I Hate To Be The One Who Tells You
Okay, okay, I’m calm. At least I’m trying to be but normal people would be so nervous that they could thread a sewing machine while it’s running.
Space hurricanes. Yeah, that’s a thing. Scientist are talking about it.
See, here’s what I don’t get. We’ve got a whole mess of Q people who have to make up conspiracies to have things to worry about. Normal people don’t have to do that because we’ve got a pandemic and damn murder hornets on the way just when it’s safe to go outside from the damn pandemic. Not just your regular murder hornets, nope, we’ve got Asian Giant Murder Hornets right here in the country.
We want more! Give us more! We’ve got dopes thinking they can bring down the government by stealing Nancy Pelosi’s laptop and getting Delbert and Dewayne to rifle through Ted Cruz’s senate desk but they ain’t got a damn rifle.
We can take it. Give us something mean and hard to survive! Give us your best shot!
Oh no, wait.
Y’all, there’s a space hurricane. It’s the first one we’ve seen on earth. It’s “raining electrons.” I do not know what one does to prepare for a space hurricane but I’d be willing to bet that flashlight batteries and cooler filled with ice ain’t gonna cut it.
WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!
(At some point and at different times, that is.)
1So is it just me, or did somebody just claim that they discovered how the solar wind interacts with the Earth’s gravitational field to produce the Aurora Borealis like they’ve been showing on the Discovery Channel with nifty graphics for about a gazillion years? Is the scary new name the only difference? Or am I missing something?
2“Space weather” is a current hot research area. It’s got all the complexity of regular weather, but adds on electromagnetic transport effects that plain old terrestial storms don’t have.
If you want to see how it could be worse, try the Carrington Event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
For the good part, read that article’s quote of an Australian gold miner – the aurora are fantastic duing a CME.
If it happened nowadays, it’s likely it would fry most communication satellites and would knock out large parts of our electrical generation and distribution systems. [insert snark here about how Texas would handle it easily because it is safe from all those federal regulations].
Now if you want to really get frightened about space weather, read about gamma ray bursters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst which are believed to have been the cause of some past mass extinction events on Earth.
“If a new gamma-ray burst were to happen near Earth, it would strip our planet’s protective ozone layer away and expose all life to deadly ultraviolet radiation.”
3Well, there’s a grain of truth to “space hurricanes.” They’re called solar storms, typically caused by solar flares / sunspots, and they do fling electrons and other cosmic juju into space. If we happen to be in the way of one of those blasts, it can mess up satellite communications. But they aren’t new, and they don’t cause everyone to instantly die of severe sunburns. Thanks, ozone layer! Good reason to keep that ozone layer healthy, FWIW.
4What The Surly Professor said…
5Don’t make too much out of the word “hurricane”. It’s not equivalent, though it can have some effects, mostly of interest to aurora watchers and satellite operators.
6Scientists have discovered that saliva causes cancer, but only when taken in small amounts over a long period of time …
~ George Carlin
7It’s not April 1st yet is it?
8Or has the emerging Q. demographic created the demand for Onionesque content that paragons of journalism like the daily mail are having to pitch in to supply the demand?
(Was that a demonstration of market forces? It was right? Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket)
We can send Donald’s Space Force out there with nukes to take care of that.
9Oh Lordy, rapture ready on not I always find a little relief in music.
More Trouble Every Day (Live/1974) · Frank Zappa · The Mothers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x80av2qgdu8
“Well I’m about to get upset
From watchin’ my TV,
Checkin’ out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see,
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it’s gonna change, my friend
Is anybody’s guess
So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
10Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ’em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every day.”
Old news. That “space hurricane” now making the news actually occurred back in August of 2014. The news is that they just now figured out that it happened.
11Is that what causes the beautiful Aurora Borealis?
12If it’s raining electrons, couldn’t you just hang an extension cord out your window and catch enough to power your house ??
13I’m Jewish so I’ll be cranking up my space laser and those hurricanes are toast!
14I sit here totally fascinated by one simple thought: how will our idiot governor react to this information?
15