WE ARE ALL MADE OF STARS

LYING BENEATH a star-splashed sky is a gift from the universe available to anyone.

- WRITER STEPHANIE VERMILLION

But with busy family schedules or packed travel itineraries, many of us forget to stop and look up. Consider stargazing a simple act of wellness: Spotting meteors, the Milky Way, and—if you're lucky—the northern lights elicits awe, and few sights put life into perspective like a dome of celestial bodies.

Destinations across the Midwest have taken major steps to protect their nightscapes and provide us the pleasures of cosmic wonders. Below, three experts share their passion for the night skies—and how they spark the same curiosity in others.

MONICA MARSHALL
Cleveland

Astronomer Monica Marshall connects the public with the cosmos at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, which completed a $150 million transformation in late 2024. One highlight is the upgraded Nathan and Fannye Shafran Planetarium, where Marshall and her colleagues illuminate the marvels of the night.

I didn't grow up caring much about stargazing, but a ninth-grade physics teacher inspired me to study astronomy—and now I'm an astronomer at the planetarium. One of my favorite things about this field is that you don't need to know every single thing about the universe. For me, it's really just the power of awe... understanding that what you're looking at—even if you don't fully know what it is or how it works—is beautiful. And maybe the journey of learning about it is beautiful too.

During my planetarium shows, I always start with an overview of how the sky currently looks, then I ask: “Who's looked up in the actual sky?” A lot of people haven't, and I encourage them to go out and try. The technology age is helping us understand the sky, but it's taking away these slow, serendipitous moments of stargazing, even if it's in your own backyard.