatoum.

Now living in London, the 73-year-old artist communicates her beliefs and struggles through her artwork, like her 1993-99 piece “Keffieh,” which shows her hair woven into the recognizable pattern. This piece is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Both pieces incorporate a sense of Hatoum’s personal history, on display for visitors to observe and absorb.

“Hair Necklace” was gifted to the Walker by Donna MacMillan in 2015.

While featuring sculpture, the exhibit will also have drawing pads and materials for the public to encourage visitors to sit and sketch what they see.

“I hope people will just take an opportunity to wander and spend time and reflect, and maybe sit down to sketch,” Huldisch said.

‘Sculpture Court’

Where: Walker Art Center, 725 Vineland Pl, Mpls.
When: Through Sep. 6, 2026
Tickets: $18, available at walkerart.org

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While the Trump administration has effectively declared war on wind and solar energy — blocking all permitting of projects on federal lands and pushing through a rollback of federal subsidies and tax credits — other nations are embracing renewable energy as a strategy for building economic and political strength.

China remains the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases; however, it has also become the global leader in the manufacturing and deployment of renewable energy, electric vehicles and batteries, achieved through sustained industrial policy support that began a mere two decades ago.

The motivations were not primarily environmental. Chinese leaders saw these technologies as strategic industries of the future, and believed the country that dominated these technologies would gain economic and political advantage in the long run. Thus, clean technologies were included within China’s 2010 “Strategic Emerging Industries” policy and its “Made in China 2025” strategy.

Chinese thought leaders conceived of the strategy in epochal terms. The superpower had missed out on each of the four major waves of technological change that had allowed European powers and the U.S. to become global hegemons, and China’s elites and top academics were determined not to make the same mistake again. China’s Communist Party leadership saw clean technologies as part of a set of innovations, including artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing, that were critical to Chinese modernization and global competition.

That dominance in clean technologies would enable China to position itself as a leader in global climate talks; build stronger ties with Global South countries in need of cheaper, cleaner energy; and reduce choking pollution within China was only further reason to go all in on clean technologies.

This strategy has been wildly successful. Today, China makes more than 70% of solar PV modules, 80% of the cells that compose those modules and 90% of the wafers used to make cells. It manufactures more than 60% of electric vehicles globally and accounts for roughly three-quarters of global battery cell production, with even greater dominance in cathode and anode production and critical mineral processing.

China has rapidly expanded offshore wind capacity and now accounts for more than half of global capacity (41.8 gigawatts), up from just 1 gigawatt in 2015. China’s surge in renewables and electrification is starting to shrink its greenhouse gas emissions while creating the conditions for other countries to move away from fossil fuel use, according to a recent analysis by the think tank Ember. The surge is putting China so far out in front on clean energy that it’s now in a league of its own.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s team is severely hampering the development of clean energy projects in the U.S. and is even threatening existing manufacturing investments. The regulatory assault on renewable energy is broad and plainly at odds with Trump’s declaration of an energy emergency. The attacks on clean energy include the August stop-work order on the Revolution Wind offshore project, which was 80% complete, and the removal of a panoply of support for clean energy in the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.” The recent ICE raid on a multibillion-dollar Hyundai-LG battery plant project in Ellabell, Ga., was an own goal for an administration that claims to be bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.

It doesn’t have to be this way. While Democrats and Republicans have deep disagreements over the risks of climate change and the role of fossil fuels in the future American energy mix, there is a political consensus that Americans can benefit from maximizing the availability of cheaper, more abundant energy. Even Saudi Arabia, the ultimate petrostate, is embracing renewable energy and seeking to acquire half of all its electricity from clean sources by 2030. Several Saudi companies announced a combined investment of $8.3 billion this year to stand up massive new solar and wind projects, the Wall Street Journal recently reported. The desert kingdom is also investing in becoming a major supplier of critical minerals, like lithium, copper and rare earths.

It might sound funny that oil-rich Saudi Arabia is racing to go green. But more electricity from sunshine means more barrels of oil they can save for export to willing buyers. And the truth is that Chinese-made solar panels are now the cheapest and easiest ways to become energy rich.

The rise of China as the clean energy superpower and the ambitions of a country like Saudi Arabia show that the U.S. is thinking small. The Trump administration seems to be thinking about the next three years while rival nations are thinking about the next three decades.

Alex Wang is faculty co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, a professor of law at the UCLA School of Law and author of “Chinese Global Environmentalism” (forthcoming Cambridge 2025). He wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.

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