whats a wandering star

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Wand'rin' Star by Lee Marvin

Songfacts®:

• The 1969 musical Paint Your Wagon cost an estimated $20 million to produce but grossed less than $32 million at the American box office. That may have been disappointing, but the song "Wand'rin' Star" was anything but. Performed by Lee Marvin in a deep, soporific voice, it topped the UK chart for 3 weeks in 1970, and was also #1 in Ireland. The song finds Marvin singing about his peripatetic lifestyle that takes him to California for the Gold Rush.
• The song appeared too in the 1951 Broadway version; it was composed by Frederick Loewe and written by Alan Jay Lerner. The Marvin single version - which was performed with a male chorus - was arranged and orchestrated by Nelson Riddle.
• The B-side was another song from the same film, " I Still See Elisa ," which was performed by Clint Eastwood. >> Suggestion credit : Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 3
• More songs from Lee Marvin
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• Lyrics to Wand'rin' Star

Comments: 3

• Keith E Johnson from Olathe Ks My family and friends all absolutely loved the movie version of "Paint Your Wagon"!!
• Adrian Chan from Malaysia The spookiest song I've ever heard! Gives me goose pimples!
• Greg from Shelbyville, Ky Long one of my favorite movies. This song got a lot of airplay in the US, at least on what we would now call Adult Contemporary stations. Back then, they were Middle of the Road (MOR).

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WHAT IS A WANDERING STAR?

Wandering stars, also called ‘intergalactic stars’, ‘intracluster stars’ or ‘rogue stars’, are stars that are not gravitationally tied to a par ticular galaxy – they exist between galaxies. These stars, first discovered in 1997, probably formed inside galaxies, but were later expelled, perhaps during galaxy mergers or by a close encounter with a supermassive black hole. Astronomers estimate that rogue stars comprise between 15–50 per cent of all stars in galaxy clusters. The Virgo galaxy cluster, for example, contains perhaps 1 trillion rogue stars! Closer to home, at least 675 rogue stars have been found between the Milk y Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. AG

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Science News Explores

Explainer: what is a planet.

Over the years, definitions have changed several times

Saturn is one of the more visually striking of our solar system’s true planets. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft snapped a series of pictures of this, the  sixth planet, on October 6, 2004. Those images were manipulated to create this complete shot of the planet and its rings.

NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

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By Jennifer Cutraro

October 8, 2008 at 7:28 pm

The ancient Greeks first coined the name “planet.” The term means “wandering star,” explains David Weintraub. He’s an astronomer at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Aristotle, a Greek philosopher who lived more than 2,000 years ago, identified seven “planets” in the sky. These are the objects that today we call the sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. This view of planets would hold for the next 1,500 years, Weintraub notes.

“The seven planets according to the Greeks were the seven planets at the time of the Copernicus,” he says. “And those seven included the sun and the moon.”

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer. In the early 1500s, he suggested that the sun, and not the Earth, was at the center of what we today call the solar system. By doing that, he removed the sun from the list of planets. Then, in 1610,  Galileo Galilei pointed a telescope at the sky. In doing so, this Italian mathematician saw not only Jupiter but also four of its moons.

Later in that century, astronomers Christiann Huygens and Jean-Dominique Cassini spotted five additional objects orbiting Saturn. We now know them as moons. But at the end of the 1600s, astronomers agreed to call them planets. That brought the total number of apparent planets to 16.

Between then and the early 1900s, the number of planets fluctuated. From that high of 16, it later fell to six. That’s when the objects circling planets were reclassified as moons. With the 1781 discovery of Uranus, the planet count bumped up to seven. Neptune was discovered in 1846. Later, it jumped to 13 as telescopes unveiled several objects orbiting the sun from a distance between Mars and Jupiter. Today we call these objects asteroids . And now we know even asteroids can have moons . Finally, in 1930 little Pluto was spotted orbiting the sun from a cold, distant outpost.

Clearly, scientists have been naming, re-naming and categorizing parts of the solar system ever since people began following the paths of objects in the night sky, thousands of years ago. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union defined Pluto in a way that kicked it out of the planet tribe.

But wait…the definition of planet may not be settled.

“The word has changed meanings many times, for many different reasons,” noted Lisa Grossman in a 2021 Science News review of the science . “So there’s no reason,” she says, “why it couldn’t be changed once more.” Indeed, she cited scientists who are now arguing that Pluto should be given back its planet status. And some scientists suspect yet another planet may be orbiting the sun well beyond Pluto .

Nor are planets found only in our solar system. Astronomers have been logging stars throughout our galaxy that also appear to host their own planets. To differentiate these from planets in our solar system, those around other stars are now referred to as  exoplanets . As of March 2022, the count of known exoplanets had already topped 5,000 .

Note : This story has been periodically updated to account for emerging developments in planetary science and discovery.

Aristotle : An ancient Greek philosopher who lived during the 300s B.C. He studied many scientific topics, including biology, chemistry, physics and zoology. But science was far from his only interest. He also probed ethics, logic, government and politics — the underpinnings of what would become European culture.

asteroid : A rocky object in orbit around the sun. Most asteroids orbit in a region that falls between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers refer to this region as the asteroid belt.

astronomer : A scientist who works in the field of research that deals with celestial objects, space and the physical universe.

exoplanet : Short for extrasolar planet, it’s a planet that orbits a star outside our solar system.

galaxy : A group of stars — and usually invisible, mysterious dark matter — all held together by gravity. Giant galaxies, such as the Milky Way, often have more than 100 billion stars. The dimmest galaxies may have just a few thousand. Some galaxies also have gas and dust from which they make new stars.

host : (in biology and medicine) The organism (or environment) in which some other thing resides. Humans may be a temporary host for food-poisoning germs or other infective agents. (v.) The act of providing a home or environment for something.

Jupiter : (in astronomy) The solar system’s largest planet, it has the shortest day length (9 hours, 55 minutes). A gas giant, its low density indicates that this planet is composed mostly of the light elements hydrogen and helium. This planet also releases more heat than it receives from the sun as gravity compresses its mass (and slowly shrinks the planet).

Mars : The fourth planet from the sun, just one planet out from Earth. Like Earth, it has seasons and moisture. But its diameter is only about half as big as Earth’s.

mercury : Sometimes called quicksilver, mercury is an element with the atomic number 80. At room temperature, this silvery metal is a liquid. Mercury is also very toxic. Sometimes called quicksilver, mercury is an element with the atomic number 80. At room temperature, this silvery metal is a liquid. Mercury is also very toxic. (in astronomy and here the term is capitalized) The smallest in our solar system and the one whose orbit is closest to our sun. Named after a Roman god (Mercurius), one year on this planet lasts 88 Earth days, which is shorter than one of its own days: Each of those lasts 175.97 times as long as a day on Earth. (in meteorology) A term sometimes used to refer to the temperature. It comes from the fact that old thermometers used to use how high mercury rose within a tube as a gauge for temperature.

moon : The natural satellite of any planet.

philosopher : Researchers (often in university settings) who ponder fundamental truths about relationships between things, including people and the world. The term also is used to describe truth seekers in the ancient world, ones who sought to find meaning and logic out of observing the workings of society and of the natural world, including the universe.

planet : A large celestial object that orbits a star but unlike a star does not generate any visible light.

Pluto : A distant world that is located in the Kuiper Belt, just beyond Neptune. Known as a dwarf planet, Pluto is the ninth largest object orbiting our sun.

Saturn : The sixth planet out from the sun in our solar system. One of the two gas giants, this planet takes 10.6 hours to rotate (completing a day) and 29.5 Earth years to complete one orbit of the sun. It has at least 82 moons. But what most distinguishes this planet is the broad and flat plane of bright rings that orbit it.

solar system : The eight major planets and their moons in orbit around our sun, together with smaller bodies in the form of dwarf planets, asteroids, meteoroids and comets.

star : The basic building block from which galaxies are made. Stars develop when gravity compacts clouds of gas. When they become hot enough, stars will emit light and sometimes other forms of electromagnetic radiation. The sun is our closest star.

sun : The star at the center of Earth’s solar system. It is about 27,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Also a term for any sunlike star.

telescope : Usually a light-collecting instrument that makes distant objects appear nearer through the use of lenses or a combination of curved mirrors and lenses. Some, however, collect radio emissions (energy from a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum) through a network of antennas.

Venus : The second planet out from the sun, it has a rocky core, just as Earth does. Venus lost most of its water long ago. The sun’s ultraviolet radiation broke apart those water molecules, allowing their hydrogen atoms to escape into space. Volcanoes on the planet’s surface spewed high levels of carbon dioxide, which built up in the planet’s atmosphere. Today the air pressure at the planet’s surface is 100 times greater than on Earth, and the atmosphere now keeps the surface of Venus a brutal 460° Celsius (860° Fahrenheit).

More Stories from Science News Explores on Planets

Let’s learn about meteorites

Huge polygons on Mars hint its equator may once have been frozen

Jupiter has a never-before-seen jet stream — and it’s speedy

Analyze This: Neptune’s cloud cover syncs up with the solar cycle

In a first, astronomers spot the aftermath of an exoplanet smashup

Four researchers on Earth are spending a year on ‘Mars’

Lightning dances through Jupiter’s skies much like it does on Earth 

In a first, telescopes have caught a star eating a planet

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Wandering stars pass through our solar system surprisingly often

Every 50,000 years or so, a nomadic star passes near our solar system. Most brush by without incident. But, every once in a while, one comes so close that it gains a prominent place in Earth’s night sky, as well as knocks distant comets loose from their orbits.

The most famous of these stellar interlopers is called Scholz’s Star. This small binary star system was discovered in 2013. Its orbital path indicated that, about 70,000 years ago, it passed through the Oort Cloud, the extended sphere of icy bodies that surrounds the fringes of our solar system. Some astronomers even think Scholz’s Star could have sent some of these objects tumbling into the inner solar system when it passed.

However, Scholz’s Star is relatively small and rapidly moving, which should have minimized its effect on the solar system. But in recent years, scientists have been finding that these kinds of encounters happen far more often than once expected. Scholz’s Star wasn’t the first flyby, and it won’t be the last. In fact, we’re on track for a much more dramatic close encounter in the not-too-distant future.

“[Scholz’s Star] probably didn’t have a huge impact, but there should be many more stars that have passed through that are more massive,” astronomer Eric Mamajek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose 2015 paper in Astrophysical Journal Letters put Scholz’s Star on the map, tell Astronomy.

What we can learn from the life cycles of stars? Astronomy ’s free downloadable eBook, Stars: The galaxy’s building blocks contains everything you need to know about how stars live, die, and change their galactic homes over time.

The discovery of ‘Scholz’s Star

Around Christmas 2013, Mamajek was visiting a friend and fellow astronomer, Valentin Ivanov, at the offices of the European Southern Observatory in Santiago, Chile. While the two chatted, Ivanov was looking at recent observations of a star cataloged as WISE J072003.20–084651.2.

The star caught Mamajek’s interest because it was just about 20 light-years away, but astronomers hadn’t noticed it thanks to its dim nature and tiny apparent movement (or proper motion) across our night sky.

To him, those two things were a clue. Since it didn’t appear to be moving much side to side, the star was likely moving toward us or away from us at a breathtaking pace. As the astronomers continued talking, Ivanov measured the star’s radial velocity to learn how quickly it was moving toward or away from our Sun. Soon, they had their answer.

“Within five or 10 minutes, we had the initial results that this thing came within a parsec [3.26 light-years] of the Sun,” Mamajek says. “It was screaming through the solar neighborhood.”

The two astronomers and their colleagues would eventually show that it passed even closer than that. In fact, it passed closer to our Sun than any other known star. This status prompted them to name the cosmic trespasser after its initial discoverer, an astronomer named Ralf-Dieter Scholz, who’s devoted significant time to finding nearby stars.

All the other passing suns

Mamajek has since moved on from studying Scholz’s Star. But in the meantime, other astronomers have also taken up the work. And, thanks to a European Space Agency satellite called Gaia, which is built to map the precise locations and movements of over a billion stars, we now know about other close encounters.

In 2018, a team of researchers led by Coryn Bailer-Jones of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, used Gaia data to plot our Sun’s future meet-ups with other stars. They discovered nearly 700 stars that will pass within 15 light-years of our solar system over just the next 15 million years. However, the vast majority of close encounters have yet to be discovered, the team suggests. But they suspect roughly 20 stars should pass within just a couple light-years of us every million years.

However, “space is big,” Mamajek points out. “Statistically, most of those stars would pass the outer edge of our solar system.” That means encounters like the one with Scholz’s Star are common, but only a few are close enough to actually dislodge a significant number of comets,

Nonetheless, a few stars should still come surprisingly close. And if a large, slow-moving star did pass through the edge of the Oort Cloud, it could really shake up the solar system.

The ‘strongest disrupting encounter’ in history

A massive star steamrolling through the outer solar system is exactly what Gaia data show will happen less than 1.4 million years from now, according to a 2016 study. A star called Gliese 710 will pass within 10,000 astronomical units — 1 AU is equal to the average Earth-Sun distance of 93 million miles. That’s well within the outer edge of the Oort Cloud.

At half the mass of the Sun, Gliese 710 is much larger than Scholz’s Star, which is just 15 percent the mass of the Sun. This means Gliese 710’s hulking gravity could potentially wreak havoc on the orbits of icy bodies in the Oort Cloud. And while Scholz’s Star was so tiny it would have been barely visible in the night sky — if at all — Gliese 710 is larger than our current closest neighbor, Proxima Centauri. So when Gliese 710 reaches its closest point to Earth, it will burn as a brilliant orange orb that will outshine every other star in our night sky.

This event could be “the strongest disrupting encounter in the future and history of the solar system,” the authors wrote in their paper , published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics .

Fortunately, the inner solar system is a relatively tiny target, and even if Gliese 710 does send comets flying our way, it would take millions of additional years for these icy bodies to reach us. That should give any surviving future humans plenty of time to take action.

And in the meantime, they can enjoy watching what may be one of the closest stellar flybys in the history of our solar system.

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Spot These Wandering Stars In June's Night Sky

This week, three bright planets continue to vie for our attention in the evening sky: Silvery Jupiter appears in the west-southwest, while orange-yellow Mars and yellow Saturn glow brightly, low in the southeast. Stargazers see the planets move across the sky throughout the year, but even the unmoving stars behind them aren't as steadfast as they appear.

"Wandering stars" is a term usually applied to the planets. When ancient stargazers created the original constellations thousands of years ago, they called the stars that formed those constellations "fixed," because they appeared rooted in their relative positions to each other. But the planets were different, because they seemingly had the freedom to wander at will among the stars. 

In fact, the stars are far from fixed; if we wait around long enough, we will see them change their positions, too. One fine example can be found high in the southern sky during the mid-to-late evening hours:  the brilliant yellow-orange jewel known as Arcturus , which is the brightest star in the kite-shaped constellation of Boötes, the Herdsman. It's about 37 light-years away and is 180 times more luminous than Earth's sun. [ Constellations of the Night Sky: Famous Star Patterns Explained (Gallery) ]

Runaway Star

Arcturus appears to shift its "fixed" position in the sky much more rapidly than most of the other bright stars (the sole exception is Alpha Centauri). Arcturus appears to whiz through space at a speed of some 90 miles per second in the direction of the constellation Virgo. From Earth, it appears to move toward Virgo by about 1 degree (which is about twice the apparent width of a full moon) over a time span of about 1,500 years. We are thus very fortunate to live at a time when the distance separating Arcturus and Earth's solar system is nearly at its minimum. It will continue to approach the Earth for several thousand years more, but then it will pass us as it continues to move toward Virgo, and its distance from us will then begin to steadily increase. Computations show that in approximately 500,000 years, it will probably have moved away from the Earth as far as 800 light-years and likely will have faded completely from naked-eye visibility.

Edmund Halley was the first to discover the star's motion back in 1718. Some believe, however, that Halley was not the first to notice the rapid motion of Arcturus.

A good friend of mine, George Lovi, who passed away in 1993, wrote the column "Ramblings" for "Sky & Telescope" magazine for over two decades . He cites an intriguing statement in Job 38:32:

" ... or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?" 

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It was always George's contention that this Biblical quote did not refer to Arcturus' travels across the night sky, but rather to its proper motion, which during the millennia spanning ancient times was certainly great enough for careful observers to notice. "Alas," he noted, "Here is yet another mystery from those mists of antiquity."

Subtle differences

Although all the stars are moving rapidly helter-skelter through space at varying speeds that are measured in miles per second, their movements are not apparent to the human eye, even over a person's lifetime. However, if it were possible for someone to live for, say, 500 years, there would be some subtle differences. During the time of Columbus, for instance, the bright star Altair in Aquila, the Eagle — one of the three stars that make up the Summer Triangle — formed a much straighter line with its two dimmer flanking stars, Alshain and Tarazed.

Alpha Centauri , which I mentioned earlier, is at present the sun's nearest stellar neighbor at just 4.3 light-years away. Over the next 28,000 years, its distance from Earth will decrease to just 3.1 light years, and it will shift noticeably northward, becoming visible — albeit low in the southern sky — for midnorthern latitudes. The star will be nearly twice as bright as it appears now. And by the year A.D. 50,000, it will cross into the northern half of the sky.

But the movement of the stars through space is not the only thing that causes their positions to shift. Because the Earth is an oblate spheroid — slightly flattened at the poles and a bit thicker around the equator — the planet's axis wobbles in a fashion somewhat similar to a slowing-down top. While the tilt of Earth's axis remains the same (23.5 degrees), its wobbling motion traces a circle. Stars on or near this circle become the North Star, successively, over the course of about 25,700 years (the exact value is still not known). This time span is called the Platonic Year. [ Saturn at Opposition, Jupiter's Moons and a Comet In June 2016 Skywatching ]

Different stars for different seasons

Earth's current North Star, Polaris, remains in very nearly the same spot in the sky all year round, while the other stars circle around it. Only the apparent width of about 1.5 full moons separates Polaris from the pivot point directly north, around which the stars go daily — the spot in the sky to which the Earth's axis is pointing.  

But, as discussed earlier, the wobble of the Earth's axis (called precession) causes the celestial pole to shift as the centuries go by. Polaris is actually still drawing closer to the pole and, on March 24, 2100, it will be as close to it as it will ever come, just 27.15 arc-minutes (slightly less than the moon's apparent diameter). And different stars have become the North Star at different times. The brightest star in the bowl of the Little Dipper, Kochab, was the North Star at the time of Plato, around 400 B.C. In A. D. 10,000, the first-magnitude star Deneb in Cygnus, the Swan, will be near enough to the pole to be considered as the North Star, followed 4,000 years later by the brilliant blue-white star Vega in Lyra, the Lyre. 

The four points in the sky marking the start of the four seasons will shift as well over time. At the moment, for instance, summer begins with the sun shining in the constellation of Taurus and winter begins with the sun in Sagittarius. But 12,000 years from now, the situation will be reversed: summer will start with the sun in Sagittarius and winter will begin with the sun in Taurus. 

This doesn't mean that summer will begin in December and winter will begin in June — the start of each season will still occur in the same months that they do now. But what this does mean is that when Vega is Earth's North Star in A.D. 14,000, summer constellations that are currently low or invisible from midnorthern latitudes, such as Sagittarius, Scorpius and the Southern Cross, will rise high into the sky during December and January. And the bright stars that currently adorn the winter sky, Orion, Taurus and Gemini, will be very low or partly invisible during June and July. In fact, Sirius, the brightest star, will never rise above the horizon for northerners and will be observable only from the tropics and points south of the equator.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmer's Almanac and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York. Follow us @Spacedotcom , Facebook and Google+ . Original article on Space.com .

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Joe Rao is Space.com's skywatching columnist, as well as a veteran meteorologist and eclipse chaser who also serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmers' Almanac and other publications. Joe is an 8-time Emmy-nominated meteorologist who served the Putnam Valley region of New York for over 21 years. You can find him on Twitter and YouTube tracking lunar and solar eclipses, meteor showers and more. To find out Joe's latest project, visit him on Twitter.

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wandering star

Definition of wandering star

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What are the wandering stars?

Were you surprised? Why or why not?

Which planets move the most quickly in their orbits around the Sun? Which planets move the most slowly?

Reveal answer

The planets closest to the Sun move the most quickly in their orbits. The planets farthest from the Sun move the most slowly. (Mercury is the fastest, Neptune is the slowest.)

People used to think that planets were a type of star. Now we know that planets are worlds. Why did we change our minds about them?

Answers will vary. Here's an example of an accurate answer: We changed our minds about planets being stars when the telescope was invented. Through the telescope, we could see that the planets are worlds, not stars.

In the old view of planets, would the Earth be considered a planet? Why or why not?

The Earth would not have been considered a planet! For ancient people, the word 'planets' meant those stars in the sky that move around from week to week. They didn't know the Earth was a planet going around the Sun.

Okay so now you've seen real, close-up photographs from Mars, Venus, and Mercury. What planets are we missing?

The other planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Are you ready to see some real pictures of them, and hear some cool facts? Let's watch the next video!

Assessments

Ela activity, below are ideas for extending this topic beyond the activity & exploration which you just completed..

• Lesson Assessment and Answer Key
• Reading: "Galileo"

ELA Activity: My Very Educated Mother

• Activity: Your Age & Weight on Other Worlds
• Research Projects: Combine science and creative writing with Travel Poster & To Live on Another Planet
• Video: A 7-minute video about building a scale model of the solar system in the Nevada desert.
• Distance Learning Resource: Use chalk to make a model of the solar system outside.

This sentence will help you remember the planets in order, starting closest to the sun: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos. Just think of a planet that starts with the first letter of each word: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and so on. Have students create and illustrate with their own sentences to help them remember.

Extra Activity: Age & Weight on Other Worlds

Have your students use online calculators to figure out their age on other planets and their weight on other planets .

Project: Travel Poster

Let each student choose a favorite planet and create a travel poster extolling its virtues as a vacation spot, using fun facts about planets . Two other useful sources of information include PlanetsFor Kids.org and NinePlanets.org .

Project: To Live on Another Planet

Have students write about the challenges of living on another planet. Prompt them to describe what the landscape on this planet looks like. What would the weather be like there? How long is a day? How long is the year? What would they need to survive on this planet?

Make a Model of the Solar System

Make a map of the solar system -- using chalk on the sidewalk. You’ll need 90 feet of sidewalk to get all the way to Neptune!

• Draw a line to mark your starting point. That’s the surface of the Sun. Label it SUN. You’ll make a circle and label each planet, starting with the inner planets, the ones closest to the Sun.
• Take one step to Mercury and mark your place.
• Take one more step to Venus.
• One more step and you’re at Earth. Home sweet home!
• Take one more step and a baby step, and you’re at Mars. Now it’s time to go to the outer planets.
• Take ten steps to Jupiter.
• Take 15 steps to Saturn.
• Take 30 steps to Uranus.
• Finally, take 30 steps to Neptune. You are a long way from home now!

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Stars & The Solar System

Planets & Solar System

Activity Prep

This lesson introduces the “wandering stars.” Students will learn what it means to see them with their own eyes, and will learn some interesting discoveries about each one. In the activity, Running to Neptune, students draw out the planets in our Solar System with chalk on the playground. Then, they play a racing game, running to each planet, reinforcing the names, order, and relative distances between the planets.

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You need an outdoor area that’s at least 60 feet long where you can mark on the ground with chalk.

Watch the Prep Video

We include an instructional video for this activity that is meant for the teacher, not for students. The video walks you through how to mark the string at particular increments with permanent marker, which needs to be prepared in advance of the activity.

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Tommy Orange’s ‘There There’ Sequel Is a Towering Achievement

“Wandering Stars” considers the fallout of colonization and the forced assimilation of Native Americans.

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By Jonathan Escoffery

Jonathan Escoffery is the author of the linked story collection “If I Survive You,” which was nominated for the 2022 National Book Award and a finalist for the 2023 Booker Prize.

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WANDERING STARS , by Tommy Orange

Tommy Orange triumphantly returns with “Wandering Stars,” the follow-up to his groundbreaking 2018 debut, “ There There . ” Part prequel, part sequel, yet wholly standing on its own, Orange’s novel follows the descendants of Jude Star, a Cheyenne survivor of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre , for more than a century and a half, before catching up with the present day and landing in the aftermath of the first book’s harrowing climax.

The novel begins with an address on the American government’s multipronged campaign to eliminate the original “inhabitants of these American lands.” One such campaign came with the slogan “Kill the Indian, Save the Man,” Orange tells us, referring to the boarding schools where Indigenous children were forced to suffer all manners of torture in the name of assimilation.

But, Orange continues, “all the Indian children who were ever Indian children never stopped being Indian children … whose Indian children went on to have Indian children.” In spite of the calculated terror, and the incalculable loss, the government’s campaign failed and could only ever fail. This framing is part of what’s so special about this book: As we move through generations of the family — as Stars become Bear Shields, who become Red Feathers — and even as knowledge of their histories and customs becomes muddled or lost to time and tragedy, Jude Star’s lineage, and that of his people, remains unbroken.

Still, when the novel enters the 21st century, members of the Red Feather family lament society’s apparent refusal to see Native Americans as existing in the present day. While watching an Avengers movie, Lony, the youngest of the Red Feather brothers, imagines what powers a Native American superhero would have. He makes a list that includes “Can Fly (because feathers)” and “Invisibility (because no one knows we’re still here).”

Orange expands his focus on identity to consider the fraught relationship between race and blood. We hear from a high school student named Sean Price, an adoptee raised by white parents, who has just received the results of his DNA test. “He’d already assumed he was part Black,” Orange writes. “There was no mistaking the look you got if you were assumed Black or part Black in a white community — whether you were or were not all or part.”

Blackness, according to Sean, lies in others’ assumptions and becomes most pressingly about how one is perceived and treated. The point is emphasized when Sean and another adoptee friend make a habit of riding the city bus from the Oakland hills down into predominantly Black neighborhoods, where they are unbothered, and where they can “disappear completely” from the white gaze. But given his upbringing, “Sean didn’t feel he had the right to belong to any of what it might mean to be Black from Oakland.”

Sean considers what to make of the DNA results, which reveal European, Native American and African ancestry, and determines that “he couldn’t pretend to now be Native American, not white either, but he would continue to be considered Black, holding the knowledge of his Native American heritage out in front of him like an empty bowl.” Data about his ancestry alone isn’t enough to allow him to feel he can claim it.

Later, Sean seeks guidance from his schoolmate Orvil Red Feather, asking, “So, like, can I say Indian?,” to which Orvil responds, “If you’re Indian.” The novel does not include the percentages that typically accompany these DNA test results, perhaps to dissuade readers from attempting to construct Sean’s identity on his behalf. It’s as if Orange is saying, You can’t decide this for Sean.

It’d be a mistake to think that the power of “Wandering Stars” lies solely in its astute observations, cultural commentary or historical reclamations, though these aspects of the novel would make reading it very much worthwhile. But make no mistake, this book has action! Suspense! The characters are fully formed and they get going right out of the gate. Our first moments with Jude Star are heart-pounding, and our final moments with him, as we find him on the cusp of a decision that will forever change his family’s fate, will make you want to scream “Don’t do it!” The fact that you’ll want to scream “Do it!” just as strongly speaks to the power of Orange’s storytelling abilities.

“There There” fans will be happy to see the return of the half sisters Jacquie and Opal, and to have questions from Orange’s first novel answered. Will the once-estranged Jacquie stick around to help raise her grandsons? Will she relapse again? What led her to run away and leave Opal behind in her teenage years?

As the fallout of colonization and forced assimilation takes its toll on the family, its most definitive impact is addiction. Jude battles alcoholism and, like a family curse, addiction wends its way through his descendants, reaching even the youngest generation of Red Feathers. Sean and Orvil become fast friends, having in common dead mothers, recent hospitalizations and a growing desire to sustain the high they experience via the painkillers they were prescribed for their respective injuries. Add to the boys’ blossoming addictions the fact that Sean’s adoptive father has become a drug dealer and manufacturer with a seemingly endless supply of pain pills on hand, and the friendship becomes a powder keg. It would be easy to reduce this friendship to its toxic elements, but the boys also share a love for musical instruments and a brotherly love for each other that’s difficult to root against.

Orange’s ability to highlight the contradictory forces that coexist within friendships, familial relationships and the characters themselves, who contend with holding private and public identities, makes “Wandering Stars” a towering achievement.

WANDERING STARS | By Tommy Orange | Knopf | 315 pp. | $29

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Tommy Orange on his new novel 'Wandering Stars'

Scott Simon

NPR's Scott Simon asks Tommy Orange about his new novel, "Wandering Stars." It is a sequel to his first, "There There," which was a Pulitzer finalist.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Tommy Orange's new novel begins with a young man who lives through an annihilation, the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, where U.S. Army troops savagely - to invoke a word they often use to describe the human beings they slaughtered - murdered about 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people. Jude Star is later sent to the Fort Marion prison castle in Florida, where his jailer is a devout Christian named Richard Henry Pratt, who believed Native Americans had to be forcibly shorn of their language, culture and history. He's remembered for this especially noxious quote, kill the Indian in him and save the man. The journey of Jude Star and his descendants is the story of "Wandering Stars," the second novel from Tommy Orange. His first, "There There," was a Pulitzer finalist. Tommy Orange joins us now from Oakland. Thanks so much for being with us.

TOMMY ORANGE: Thank you so much for having me.

SIMON: This novel is so beautifully written and so hard to read. Why did you devote six years of your life to writing it?

ORANGE: This piece of history was not something known to me, this - as far as the historical part. I initially set out to write a more straightforward sequel, and I stumbled across this piece of history while I was in Sweden for the Swedish translation of "There There." I was at a museum, and I saw a newspaper clipping that said Southern Cheyennes in St. Augustine, Fla. And I didn't know why we would ever be in Florida and fell down this rabbit hole of information, and I didn't know how it would connect to "There There" necessarily. It was just a piece of history that I became fascinated with. And I was doing some research, and one of the books I was reading, there was a list of the prisoners. And one of the characters' names was Star, the actual prisoner, and another one was Bear Shield. And that's one of the families from "There There," one of the core families. And I realized I was going to try to write this family line.

SIMON: And we should explain, you're a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and are also biracial.

ORANGE: Correct.

SIMON: I wonder if seeing this story, hearing of it, put an expectation - and the success of your first novel, to be sure - all put an expectation on you.

ORANGE: Yeah, there was - the sophomore effort is sort of doomed. And why I would take on a sequel when that's already tough to get past the sophomore effort - sequels are also sort of doomed to not be as good as the first and - but this is just what compelled me to write. And if you're going to be sitting with your work for long periods of time, you have to be pretty convinced about it. And I felt convinced.

SIMON: I want to ask you to read a section, if I can, about an episode Star goes through. I'll just have you read it and introduce the story of a life mask.

ORANGE: (Reading) Before we were released from the prison castle, a man came to measure our heads, to make masks of us, molds of our heads with white liquid. He called them life masks. The man wanted to compare Indian heads with white heads. He thought if Indian heads were smaller, that could explain why we were savages. I froze as the thick liquid poured over and enveloped me. It was cold and then warm and tight against my face. It got quiet, and then it cracked. There were tubes stuck into my nose so I could breathe. I wondered if it was death the man meant by life masks. I thought maybe I was being turned into a thing for them to keep. But a head was a living thing. The face moved and changed all the time, and then I couldn't move mine anymore at all, so I thought this must be some kind of death, some kind of keeping.

SIMON: The novel moves ahead through generations, and then to Oakland in 2018, following a shooting at a powwow, which is in your previous novel, "There There." A young man named Orvil, who's a member of the Bear Shield Red Feather family, has been shot. What brings these events together as you construct it?

ORANGE: Well, Orvil's story in a way echoes his ancestor, Jude Star. It's a young man running away from a massacre and essentially trying to recover from what that means and sort of a harrowing thing that he has to go through, to be shot while dancing in full regalia. It's a lot for him to handle.

SIMON: And addictions run through these generations, too, don't they?

ORANGE: They do. There's alcohol, laudanum. And then in the midst of this opioid crisis, Orvil gets addicted to painkillers.

SIMON: I want to ask you about your book's dedication, for everyone surviving and not surviving this thing called and not called addiction. First, may I ask, were you thinking of people you know?

ORANGE: Yeah. Yeah, my life has been shaped and mangled by addiction. I've had my own struggles, and everybody in my family has, so it's just been a big part of my life. And my heart goes out to people that suffer from this thing 'cause it's tough, and, you know, this whole country is facing it right now.

SIMON: How did you begin writing? I mean, I've read you were working at a bookstore.

ORANGE: Yeah, I was moving the entire fiction section from the back of the store more toward the front. It was a bookstore like they don't exist anymore - huge and dusty and didn't get very many customers. Because we didn't get very many customers, I could just read for the first time. I had never - you know, I skimmed through novels in high school to pass tests, but I never really understood what fiction could do. And so, you know, soon after I became a reader, I decided I wanted to try writing and spent many years just doing that privately while I worked, just all my free time putting it toward reading and writing as much as I could 'cause I felt like I needed to catch up.

SIMON: I'm struck by a line that Orvil's brother utters, speaking of Cheyenne and Arapaho. Everyone only thinks we're from the past, but then we're here. But they don't know we're still here. What does that feel like?

ORANGE: You know, it's an exciting time right now for representation. Most people in this country don't understand what it's like to never be seen, to never be represented in popular culture, or if you are, it's a misrepresentation. Our educational institutions almost exclusively teach the Indian, the Native person, as it relates to pilgrims one month out of the year, or maybe just one week. So it's - I think it's a really exciting time, but it has felt lonely. And it's a big part of American history, and for that to be omitted all this time, it does something to you. I'm not sure if I could spell it out entirely. You know, it's part of why I write novels, 'cause I can think and process quite a bit on the page.

SIMON: Tommy Orange - his novel, "Wandering Stars" - thanks so much for speaking with us.

ORANGE: Thank you, Scott.

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StarTribune

Novel 'wandering stars' is a fiery followup to pulitzer finalist 'there there'.

Tommy Orange's fiery debut novel, " There There ," ended with several bangs (quite literally) and left us wondering if there might be a return, in a sequel, to its most memorable characters, among them half-sisters Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield and Jacquie Red Feather.

Six years later, "Wandering Stars" is exactly that sequel, just as damning and brilliantly incensed as Orange's debut, but also much more. It's a prequel, too, rounding out the history of trauma and addiction in the lineage of a mostly Cheyenne family from as far back as the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre to our pandemic times.

With stories strung together loosely — some of them like long, fevered dreams, others like flashes of consciousness — "Wandering Stars" presents as two books. The first half streams forth with the slow burn of colonial violence, evangelism and erasure; the second half is driven by that trauma's devastating effects on a younger, multiracial generation living in Oakland, California.

It all begins in Colorado when Jude Star escapes from the massacre, during which "seven hundred drunken men came at dawn with cannons" and killed many women and children. On the run with a horse and stray dog, he recalls that "[e]verything that had been before what happened at Sand Creek went back inside the earth, deep into that singular stillness of land and death."

Ahead of him is the bleakest trail — near-starvation, then confinement in a Floridian "prison-castle" with real-life jailer Richard Henry Pratt, then descent into alcoholism. He eventually marries a religious Irish woman named Hannah Star.

Charles, also an addict, will fall in love with a childhood friend, Opal Bear Shield, and then commit a crime for which he pays dearly, leaving behind Opal, pregnant and on the run. She, too, disappears, experiencing a strange, haunting death. But her baby, Victoria Opal Shield, survives to bear those unforgettable "There There" half-sisters, Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield and Jacquie Red Feather.

Readers of "There There" might also recall Jacquie's grandsons, Loother, Lony and Orvil, the last of whom gets shot at an Oakland pow wow. Orvil's rippling story of recovery, addiction and existential crisis anchors the rest of "Wandering Stars."

All in all, Orange, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, has turned up the dial on his characters. His confession-style approach — heavy on words and memories tumbling out, and on rambling sentences — plunges us deep into his characters' interiority: "Part of me was being permanently erased or replaced with gray gray gray gray, grayness."

It makes for slower reading. It also is exhausting, but so are the sad, seemingly immaterial lives of Orange's characters, all of whom are trying to make sense of — and move on from — what the world has so cruelly bequeathed them.

Angela Ajayi is a Minneapolis-based writer and critic.

Wandering Stars

By: Tommy Orange.

Publisher: Knopf, 336 pages, $29.

Event: 6:30 p.m. March 19, Minneapolis Central Library (sold out, but register for Zoom log-in at birchbarkbooks.com ). Free.

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The whole star is a moving skin (It is the star to every wandering bark)

April 27, 2024, 8:00 am – May 5, 2024, 5:00 pm

ACT Student Gallery MIT E15, Lower Level Wiesner Building 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA

In this exhibition, the three artists explore relationships with our temporal and spatial environments through the lens of yearning and loss. The title is a line taken from a machine-aided translation of Shakespeare’s famous love sonnet 116 by Rena J Mosteirin. In the book, the machine, moving through various languages – including code – rends new expressions and skeins of meaning, mapping an unexpected idiom. The exhibition aims to delve into the matter of our relationship with animate and inanimate ​worlds by paying close attention to intimate and transcorporeal minglings. Aubrie’s portals explore the desire to connect to somewhere while feeling as if nowhere; Luca’s somatic translations of her psychic life contend with her desire to undo her interior; Zhanyi’s rain poems examine how mourning persists in the natural and constructed environments around us.

Each work invites visitors to confront and rethink their perception of reality, aligning with Mario Perniola’s vision of becoming “things that feel,” and forging an alliance between senses and inorganic entities. They take what can feel large and foreign and find their intimacies.

Opening celebrations on Friday, April 26 from 6-9pm. Refreshments served.

The gallery will be open during the following times: Saturday, April 27: 12-6pm Sunday, April 28: 12-6pm Tuesday, April 30: 12-6pm Wednesday, May 1: 12-7pm Thursday, May 2: 12-6pm Friday, May 3: 12-6pm Saturday, May 4: 12-6pm Sunday, May 5: 12-6pm

Luca E. Lum

Aubrie James

Zhanyi Chen

Dog Wandering California Streets Becomes Lopez vs. Lopez Star

O nce just a stray dog wandering the streets of Los Angeles, Noelle found her way into stardom on NBC’s comedy, "Lopez vs. Lopez." Jubel Chen, an animal trainer working for Guin’s Movie Menagerie, came across Noelle during a downtown L.A. shoot around Christmas 2017 when a passerby mistook the lost dog as part of the filming crew. Taking Noelle in, Chen’s initial search for her original owners led to a heartwarming adoption story that eventually propelled the little dog into a successful career in Hollywood.

Los Angeles rescue dog gets lucky, becomes Lopez vs. Lopez star

Initially skittish and unconfident, Noelle, who Chen estimates was six or seven months old when they first met, quickly became a cherished member of the household. Sensing the dog’s potential, Chen embarked on a six-month training program to help Noelle gain confidence and assess her interest in a potential entertainment career. It wasn’t long before Noelle demonstrated a knack for tricks and performance, setting her on the path to her first job in a Meijer Christmas commercial.

Following her commercial debut, Noelle went on to feature in several TV shows, including "Modern Family" and "Reboot." 2022 marked a significant milestone in Noelle’s career when she clinched a starring role in the NBC comedy "Lopez vs. Lopez" as Churro, the beloved family dog of George and Mayan Lopez. Chen has shared how the canine star has embraced her role, often acting like a "little diva" on set. "She’ll walk onto set and wag her tail like she owns the place, and then people come and pet her, and she acknowledges them without acknowledging them,” Chen says.

Chen’s commitment to ensuring Noelle’s comfort on set stands out. By familiarizing Noelle with the filming environment and rehearsing scenes meticulously, Chen ensures Noelle feels safe and confident during productions. This meticulous preparation has allowed Noelle to thrive, not just as a performer but as a confident and friendly dog unafraid of strangers.

At home, Noelle leads a happy life alongside a menagerie of other animals under Chen’s care - as per PEOPLE . Chen hopes Noelle's story will inspire more people to consider rescuing animals. The little canine's journey from a lost puppy to a celebrated TV star exemplifies the potential of rescue animals when given love, patience, and an opportunity to shine.

The post Dog Wandering California Streets Becomes Lopez vs. Lopez Star appeared first on DogTime .

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Tiny Dog Found Wandering Around L.A. Becomes a Sitcom Superstar After Lucky Chance Encounter (Exclusive)

Noelle the rescue dog went from being alone in the world to being the star of NBC comedy 'Lopez vs Lopez.'

Guin’s Movie Menagerie

Noelle is undeniably a star, but the dog took an interesting journey to reach her celebrity status.

Her owner, Jubel Chen, first met Noelle when the dog was a scruffy young pup wandering around Los Angeles.

Around Christmas 2017, Chen, an animal trainer with Guin's Movie Menagerie, was in downtown L.A. working on a shoot with several dogs when "someone handed her" a skittish, scruffy dog they found on the street.

"They asked, 'Is this one of your dogs?' because we were doing a shoot down there, and we said, 'No,' but we'd take her and see if we could find her people," Chen tells PEOPLE.

Chen and her coworkers put up flyers searching for Noelle's owners and took the canine to a vet to have her scanned for a microchip; neither avenue turned up an owner for the tiny dog.

After spending weeks searching for Noelle's family, Chen found that the little pup had "kind of grew on" her, especially with "her little face" and "grandpa eyebrows." Chen decided to adopt Noelle, who she believes was around six or seven months old when she shuffled into her life in 2017.

Chen thought Noelle's unique appearance was "a great look for Hollywood." But before Chen could make the dog a star, she had to ensure her new pet wanted fame first.

For six months, Chen trained and socialized Noelle to help the dog gain confidence and determine whether she was interested in being a celebrity.

"She took a little bit because she was kind of skittish. She was a little worried about things. She's a little dog, so it's always a little more intimidating for little dogs because everything's bigger than you," Chen says of Noelle's early training.

Eventually, Noelle realized, "She's too cute not to be in the business," and started showing interest in tricks and performing.

"It took her about six months before she was like, okay, I think you can do this," Chen says.

Not long after taking the leap and starting auditions, Noelle booked her first job in a commercial for Meijer.

"It was a whole Christmas spot with her in it. She was a little dog named Lily. She runs outside, runs around the neighborhood, gets lost, sees Santa, and finds her way home. It was a commercial all about her, and it was her first job," Chen recalls.

Since then, Noelle has appeared in numerous commercials and TV shows like Modern Family and Reboot . In 2022, Noelle landed her biggest role yet, the canine star of the NBC comedy Lopez vs Lopez .

In the show, Noelle plays the family dog Churro and stars alongside George Lopez and Mayan Lopez. Over the years, Noelle has embraced her star quality, which is on full display in the show, according to Chen.

Debby Wolfe

"When she goes to set, she is a little diva," Noelle's owner says.

"She'll walk onto set and wag her tail like she owns the place, and then people come and pet her, and she acknowledges them without acknowledging them," she adds.

Lopez vs Lopez 's human cast adores having Noelle on set. Not only is she a poised and professional scene partner, but she is also a calming presence to anyone looking for a cuddle. Plus, Noelle loves the attention.

"She likes to go there," Chen says of Noelle's reaction to the Lopez vs Lopez set. "We get there, and I take her out of the car, and she's the first one at the stage door; she leads me to the stage door. I think she likes everybody saying hi to her. She gets to be the center of attention."

Before filming begins, Chen works with Noelle to ensure she is comfortable with each episode's events.

"We protect her as much as we can so that she understands that everything is okay because she doesn't know that all of this isn't real. We make sure we rehearse and rehearse," Chen says.

"If someone's going to come running in a room, or scream, or dance around and be silly, we like to be aware of that, so we know it's going to happen, and then we show her that it's going to happen," she adds.

Six years after welcoming Noelle into her life, Chen is amazed by the confidence the dog has developed.

"She's gotten super confident and is not scared of strangers. She'll walk up to people and wag her tail," the trainer says.

Noelle also "rules the roost" at home, where Chen cares for a variety of animals, including dogs, cats, and pigs.

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Chen hopes that Noelle's success story encourages others to give rescue animals a chance. The animal trainer says that about 95 percent of the animals she works with are rescues, and all the animals have been exceptional performers when given the chance to shine.

"All the animals at shelters and rescues need some time and socialization. Have patience with them, and they turn out to be amazing pets. They feel it, and they will give it back to you. I feel that with all of my animals. If you treat them well, they will be super grateful." Chen says.

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Barbers save young girl from wandering into busy intersection

EAST HARTFORD, Conn. ( WFSB /Gray News) - Two barbers helped save a young girl from wandering into the middle of an intersection.

The barbers said the child was just seconds from walking into traffic at an intersection in East Hartford, Connecticut.

“It was a quick reaction thing. We weren’t going to ask no questions. We weren’t going to see what was going on. We were just going to move and that was it,” Rafael Santana said.

Santana’s barber station sits right next to the window at Look Sharp Barbershop, and he thanks God for seeing what he saw on April 12.

Santana said around 11:00 a.m. that morning, he looked outside and noticed a young girl walking in the middle of the road.

“I looked back and I didn’t see anybody. I didn’t see anyone behind her,” Santana said.

Santana said his boss, Osvaldo Lugo, was out the door with him as soon as Santana told him what was happening.

“He didn’t ask no questions. He put his clipper down and just ran,” Santana said.

Osvaldo said there was no time to look to see what was going on.

“There’s no time to look. There’s no time to talk about it. This your time to do something about somebody else,” he said.

Osvaldo said he was glad they got to the girl when they did.

“Being able to get to her on time was a gratifying moment,” he said. “She didn’t know exactly what type of danger she was facing.”

Osvaldo also helped the girl find her mother who was at a bus stop down the road. He said it was an emotional reunion.

“The mom was shocked, embarrassed, and at the same time grateful,” he said.

Both men said they were grateful they saw and acted as quickly as they did, and know this story could have had a much different ending.

“It would’ve been sirens, police, ambulance, so thankfully we’re not talking about that situation right now,” Osvaldo said.

“We’re not talking about a tragedy. We’re talking about something good,” Rafael said.

Copyright 2024 WFSB via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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