A diagram of Aries the Ram.

All winter long I’ve been meaning to write about the little constellation Aries the Ram, and finally on this last weekend of winter I’m getting around to it. It’s good timing, because Aries is about to leave our nighttime sky as the Earth in its orbit around the sun, turns away from that direction in space.

Right after evening twilight look for the distinctive little constellation in the low western Butler sky around 8:30 p.m. when it’s finally dark enough. You can use the bright Pleiades star cluster that resembles a tiny version of the Little Dipper. Just to the lower right of the cluster look for two moderately bright stars right next to each other vertically aligned. Just below them and a little to the left is a third dimmer star. That’s it! That’s tiny Aries.

Together, all three stars kind of-sort of resemble a ram’s horn. The actual constellation is larger than that little horn you see, but most of the rest of the stars of Aries are really faint.

The two brighter stars of the horn are Hamal and Sheratan, and the dimmer star below them is Mesarthim.

Hamal is a giant star in our Milky Way galaxy that dwarfs our sun with a diameter of at least 13 million miles. Our own sun’s diameter is less than a million miles. A trip to Hamal would require you to put about 65 light-years on your spaceship. In case you’re new to this column, just one light-year equals nearly 6 trillion miles.

This is actually a good time of year to talk about Aries the Ram because it has a significant astronomical past. Aries used to be the background constellation the sun occupied when it crossed into the northern sky on the Vernal Equinox, otherwise known as the first day of spring.

This year’s Vernal Equinox is very early on Thursday — at 4:01 a.m. Because of the wobble in the Earth’s axis, called precession, the constellation Aries is no longer in the background during the equinox. It’s been replaced by the constellation Pisces the Fish.

So how did Aries the Ram get in the night sky? What’s the story?

Well, like most constellation stories — or what I call celestial soap operas — it’s a sordid tall tale. Different cultures have different stories, but the one I like the most comes from Greek and Roman mythology.

This old yarn is a story of heroism. Aries was one of Zeus’s many pets. Being the king of the Greek gods, Zeus had many pets, but Aries was very special. He wasn’t your everyday ram. His coat was made of golden fleece, and he sported wings, allowing him to fly the friendly skies above Mount Olympus. There was no fencing in this magic ram!

Zeus wasn’t exactly the type to be fenced in either. He wasn’t really a faithful follower of the sanctity of marriage and had many girlfriends, even after he married Hera, the queen of the gods. Can you say dysfunctional?

Anyway, one lovely Mount Olympus afternoon Zeus and his favorite pet ram met several of Zeus’s secret girlfriends for a picnic in a hidden park close to the foot of Mount Olympus. It was quite a time for all concerned.

Suddenly, out of the clear blue sky the voice of Helios, the god of the sun, rang out. He was trying desperately to get the attention of Zeus, wherever he was. From the reins of his sun chariot high above everything, Helios could see a group of small children a few miles away that were having a very unfriendly encounter with a really hungry lion.

What happened is that the kids slipped away from their mother at a nearby marketplace, and they became the No. 1 choice on the lion’s lunch menu that day.

Helios couldn’t do anything himself because if he left the sun chariot, all you know what could break loose, and the sun could crash to Earth. So, the only thing Helios could do was shout his lungs out for some divine help from Zeus.

Finally, the king of the gods heard the screams of Helios and took action. It wasn’t so much that he cared about the kids, but Zeus wanted to impress his posse of ladies. So Zeus pointed Aries in the right direction and sent him flying off on a rescue mission.

The lion was within seconds of reaching the children when, out of the blue, Aries swooped from the sky like a cruise missile. He scooped up the children on his back and flew them off to safety. Aries winged his way back to the local marketplace and reunited the kids with their greatly relieved mother.

For the rest of his life Aries set out on missions of mercy and rescue. When Aries died, Zeus rewarded him for his bravery and placed his body into the heavens to become the constellation we see today. The little ram did a lot of good!

It has nothing to do with this nice but far-fetched tale of heroism, but again, the first day of spring is Thursday.

I’m guessing that ever since you were a wee lad or lassie, you’ve been told that on the first day of spring, the vernal equinox, that day and night were equal in length. Believe it or not, that’s just not true.

Because of astronomical refraction, or the bending of the sun’s rays due to the Earth’s atmosphere, days are already longer than nights by this Friday. So when are days and nights equal? This Monday, on St. Patrick’s day. Yet another reason to celebrate that day!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is also the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and at adventurepublications.net. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.