All winter long I’ve been meaning to write about the little constellation Aries the Ram, and finally on this last weekend of winter I’m getting around to it. It’s a good thing because Aries is about to leave our nighttime sky as the Earth in its orbit around the sun turns away from that direction in space.

Right after evening twilight look for the distinctive little constellation in the low western sky around 8:30 when it’s finally dark enough. You can use the bright Pleiades star cluster that resembles a tiny version of the Little Dipper. Just to the lower right of the cluster look for two moderately bright stars right next to each other vertically aligned. Just below them and a little to the left is a third dimmer star. That’s it! That’s tiny Aries.

Aries (Mike Lynch)

Together, all three stars kind of, sort of resemble a ram’s horn. The actual constellation is larger than that little horn you see, but most of the rest of the stars of Aries are really faint. The two brighter stars of the horn are Hamal and Sheratan, and the dimmer star below them is Mesarthim. Hamal is a giant star in our Milky Way galaxy that dwarfs our sun with a diameter of at least 13 million miles. Our own sun’s diameter is less than a million miles. A trip to Hamal would require you to put about 65 light-years on your spaceship. In case you’re new to this column, just one light year equals nearly 6 trillion miles.

This is actually a good time of year to talk about Aries the Ram because it has a significant astronomical past. Aries used to be the background constellation the sun occupied when it crossed into the northern sky on the vernal equinox, otherwise known as the first day of spring. This year’s vernal equinox is very early this coming Thursday at 4:01 a.m. Because of the wobble in the Earth’s axis, called precession, the constellation Aries is no longer in the background during the equinox. It’s been replaced by the constellation Pisces the Fish.

So how did Aries the ram get in the night sky? What’s the story? Well like most constellation stories, or what I call celestial soap operas, it’s a sordid tale. Different cultures have different stories, but the one I like the most comes from Greek and Roman mythology. This old yarn is a story of heroism. Aries the ram was one of Zeus’ many pets. Being the king of the Greek gods, Zeus had many pets, but Aries was very special. He wasn’t your everyday ram. His coat was made of golden fleece, and he sported wings, allowing him to fly the friendly skies above Mount Olympus. There was no fencing in this magic ram! Zeus wasn’t exactly the type to be fenced in either. He wasn’t really a faithful follower of the sanctity of marriage and had many girlfriends, even after he married Hera, the queen of the gods.

Anyway, one lovely Mount Olympus afternoon Zeus and his favorite pet ram met several of Zeus’ secret girlfriends for a picnic in a hidden park close to the foot of Mount Olympus. It was quite a time for all concerned. Suddenly, out of the clear blue sky the voice of Helios, the god of the sun, rang out. He was trying desperately to get the attention of Zeus, wherever he was. From the reins of his sun chariot high above everything, Helios could see a group of small children a few miles away that were having a very unfriendly encounter with a really hungry lion.

What happened is that the kids slipped away from their mother at a nearby marketplace, and they became the No. 1 choice on the lion’s lunch menu that day. Helios couldn’t do anything himself because if he left the sun chariot, all you know what could break loose, and the sun could crash to Earth. So, the only thing Helios could do was shout his lungs out for some divine help from Zeus. Finally, the king of the gods heard the screams of Helios and took action. It wasn’t so much that he cared about the kids, but Zeus wanted to impress his posse of ladies. So Zeus pointed Aries in the right direction and sent him flying off on a rescue mission.

The lion was within seconds of reaching the children when, out of the blue, Aries swooped from the sky like a cruise missile. He scooped up the children on his back and flew them off to safety. Aries winged his way back to the local marketplace and reunited the kids with their greatly relieved mother.

For the rest of his life, Aries set out on missions of mercy and rescue. When Aries died, Zeus rewarded him for his bravery and placed his body into the heavens to become the constellation we see today. The little ram did a lot of good!

It has nothing to do with this nice but far-fetched tale of heroism, but again, the first day of spring is this Thursday. I’m guessing that ever since you were a wee lad or lassie, you’ve been told that on the first day of spring, the vernal equinox, that days and nights were equal in length. That’s just not true. Because of astronomical refraction, or the bending of the sun’s rays due to the Earth’s atmosphere, days are already longer than nights by this Friday. So when are days and nights equal? This Monday, on St. Patrick’s day! Yet another reason to celebrate that day!!

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

Friday, March 21, 8-10 p.m., North Oaks, at Chippewa Middle School. For more information and reservations, call 651-621-0020 or visit www.moundsviewschools.org/communityeducation.

Saturday, March 22, 7:45-10 p.m., Prior Lake. For information and location, call 952-447-9820 or visit www.priorlakemn.gov/government/departments/recreation/programs.

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We’ve got John Sandford’s much-anticipated new thriller today, as well as two other worthy additions to the genre.

(Courtesy of Penguin Random House)
John Sanford. (Courtesy of Penguin Random House)

“Lethal Prey”: by John Sandford” (Putnam, $32)

As disturbing as the renewed investigation was, even more worrisome was the cops who were doing it — Davenport and Flowers. She’d never had either of them in court, but knew them by reputation. Flowers seemed to have x-ray vision when it came to solving crimes; Davenport seemed happy to shoot anyone involved. Neither was stupid and both were experienced. — from “Lethal Prey”

Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers take on a decades-old cold case in the 35th in John Sandford’s Prey series. After a dozen thrillers featuring Virgil Flowers, Sandford merged Flowers into the Prey books, much to the consternation of “that f—- Flowers” devoted fans. But the men work well together, with their skills complementing each other’s.

Davenport, a deputy U.S. marshal, and Flowers, who works for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, are tasked with finding the killer of Doris Grandfelt, an employee of an accounting firm whose body was dumped at the edge of an urban park in St. Paul. The killer was never found, partly because nobody knew where the crime took place.

Twenty years later, Doris’s twin sister Lara offers a $5 million reward to anyone who finds the killer. Davenport harnesses the power of the internet by bringing into the plot true-crime bloggers who compete with one another to be first to get news about the investigation online. So Davenport and Flowers use the help of a few of the best bloggers to research details of the old crime. The downside is that Davenport and Flowers, who hate publicity, are filmed by the bloggers and their faces are all over the true-crime sites.

Like all Prey thrillers, the reader knows the identity of the perp, who’s introduced in the first pages. The fun is watching Flowers and Davenport trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together after one of the bloggers discovers the murder weapon using a metal detector. Doris was not raped but her body was battered and the partners believe she was the victim of someone’s rage. They also learn how fallopian tubes can help pin down a woman’s time of death after sex, a typical Sandford piece of unusual information.

This is an odd entry in the Prey series. Davenport and Flowers are still quipping, but there’s a lot of driving around. The most exciting part is when someone torches the barn on the farm belonging to Flowers’ girlfriend Frankie. We expect a furious Flowers to eventually do some serious damage to the perp in an explosive encounter, but that never happens. And the story ends with a cliffhanger, which led some early readers to think they had been sent unfinished books. Sandford hardly needs an abrupt ending to persuade readers to look forward to this next book, since he’s already so popular that there is a fan site devoted to him and his thrillers. Some fans have read the entire series several times. So it will be interesting to see what Sandford devotees think of this one, which this reader gives a B-.

(Courtesy of the author)

“Ruby Red Flaws”: by Joe Golemo (Level Best Books, $16.95)

Joe Golemo (Courtesy of the author)

Now that Sheila’s body was covered, I turned to the MC and whispered, “This is obviously a murder, or she wouldn’t have been wired to the swing. The killer could still be somewhere in the building, and they may even be sitting here right now…” — from “Ruby Red Flaws”

It was an ugly sight. The corpse of the swing girl at Ruby Ray’s Supper Club in Lilydale along Highway 13  was wired onto her trapeze, one hand moving back and forth to the horror of the audience. Among the diners are Grayson Dyle, co-owner of a Twin Cities product design firm, and Kate, his bookkeeper girlfriend who works for Ray, the club owner and husband of the dead woman.

When it’s obvious the woman has been murdered, Kate races to the safe to be sure her employer’s big uncut ruby is still there. It isn’t, and law enforcement accuses Kate of the murder and stealing the ruby, found by Ray in Australia and displayed in an old museum next to the supper club.

Dyle, a nice guy who loves Kate, is determined to find the real killer to clear Kate’s name. He also has been asked by his biological father, a Catholic bishop, to look into a priest who is holding cult-like services at the supper club on Sunday mornings. (Dyle and his brother, who had been adopted, learned of their birth parents in “Design Flaw,” first in this series.)

As Grayson looks for the killer, a lot of information comes out about the rogue priest and the ruby of which of which Ray is so proud. Is there a real stone and a fake? Why would anyone kill Ray’s wife, who everyone admired? The supper club isn’t doing very well financially but can Ray sell the property to build condos overlooking the river that require variances?

Grayson is a likable sleuth, trying to do the best he can for everyone. And the author grounds his story in local color from having a little fun with Edina (“cake-eaters”) to a church that looks like St. James Evangelical Lutheran in West St. Paul and a salute to the real-life Diamond Jim’s club in a mall that is now the site of condos.

Golemo will be at a meet-and-greet from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday at Once Upon a Crime mystery bookstore, 604 W. 26th St., Mpls.

(Courtesy of the author)

“The Turtle-Jack Killings”: by Glenn Ickler (Outskirts Press, $21.95)

Glenn Ickler (Courtesy of the author)

The unexplained replacement of Jimmy Kimmel by Lady T, the TV personality, as the Winter Carnival’s guest of honor could mean that something very special of international importance was going on in the Twin Cities or in Minnesota in general. The presence of Lady T, the Interpol agent, told me that there had to be a major story to be uncovered here. — from “The Turtle-Jack Killings”

This is the 20th thriller featuring newspaper reporter Mitch Mitchell and photographer Alan Jeffrey written by a former editorial writer for the St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press who lives near Boston. The two protagonists are such a close team that their editor refers to them as Siamese twins. The editor is told repeatedly the proper phrase is “conjoined twins,” but he doesn’t care. He just wants good copy before deadline.

Narrated in the first person by Mitch, it’s a story based on turtles; specifically, turtles that will die if a big mining company is allowed to drill for nickel near an American Indian reservation in northern Minnesota. If approved, the mining would drain wetlands and kill the turtles with which the Ojibwe have a special relationship.

When Mitch, Al and two other writers at the St. Paul Daily Dispatch are awarded hand-carved and painted little turtles at a ceremony on the reservation, a woman business writer holds up her turtle and announces that a thumb drive in the turtle’s stomach contains explosive information.

Soon the woman and another of the four colleagues at the ceremony are dead and Al’s home is trashed. Somebody wants that thumb drive.

The trail leads to northern Minnesota, where Al and Mitch interview bored miners waiting for word from the EPA  about whether the project will go ahead. Turns out there might be something more deadly than nickel in someone’s illegal plans. That’s why the intriguing character Lady T,  a Hungarian TV star who works for Interpol, is a guest at the St. Paul Winter Carnival. Mitch and Al met the large lady in a previous book and she is a sort of fairy godmother and protector for them. (There’s a little story within the story here, with Mitch reading all the Treasure Hunt medallion clues, an invitation for readers to figure out the location.)

When Al and Mitch get too close to the secret, they’re “invited” at gunpoint to go ice fishing on a dark night, dressed in heavy clothes that will trap them under the ice. Even their hard-nosed editor might think that’s going a little too far for your job.

Some authors paint the media as an intrusive, uncouth pack of wolves. It’s nice to see the other side from an author who knows what he’s talking about.

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Women’s basketball has not slowed down at all this season as March Madness arrives.

A year ago, the women’s NCAA championship game drew a bigger television audience than the men’s title game for the first time, with an average of 18.9 million viewers watching undefeated South Carolina beat Iowa and superstar Caitlin Clark. The question was whether some fans would step away as Clark, Angel Reese, Kamilla Cardoso and other standouts headed to the WNBA.

Instead, the women’s game has featured a compelling bunch of stars all over again, from Paige Bueckers at UConn to JuJu Watkins at USC, Hannah Hidalgo of Notre Dame and Madison Booker of Texas.

The season has been must-watch viewing for another reason, too: Parity. So far, four teams have held the No. 1 spot in the AP Top 25, tying the mark for the most ever. That makes the tournament winner anyone’s guess after some terrific league title games shoved some teams onto the bubble.

Here’s the bracket for the women’s NCAA tournament:

How can I watch the tournament?

Every game of the women’s tournament will be aired — here is a schedule that will be updated with matchups — on ESPN’s networks and streaming services with select games on ABC.

Who are the favorites?

The top four betting favorites as the tournament approaches are (in order): defending champion South Carolina, UConn and crosstown rivals USC and UCLA, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.

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Who is playing?

There are 31 automatic bids that go to conference champions and they are combined with 37 at-large picks by the NCAA selection committee. Bracket matchups are unveiled on Selection Sunday, March 16

When are the games?

The First Four matchups (March 19-20) and first- and second-round games (March 21-24) are on campus, with sites announced March 16.

Sweet 16 weekend (March 28-31) will see games in two sites once again: Birmingham, Alabama, and Spokane, Washington.

The Final Four is in Tampa, Florida, on Friday, April 4, with the championship game on Sunday, April 6.

Contributing: Associated Press

READINGS BY WRITERS: Hosts novelists Glenn R. Miller, Sally Franson, Julie Schumacher and Charles Baxter. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, University Club, 420 Summit Ave., St. Paul.

 

Ethan Rutherford (Courtesy of the author)

ETHAN RUTHERFORD: Introduces his debut novel, “North Sun: Or, The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther,” in conversation with Matt Burgess. Rutherford, who holds a master’s in creative writing from the University of Minnesota, has published two story collections. He teaches at Trinity College in Connecticut. 6 p.m. Wednesday, Moon Palace Books, 3032 Minnehaha Ave., Mpls.

THREE POETS: Launch reading for Donna Isaac’s “In the Tilling” and Stanley Kusonoki’s “Social Studies,” with Janna Kittel (“Real Work”).  1 p.m. March 23, SubText Books, 6 W. Fifth St., St. Paul.

NIALL WILLIAMS: Discusses “Time of the Child: A Novel,” in conversation with former Star Tribune books editor Laurie Hertzel. 7 p.m. Monday, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls.

What else is going on

Rain Taxi Review of Books announces a new date and venue for the journal’s free Twin Cities Book Festival. The 25th anniversary of the state’s oldest and largest book-focused gathering will be Nov. 8 at the Union Depot in St. Paul instead of the previous venue at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. Rain Taxi editor and festival director Eric Lorberer assures fans that changes will not affect core features: a book fair with publishers, literary organizations, magazines, writing programs, literacy advocates and antiquarian booksellers as well as multiple stages with author readings, talks and activities for all ages. Stay tuned for more news to come.

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