
The sun west of Merritt, Red from smoke, of the 2017 fire season in the Sothern interior of BC File Photo KDG
A trip around the Milky Way galaxy center is called a cosmic year. Tonight the sun reaches its half way point in the orbit.
Our Milky Way galaxy is a collection of several hundred billion stars. It has an estimated diameter of 100,000 light-years. Our sun does indeed circumnavigate the Milky Way galaxy. In space, everything moves. There are various estimates for the speed the sun travels through the galaxy, but its speed is about 140 miles per second. Source earth sky news.
And it so happens that astronomers know which star the sun is moving toward in its journey around the galaxy. Our sun and family of planets travel more or less toward the star Vega – and away from the star Sirius. Unsurprisingly, Vega and Sirius lie in opposite directions in Earth’s sky.
Look for Vega at West to Norwest. One estimate of a Cosmic year is 230 million years; this must in our minds mean that the earth is subject to different influences over the millennia including gravity and weather .
On this Day: January 16th 1934
The Harlem Apollo theater reopens in New York.






The flag is still there. No it’s not the Cumberland River ,it’s the local concrete proprietor who hoisted this flag above the gravel pit they recently reclaimed with some seeding. The flag however placed , more than two decades ago and assaulted , taken and harassed at nite for a long time. The owner prevailed through a process of years. Greasing the pole, making it higher, numbers of trips, and flags. In recent years,there have been few vandalisms noted and it has become a local fixture. The main man in the story is a man named Henry an person from Scandinavia. Now elderly and retired both him and his wife Clara ( a former city mayor) are noted for both takeing (enterprise) and giving (jobs ,fundraising for skateboard parks, etc) they are less public now and have a comfortable retirement home on the same mountain side that supported the gravel business. Henry is seen to frequent the Middlesbrough Pub for light refreshments and lunchs.The pub occupies the same hillside and a couple of miles down. Now thats building a convient life through hard work and perseverance .We hope they both enjoy their golden years that they deserve. And is not always the result of efforts in the old world; where in part they and we come.
This view is of the highlands off Hyway 5 A in Merritt , less than 2 decades ago they came out of crown lands and into the city, should be a significant increase in the ability to expand the tax civic tax base. The tax base was quite heavily dependent on heavy industry such as a large sawmill in the city limits. this cosmopolitan mis of malls and light industry and service is a great boon for the lifestyle of the city.












