of the death of Sir Ernest Shackleton.
On the evening of 4 January 1922, as his ship - the Quest - lay anchored in the Grytviken harbor on South Georgia, he wrote his final thoughts in his diary: "A wonderful evening. In the darkening twilight I saw a lone star hover, gem like above the bay." Sadly, later that night, he succumbed to a heart attack and died in the place he loved most. RIP.
I used an astronomical charting program to determine, for that night in North Cumberland Bay on South Georgia, the star he likely saw was either Sirius or Canopus, the two brightest stars in the evening sky.
