Atlas Obscura’s Wondersky columnist Rebecca Boyle is an award-winning science journalist and author of the upcoming Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are (January 2024, Random House). She regularly shares the stories and secrets of our wondrous night sky. “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree.” You probably know the tune by heart, if not the full list of gifts and their attendant lyrics. Setting aside the eyebrow-raising number…
