I recall with clarity a night a few years ago when my wife and  I were on vacation in southern California. We’d spent the day hiking in the mountains and, in the afternoon, had descended to explore the mysterious and ancient landscape of Mono Lake—one of the oldest lakes in North America. Pinned to the information board by the parking lot was a sign advertising a talk by a Park Ranger that evening: “Stars over Mono Lake”. And so it was, at 9pm, we found ourselves lying on the ancient sands, looking up a night sky in which a million points of light glowed with an intensity I’d never seen before. The air was cold and clear, the hauntingly beautiful desert silence broken only by the occasional howl of a lonely coyote, cry of an insomniac gull, or scream for help of a distant and woefully lost tourist.