The Python star pattern challenge is a popular task often assigned to new programming students. To complete the challenge, developers must demonstrate competency with variables, ranges and nested ...

I put the question to mathematician Skip Garibaldi, who did what anyone would do in this situation: He wrote a computer program ... of those patterns worked for a given number of stars.

Venus and Mercury can be seen at dawn. In the night sky, the brightest star pattern is called the Winter Hexagon. Bob King suggests starting with the easily identifiable constellation Orion.