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- Written by: PRESTON DYCHES
What's up for March? Meet the morning planets, the nearest star cluster, and some do-it-yourself exoplanets.
Saturn joins Venus and Mars this month in the morning sky. Beginning around March 18 or 19, early risers may notice Saturn steadily moving toward Mars and Venus each day, to form a trio low in the east before sunrise.
The crescent moon joins the crowd on March 27 and 28. Saturn and Mars are headed toward a super-close meeting at the start of April. (More about that in next month's video.)
Look high in the southwest on March evenings, and you'll find the tall, Y-shaped constellation Taurus, the bull. And at the center of Taurus, forming the bull's face, is a grouping of stars known as the Hyades star cluster. It's the closest open star cluster to our solar system, containing hundreds of stars.
Now, an open cluster is a group of stars that are close together in space and loosely bound together by their mutual gravity. These are stars that formed together around the same time, from the same cloud of dust and gas. Over time they blow away that leftover nebula material and drift apart.
Because of this and their open, or diffuse, structures, they're called "open" clusters. Our own Sun formed in a cluster like this, and studying these structures helps us understand how stars form and evolve.
Another well-known open cluster is the Pleiades, which is also located in Taurus. The Hyades and the Pleiades are actually about the same size, at about 15 or so light-years across. But the Pleiades is about 3 times farther away, so it appears more compact.
You don't need a telescope to find the Hyades. Look for this V-shaped grouping of stars in Taurus. Use the stars of Orion's belt as a handy pointer, leading you to bright orange Aldebaran. (Aldebaran isn't actually part of the star cluster. It's located halfway to the Hyades, and just happens to be visible in the foreground.)
So check out the Hyades in March, where you'll see a handful of stars with the unaided eye, and more than a hundred with binoculars.
March skies contain several easy-to-find, bright stars that are known to have planets of their own orbiting around them. Locate these distant "suns" for yourself and you'll know you're peering directly at another planetary system.
First is Epsilon Tauri, the right eye of Taurus the bull. This orange dwarf star has a gas giant planet around 8 times the mass of Jupiter. Next is 7 Canis Majoris. This is the star at the heart of the dog constellation that contains blazing bright Sirius. This star is known to have two planets: a gas giant nearly twice the mass of Jupiter and another just a little smaller than Jupiter.
Moving on, we find Tau Geminorum, the star at the heart of Castor — northernmost of the twins in Gemini. Tau Geminorum has a huge gas giant planet 20 times the mass of Jupiter in an orbit only slightly larger than that of Earth. And finally, wheeling around to the north, is Beta Ursae Minoris, the brightest star in the bowl of the Little Dipper. This star has a 6-Jupiter-mass planet in orbit around it.
Researchers expect that most stars have a family of planets orbiting them, because forming planets is a natural part of forming stars. And now you know how to find a few of them yourself, no telescope required.
Preston Dyches works for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
District 5 Supervisor Jessica Pyska hosted the tree mortality and fire prevention town hall, which was presented by the Lake County Risk Reduction Authority and the Tree Mortality Task Force, the latter created recently in response to the extensive dieoff of so many Lake County trees.
A key presenter on Thursday was Dr. Michael Jones, University of California Cooperative Extension forestry advisory for Lake County and an entomologist, who discussed the county’s conifer mortality.
Jones said this is a forest health issue, explaining that forests are very dynamic systems. “Disturbances are incredibly important in forests,” he said, adding that fire is crucial in the health of our forests.
He suggested thinking about it from two perspectives: ecological, the natural process that leads to sustainable ecological conditions; and utilitarian, the production of forest conditions which directly satisfy human needs.
It’s important to consider how to think about the situation. “It really dictates how we think about managing our forests” and what we do when we have outbreaks, Jones said.
Jones said disturbances can be abiotic, which includes weather, earthquakes, floods, snow, ice mudslides, climate, drought, fire and asteroids, the latter a reference to the Tunguska 1908 incident in Siberia in which an asteroid or meteor leveled a forest.
They also can be biotic, which includes the impacts of humans — historical land management practices, changes in land use, fire suppression and climate change — as well as animals, insects and diseases, Jones said.
Looking at all of the dead trees on the landscape, it’s known that they’re caused by bark beetles and pests. “But it’s really important to remember that insects are a natural disturbance,” Jones explained.
“The insects that we are observing and detecting in this current infestation are all native,” he said.
Those insects serve an important ecological process, helping maintain the dynamic heterogeneity of forest structure. Jones said they also serve as food for wildlife, help cull dead, dying and diseased trees, and are crucial to maintaining the health of systems.
From a utilitarian perspective, they become forest pests because they have economic impacts and are competing for resources, Jones said.
Those insects are always present but a lot of mortality isn’t seen all the time. Disturbances have to align to cause a high level of mortality, and a lot of different factors have to come into play, he said.
Jones is part of an effort to track the landscape-level mortality event from northern Mendocino County, through Lake, Sonoma and Napa counties. “It’s a pretty significant outbreak we're experiencing,” and one they’re comparing to the one that happened in the Sierra a few years ago.
Explaining how the system moves from stressed to dying trees, Jones noted Lake County’s significant years of wildfire and pointed out that wildfire stressed trees are attractive to these beetles and prove to be ideal bark beetle hosts.
He said they feed on dead trees and can complete multiple generations each year. The beetles then spread to other stressed trees and exponentially increase in population as they go.
When they run out of the fire-stressed trees, they move to healthier trees, with the beetles doing a “mass attack” on one tree at a time.
Jones said healthy and vigorous trees can defend against the beetles, pushing them out with sap or pitch. However, if it’s stressed from fire damage, in a dense forest or water stressed due to drought, the tree won’t produce pitch and then the beetles’ feeding eventually kills it.
Outbreaks don’t end from management, Jones said, explaining that the synergistic conditions need to fall apart to stop infestation.
The main insect impacting Lake County’s trees is the western pine beetle, with the ponderosa pine as its host. Jones said it’s typically found in stressed trees and isn’t usually the primary agency of mortality; typically it's the last part of a larger suite of forest health issues.
Other beetles impacting Lake County’s forests include the red turpentine beetle, which is hosted by pines; the ips bark beetle, which targets western pine species; and the flatheaded fir borer, which is hosted by fir and Douglas fir.
Handling bark beetles is a very complicated process that comes down to integrated management. “There’s no one right answer,” Jones said.
Options are thinning, pheromones, insecticides, removing and destroying infested material and planting nonsusceptible hosts. Jones said there are no effective pheromone treatments for the species they’re dealing with and while insecticides work well with bark beetle, they’re reserved for high value trees due to cost.
Once an infestation is established, it can’t be eradicated and the best strategy is to remove and destroy the affected trees, Jones said.
PG&E assessment finds hundreds of dead trees
Pacific Gas and Electric representatives Melinda Rivera and Dan Kida participated in the town hall, giving an update on the company’s midyear patrol of the Cobb Mountain area.
Rivera said they found an exponential number of trees that were dying from drought or beetle kill — more than they’ve found in prior years.
“We are making plans now to mobilize additional tree crews,” Rivera said.
While the company doesn’t usually do wood hauling, due to the unprecedented impact of the dying trees, she said they will offer parcel owners the opportunity to have wood removed this year.
Kida, who works for PG&E in vegetation management, said they recognized that just going through and conducting an annual patrol was not enough to pick up all dead and dying trees.
Now they do an additional patrol six months after the annual patrol and have added enhanced vegetation management, Kida said.
In the Cobb area, Kida said they have identified 750 dead and dying trees, significantly more than forecasted.
The company expects to start tree work in the next week or two. Meantime, Kida said they have enhanced vegetation patrols taking place around Loch Lomond and Middletown.
“We realize this is an unprecedented event,” and they are trying to work quickly to address it, Rivera said.
Rivera said community members wanting more information can call 877-295-4949 or email
More information on PG&E’s work is available here.
Fire chief warns of dry conditions
Paul Duncan, Cal Fire North Division operations chief, gave an update on the weather and fire conditions in Lake County.,
“We have not had significant rain since december. That’s really causing our environment to dry out here,” Duncan said.
He noted there have been several escaped control burns as well as higher fire spread.
“March 10 is really acting like June 10 for burning intensity,” Duncan said.
Duncan said Cal Fire is working to hire its seasonal firefighters by the first part of April.
Resources will be staffed up earlier, and large type one helicopters are going to be based in Sonoma and Napa counties.
Defensible space inspections will be taking place, Lake County County Fire will be working on escape corridors thanks to new grant-funded equipment and they've also been working to increase clearances around communications infrastructure, Duncan reported.
“Just be a good neighbor,” said Duncan, explaining that community safety is really about everybody in the community, not just one person, and it’s important to work on vegetation clearing.
He suggested that people report owners who are not clearing their property of hazardous vegetation should make a complaint to the Community Development Department.
Pyska noted on Thursday night, “A lot is happening. We take this work very seriously.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A veteran Lake County Sheriff’s detective is being honored by a statewide organization for his work to investigate sexual assaults.
On Thursday, Det. Todd Dunia was recognized as the California Sexual Assault Investigator’s Association’s Patrick Sullivan Investigator of the Year.
This award is given annually and named after Fresno Police Detective Patrick Sullivan.
Det. Dunia is the 17th California investigator to receive this prestigious award.
The award recognizes Dunia’s professionalism, commitment to his community and his outstanding work in the field of Sexual Assault Investigations.
Det. Dunia has worked for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office for 15 years and has been the agency’s sexual assault investigator for 10 years.
In a Thursday statement, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office said it is proud of Det. Dunia’s achievement and thanked him for his professionalism, commitment to our community and dedication to the victims of sexual assault.
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- Written by: PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC CO.
As part of PG&E’s ongoing response to years of drought, hotter temperatures, an increase in bark beetle infestation and sudden oak death, inspectors have increased patrols and tree work to mitigate these hazards.
To address the wood debris stemming from the increased volume in hazardous trees in this specific area, PG&E is offering landowners the opportunity to have the dead trees that PG&E cut down for safety in 2022 removed from their property, provided it is safe to do so.
Because the wood is the landowner’s property, removal of the wood is optional, and landowners must provide written permission to PG&E to have the wood removed.
“We have been listening to our customers. I’ve recently visited the Cobb area to see the tree mortality impact for myself and it’s unprecedented. We have not seen this anywhere else and we are having to fell more than the normal number of trees because of the increased hazard,” said Ron Richardson, regional vice president for PG&E’s North Coast Region. “No other county in California has been hit harder from the effects of wildland fires over recent years than Lake County and we know how damaged trees have impacted the area over the years, but this amount of tree mortality is another level.”
The Lake County Board of Supervisors has also created a Tree Mortality Task Force, in which PG&E has been participating.
“The more trees that PG&E cuts down for safety means our residents and businesses will be seeing more logs and wood on their property. We thank PG&E for deciding to offer residents an option to remove the wood. We want everyone to know that not only are we working with PG&E on different options but other partners as well to address parcels impacted by high tree mortality,” said District 5 Supervisor Jessica Pyska.
Patrols yield high levels of tree mortality
The inspections will mark the second time PG&E has patrolled trees along overhead power lines in Lake County the past year. PG&E uses different color markings and flags, depending whether the tree needs to be pruned or felled.
“We haven’t seen this much Bark Beetle infestation in a specific area of Northern and Central California in several years. During inspections, we typically see about a hundred dead or dying trees in the Cobb area every year, for example. In February alone, we have already identified far more than that,” said James Ash, Supervisor for Vegetation Management in Lake and Sonoma Counties. “This means our customers may have noticed more markings on trees than usual.”
All woody debris less than 4 inches in diameter will be chipped or lopped and scattered according to Forest Practice Rules. Customers will have an option when it comes to where they would like wood chips scattered.
“PG&E must mitigate the threat to the public by felling these dead trees before they have a chance to strike electric facilities and spark an ignition; however, the felled large wood is the property of the homeowner and it’s up to the homeowner to indicate if they would like us to dispose of their asset,” said Ash.
Additional patrols to begin in April
To further mitigate wildfire risk, Enhanced Vegetation Management (EVM) inspections will begin in April in Lake County. This program addresses vegetation that poses a higher potential for wildfire risk in elevated (Tier 2) and extreme (Tier 3) high fire-threat districts (HFTD’s), as identified by the California Public Utilities Commission.
PG&E will remove associated wood at no direct cost to the customer as part of both these programs if it is safely accessible and permitted by the property owner.
Customers who have questions about the Wood Management Program for 2022 tree mortality in Cobb Mountain, please call 1-877-295-4949.