BY KAREN BOSSICK

Explore the “Ancient Relics of the Milky Way” on Saturday night when the Idaho Dark Sky Alliance and Hailey Public Library present another evening of stargazing and learning about our galaxy.

Madeleine McKenzie, who is part of the NASA Hubble Fellowship program, will talk about the globular clusters that surround our home galaxy during a free presentation at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, April 4, at Hailey Town Center West, 116 S. River St across from the Hailey Public Library.

The presentation will be followed by a guided stargazing night at 8:30 p.m. at the Sawtooth Botanical Garden south of Ketchum. AmeriCorps Night Sky conservationist Leah Rogers, McKenzie and local astronomers will help observers identify stars, planets and seasonal constellations using telescopes they provide.

McKenzie contends that we can look at globular clusters as the dinosaur bones of our universe. By studying their characteristics, we can predict how the early universe functioned and created large structures like galaxies.

McKenzie an observational astronomer at the Carnegie Observatories in California, hails from Perth, Australia. She completed her undergraduate and master’s at the University of Western Australia and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research before receiving her PhD from the Australian National University.

If conditions are unfavorable for stargazing, updates will be posted on the Idaho Dark Sky Instagram and Facebook pages prior to the event.