Cook County festival to celebrate night sky

Cook County is celebrating the night sky with a Dark Sky Festival.

The Cook County Dark Sky Festival runs from Thursday to Saturday and includes events all over the county, from Grand Marais to Grand Portage and at the Gunflint Lodge.

Andrea Jones, public engagement lead for NASA’s Solar System Exploration Division, is coming to give a couple presentations.

“One will be about the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is a spacecraft currently in orbit at the moon. It’s been there for over 13 years now,” Jones said. “And we are learning all kinds of new things about the moon, really understanding it in new ways.”

She said she’ll also explain how the orbiter is paving the way for the Artemis 1 mission now.

Jones said she finds dark skies “beautiful and inspiring.”

“I think they’re a tremendous way of just connecting with the universe. It really helps you understand that you’re part of this tiny little planet in this tiny little part of one little galaxy,” she said. “And I think it just is a sense of awe that you get when you look at a sky that’s just fizzing overhead.”

The Cook County Dark Sky Festival schedule of events can be found here.