Meenakshi Wadhwa poses with a scaled down model of an extraterrestrial land rover. By Paul Markow
Sometimes, to see the big picture, you have to look at the granular details. So, instead of studying the solar system through a telescope, planetary scientist Meenakshi Wadhwa examines meteorites…
This sequence of photos shows how a sliver of sunlight interacts with a petroglyph at Puerco Pueblo, part of Petrified Forest National Park, during the summer solstice. There are numerous such solstice markers in the park. Photos courtesy National Park Service
On the day before the winter solstice, I follow Jon Hardes up a scree-covered trail at Petrified Forest National Park. I’ve come to see a petroglyph known to interact with the sun this time of year,…
Jerry Ostwinkle offers a treat to a golden eagle approaching to perch on his arm. By Bruce D. Taubert
Beneath the Dragoon Mountains, down a primitive forest road lined with pistachio trees and scattered homesteads, sits the 40-acre Cochise Stronghold Ranch. There, Kalen Pearson, an Arizona Raptor…
Lindsey Egan (left) and Melissa Wright pose in a desert setting with the Superstition Mountains in the background. By Shondiin Mayor
Melissa Wright saw her life branching out before her like a green fig tree. Mirroring a passage in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, she was overwhelmed by the figs she could have chosen, each…
Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a Hopi farmer, and his dog gaze out over farmland in Northeastern Arizona.
Coming up through the Painted Desert from Flagstaff, we pull into the Kykotsmovi Village convenience store, where Michael Kotutwa Johnson greets us. He’s a faculty member at the University of Arizona…
The sun shines through a palo verde tree in front of a stone wall at Tohono Chul. By Eirini Pajak
It’s easy to miss the modest entrance to Tohono Chul, which is tucked into the Casas Adobes community on the north side of Tucson. But for four decades, the park — whose name is a Tohono O’odham…
Black and white illustration by Ross Santee of lone horseback rider heading toward a distant ranch in a snowy, desolate landscape.
Editor’s Note: This story was first published by the Arizona Writers Project, a program of the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration. It was reprinted in the December 1940 issue of Arizona…