Flying On The Fringe

Bay Star, Baby Planet

Until recently, humans wondered if Earth was the only planet of its kind in the cosmos. (I suppose some still believe that). In recent years, progressively more powerful telescopes have allowed us to peer into the amazing wonders of the universe. Now we KNOW that billions of other stars have planets around them. Some of those are even in the goldilocks zone—able to support water in liquid form. Though, even in our own solar system, we have learned water is not as scarce as we once thought it was. This week, two new amazing discoveries have been announced.

Baby Star:

Astronomers announced on the morning of July 21, 2025, that they’ve discovered a companion star in a tight orbit around the beloved red supergiant star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion, the Hunter. Betelgeuse is the bright star in the upper left of the constellation.

Astrophysicist Steve Howell at NASA Ames Research Center in California led the team that made the discovery. The researchers used a speckle imager on Gemini North called ‘Alopeke’ (‘fox’ in Hawaiian).

The companion appears to be an A- or B-type pre-main-sequence star, that is, a hot, young, blue-white star that has not yet initiated hydrogen burning in its core.

The companion is 6 magnitudes fainter than Betelgeuse and orbits close to Betelgeuse itself, within the supergiant star’s extended outer atmosphere.

Sadly, baby star probably may not a chance to grow up into a full-fledged star. Betelgeuse is a red giant, having already expended all (or most) of its hydrogen, and will eventually explode into a supernova. The companion star is located in the outer layer of Betelgeuse’s atmosphere.

 

Scientists have suspected for some time that Betelgeuse had a companion, and a study in 2024 indicated that if it did, it might not explode for a long time.

Image and information drawn from an article by Paul Scott Anderson in Earthsky.org July 22, 2025.

Baby Panet:

Astronomers may have caught a still-forming planet in action, carving out an intricate pattern in the gas and dust that surrounds its young host star. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), they observed a planetary disk with prominent spiral arms, finding clear signs of a planet nestled in its inner regions. This is the first time astronomers have detected a planet candidate embedded inside a spiral disk.

Francesco Maio, a doctoral researcher at the University of Florence, Italy, lead author of this study, said: “We will never witness the formation of Earth, but here, around a young star 440 light-years away, we may be watching a planet come into existence in real time.”

The potential planet was detected around the star HD 135344B, within a disk of gas and dust called a protoplanetary disk. The budding planet is estimated to be twice the size of Jupiter and as far from its host star as Neptune is from our sun. It has been observed shaping its surroundings within the protoplanetary disk as it grows into a fully formed planet.

Protoplanetary disks have been observed around other young stars, and they often display intricate patterns, such as rings, gaps or spirals. Astronomers have long predicted that these structures are caused by baby planets, which sweep up material as they orbit around their parent star. But, until now, they had not caught one of these planetary sculptors in the act.

Source: ESO: Unveiling a protoplanet candidate embedded in the HD 135344B disk with VLT/EEIS, posted by Earth Sky Voices July 23, 2025, on Earthsky.com

If you haven’t ever been to Bass Pro in the Springfield, Missouri, you’re missing out on a treat. Even if you don’t intend to shop there (you may changed your mind) it’s worth a visit. Inside, air conditioned, and FREE, it’s a great summer outing for the family. (No, I don’t work for them. My husband shops there, and I have fun hanging out.)

I especially love the alligator. That’s right. Live alligator. If you’re lucky he’ll be swimming, not just lying around.

And pools with live fish.

 

 

 

The entire store is a nature museum in itself, with dozens of wildlife exhibits. You’ll want to stroll the entire store (it is HUGE). Watch for deer, elk, and bears, probably wolves, too, but I seem to have missed them.

 

 

Don’t miss the second floor, accessible by an escalator in the front lobby. There’s also a free museum on this level.

 

Of course, Bass Pro is also home to the Wonders of Wildlife Museum and Aquarium, considered one of the best in the U.S. It’s pricey, but worth it.

Have fun friends, and stay cool.

June 23 is National Typewriter Day. Members of the Mid South Writers  gathered at the Barry County Museum last week to look over the museum’s impressive collection of antique typewriters.

Why bother to pay homage to the typewriter? Of course, it’s the forerunner of our modern word processors. When I get frustrated with my computer while writing, I remind myself what it was like to type term papers on a manual typewriter.

The first typewriter proven to have worked was built by the Italian Pellegrino Turri in 1808 for his blind friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano. Carey Wallace’s 2010 novel The Blind Contessa’s New Machine is based on the relationship between the Countess and Turri. (https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-history.html).

Christopher Sholes invented the first practical typewriter and introduced the keyboard layout that is familiar today—often referred to as the QWERTY keyboard after the first six letters from the left in the top row. I remember an Underwood like the one on the left from my childhood. They were produced from 1900 to about 1932.

Ever wonder why we have such a bizarre layout of keys, as opposed to a simple alphabetical layout? As Sholes experimented with his invention, he discovered that the letters would jam when the keys were arranged in alphabetical order. The layout he developed intersperses less-frequently used letters with the more common ones. Nevertheless, even a moderately fast typist could jam a typewriter with the common “type basket” style of keys. (I can vouch for that personally!)

I learned to type at the insistence of my mother when I was in 7th grade. I used a Smith Corona portable, which looked a lot like the one on the right I carried this baby to a rodeo one night when I was in high school, so I could type my article in time to meet the late-night deadline for the Kansas City Times. Then it followed me to college where it was used for every term paper all the way through graduate school. (Does that give you a clue as to how old I am?)

I started my newspaper career in about 5th grade when I wrote a monthly 4-H column for the Johnson County, Kansas, newspaper. In high school, I wrote articles for the Kansas City Star Youth Page on a regular basis. How did I fall into that so young? My mother, of course. My grandmother was the switchboard operator for the Kansas City Kansan when my mother was growing up. Later Mom became a reporter for the same paper, and my father was a photographer. Mom taught me to write, and Dad taught me the photography.

In high school, I not only wrote for the Youth Page, I sometimes submitted photos, and had a few articles in the main paper. Photography became my 4-H project, and my Dad bought me a full set of used developing equipment. I developed my own black-and-white film and photos in my homemade darkroom.

The skills I learned from my parents proved useful in every job I had, even though I didn’t become a journalist until after my own kids were in school and I became a “stringer,” (free-lance reporter) for the Cassville Democrat.

I got to attend Tremendicon in Springfield this weekend—always a lot of fun. For those who aren’t familiar, “con” is short for conference, but the ones with “con” in the name, often a “comicon,” are a unique category. By and large, they are based on anime (a form of adult animated television show that originated in Japan). If you’ve ever heard of a “Pokemon” you’ve heard of one of the most popular animes.

Cosplay—costume play—is an important aspect of the cons. Fans put a tremendous amount of time and effort into creating elaborate costumes to dress as their favorite anime characters, or as their own unique characters. (Mine is an evil alien queen, though I didn’t wear it this year.)

These two ladies are from Phantoms, an all-women armored combat team. It’s all a great deal of fun. You can check them out on Facebook at Phantoms-Women’s Armored Combat.  https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=phantoms-women%20s%20armored%20combat

It’s much more than fun and games, however. Most cons offer a series of seminars and panels covering a variety of topics. Tremendicon is one of my favorite, as it has three or more tracks of seminars geared to writers, gamers, artists, and movie producers.

The first con I ever attended was Planet Comicon in Kansas City. There I attended a physics lecture that greatly impacted my science fiction writing. I’ve also been to comicon seminars on space travel, publishing, and writing. As a science fiction writer, I gain as much useful intel from the cons as I do from writers conferences.

One of the nice aspects of these groups is the atmosphere of total acceptance. For a weekend, you can be anyone or anything you want, from a mushroom to Iron Man. On the right, Jo Moser was kind enough to pose for me.

My younger son, Matt, used Tremendicon to check out the progress some fellow game developers had made on their tabletop RPG games and to pick up tips on self-publishing.

In the photo  above he’s meeting with the developer of a game called Trinamyk. You can check that game out at www.trinamyk.com.

Matt’s tabletop RPG, Calamitas, should be released early next year. You can keep tabs on his progress at www.calamitasrpg.com. Be sure to sign up for his email list so you’ll always get the latest news.

In addition, at Tremendicon you can always count on Lego artists and the Ghostbusters to put on a show, and this year, a zombie car.

 

Keep having

fun my friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lessons learned in my childhood:

• Don’t put chocolate bunnies in a sunny window.
• Count your eggs before you hide them.
• Dogs can’t eat chocolate.
• Ants love chocolate.
• Don’t eat the prettiest eggs first.
• Make Dad be careful the first time he mows.
• Share with your sister.

Things I learned when I was older:

Christ is risen.

Like Him we rise.

Christ is real, always with us.

I hope all of you have had a chance to truly meet Christ on a personal level. If not yet, I hope that experience awaits you. It doesn’t have to be in church—in fact it rarely happens there. For my son, it happened one morning walking across the basement.

The first time I truly met Christ I was alone in my bedroom at night. I was supposed to be confirmed in church the following morning, though this was my second confirmation, a different church from the one I grew up in. I awaited the next day with absolute dread. I was secure in my belief in God and Jesus, but not at all sure I wanted to be committed to a particular breed of church.

As I worried over the issue, a tremendous feeling of peace came over me. The phrase often used is “peace that surpasses understanding.” It’s difficult to comprehend the meaning of that phrase unless you’ve actually experienced it. It overwhelms you, and there is no doubt in your mind whatsoever of its origin. Then He spoke to me. “Wait. When it is time, I will show you the way.”

That’s it. No further elaboration. I didn’t need it. The words came into my mind, but they were as distinct and clear as if my ears had heard them. And I knew exactly who said them. I knew then I shouldn’t show up for confirmation the next morning.

My failure to appear caused quite a kerfuffle. The minister came to visit my parents, wanting to know why I hadn’t shown up to join the church. I told him the truth. “I don’t feel the presence of God in your church.”

If you can imagine, he told me, “You’re being idealistic. You can’t feel the presence of God.”

I was stunned. I am still saddened that there are many pastors leading their congregations in blindness, because indeed, not only have they never felt the presence of God in their own lives, they don’t even believe it’s possible.

I knew because that night before was not the only time I’d felt the presence of God, though it was the first (and only) time I was spoken to. When my family moved from the suburbs of Kansas City to a rural area, I began attending a small rural church. My Sunday School class was relegated to the room near the top of the bell tower. It was hot—no air conditioning vent up there—and there was a wasp’s nest in the ceiling.

Yet the first time I joined the class, I felt it—that feeling of warmth, peace, and acceptance. I knew God was in that room. Unfortunately, I did not feel that in the church I had planned to join.

Many years later, I stepped through the sanctuary doors of another new church—and instantly knew I had found home. It had been so long since God had told me He would show me the way, that I had completely forgotten about that. After attending the church for a while, I did remember, and realized He had kept his promise. Not the next day, or the next year, but when the time was right. His time.

So I pray for all of you my friends that you my be led to the right path at the right time—God’s time.

I got buzzed by a hummingbird while enjoying an exceptionally warm day on Sunday. These little guys must have a calendar in their heads, though this one was two days early. Normally, I can count on the first one showing up on April 15, and they disappear in unison on October 15. Last fall they left a full two weeks early, prompting me to stock up for what I thought would be a terrible winter. It wasn’t terrible, but we did have two six-inch snows, the most we’ve had since we moved to our sweet country retreat in Southwest Missouri in 1999. While we were trying to build our house, we had two 11-inch snows a week apart. Haven’t seen anything like that since. Figures, since it set our building efforts back by two weeks and cost us a bundle of extra money for the out-of-state construction crew.

Guess my little feathered friend means it’s finally time to gear up for spring. March is supposed to “come in like a lion and go out like a lamb.” Not this year. So far, April is stacking up to be our normal March. Temperatures are still trending a little below normal. Though we haven’t had any severe weather in our community, tornadoes have already ravaged other areas.

When the weather is nice, I love to do my writing on my front porch. My hummingbird feeder sits a few feet from me where I can watch their show. I’ve written at least one space battle based on their antics.

Happy spring everyone!

I attended the Las Vegas Writers Conference last week. Had a lot of fun and learned a lot. My favorite view of the city was this dome which changed it’s design about every 2 minutes. Check my Tiktok for videos of the happy face.

Conferences like this one always help get me back on track when I’ve fallen off. The hotel, The Orleans, was amazing—biggest one I’ve ever seen (first-hand) let alone stayed in. The first floor was a full casino. My friend Prix, who attended the conference with me, tried her hand at Roulette.

 

I put a dollar in one of the slot machines, won $3, pulled the crank a couple more times and won “credits” for more spins. Altogether I think I got about eight pulls for my $1. That was the sum total of my gambling. I’m a chicken.

 

The hotel was largely alligator themed. My favorite bar had a giant alligator head sticking out of the front. I took a photo, but didn’t have my glasses on, so it didn’t turn out well (not because I’d been drinking, you understand). However, this is a pic of my favorite statue at one of the entrances.

Favorite seminar—hard to say. No pics–I was taking notes furiously and couldn’t stop to get a shot. Learned some new info about marketing (bane of a writer’s existence) and about developing my character’s arc. Also had a chance to pitch to some publishers—got positive responses from all three, but I think I have some more work to do before I take the next step.

In addition to learning a lot, I had the chance to reunite with my west coast cousins whom I hadn’t seen for over 60 years. We had soooooo much fun. Left to right below, Page, Jan, and me. Can you see the family resemblance?

Keep watching my FB page and this blog for updates on my writing journey.

We spent the weekend at Lake of the Ozarks. The views were pretty, but I’m really an ocean girl. Odd, since I’ve never gotten to live anywhere within reasonable driving distance of the ocean. I’ve always been solidly stuck in the middle of the country.

Lake of the Ozarks was terribly built up. To me, it ruins the ambience. I’d rather see more shoreline. I also miss looking out and being able to see nothing but endless ocean. Seeing the opposite shore makes me feel hemmed in.

Lakes don’t have the same scent, or sound, or feel. Call me crazy, but I love the scent of salt water air. I remember the first time I took my family to the ocean. We were probably still ten miles from the coast, but I could smell it in the air. It gave me such a sense of elation and, at the same time, peace. Like I was finally released from a cage.

We did get to take a sunset cruise, which was beautiful.

 

And at least I got some waves while the boat was moving.

Very nice boat called “Celebration.” I got to have a Margarita. Since I normally drive everywhere we go, that’s as vacation perk for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lakes only have waves slapping against the shore when a high-speed boat goes by. In the mornings and at night it is almost silent. I want to hear the constant rhythm of the waves. It’s hard to get a hotel room within hearing distance of the ocean, but my ideal would be to fall asleep to the ocean sounds. I think I could sleep on a boat if I ever got the chance. (I’m not prone to sea sickness, fortunately.)

There were a few gulls on Lake of the Ozarks, but nothing like the abundance of gulls near the ocean. I love those little thieves. I love feeding them—they are so brazen. Just don’t hold out a piece of food you intend to eat yourself. A friend of mine told me a funny story once. When she and her family were vacationing in Florida, her little boy was standing on the balcony eating a Twinkie. You guessed it. A gull swooped down and snatched it right out of his hand.

All in all it was a nice, relaxing break from the hectic pace of everyday living.

But I miss the ocean.