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Issue # 1,257
TROUBLE FROM THE SUN by Janet Spencer
Say hello to Liberty and we’ll work to get you the The Sun is a biggest refund possible as fast as possible.
star. A star is a ball of gas with nuclear fusion at its center, whose tendency to expand is counter-balanced by its own gravity. Come along with Tidbits as we explore how it Call now Say hello to Liberty and Visitwe’ll us today at could wreck society! work203-9697 to get you the biggest refund LIBERTYTAX.COM (701) A BIG NUCLEAR REACTOR possible as fast Call now as possible. Visit us today at LIBERTYTAX.COM (701) 203-9697 • The Sun is a huge nuclear reactor. At the cen(701) 746-1750 LIBERTYTAX.COM 720 S. Washington St. • Grand Forks, ND ter, it’s continuously fusing the nuclei of hyDownload the LibertyTax App from these trusted stores drogen together, which creates helium nuclei. Every single second, the Sun converts 700 DISCLAIMER: *With paid tax preparation. Valid at participating locations. Cannot be million tons of hydrogen into 695 million tons combined with other offers or used toward past services. One coupon per customer & per return. Other exclusions may apply. Void where prohibited by law. Valid 1/3/22-3/31/22 of helium. The missing 5 million tons is conIt only Takes One Pint verted into energy. To Perk-Up Another • Five million tons is the same weight as 7 Person’s Life! loaded oil supertankers. Five million tons of energy is equal to detonating 100 billion onemegaton nuclear bombs every single second. all donors receive a free • The Sun is capable of huge explosions, but cholesterol they’re not nuclear explosions; they’re magscreening David Kent netic explosions which have the potential to CELEBRATING Boss’ Pizza Blood Donor Month! 2534 17th Ave. S. National wipe out our civilization. & Chicken Grand Forks Donate blood in the month of January • Inside the Sun, atoms are stripped of their elecDonate in the month of February & receive 218-779-5458 and receive a free t-shirt $5 with Off your next Boss’ Pizza order, trons, making the atoms ionized. As the free- along dkent@nodakins.net free cholesterol screening! plus a Free T-Shirt while supplies last. range electrons move through this ionized gas, Check For youran eligibility date and appointment call: magnetic fields are generated. The spinning of call for an appointment: 780-LIFE (5433) or e-mail: 780-LIFE (5433) or e-mail blooddonations@altru.org the Sun, as it rotates on its axis once a month, blooddonations@altru.org www.dakminnbloodbank.org www.dakminnbloodbank.org stirs up currents of gas in the interior, causing different magnetic fields to move about and join with each other, like creeks flowing into a river.
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6. What 1979 song by Billy Thorpe had the word “sun” in the title? How many Earths would fit 7. Which U.S. city is statistically inside the Sun? the sunniest city, averaging How hot is the core of the Sun 242 days of sunshine a year? —12 million °F, 17 million °F, 8. How many minutes does it 22 million °F, or 27 million °F? take for light to travel from Which popular rock band wrote the Sun to Earth? the song “Staring at the Sun”? 9. How old is the Sun— 3.6, What artist had a hit in the 4.6, 5.6 or 7.6 billion 1980s called “Walking on years old? Sunshine”? Who sings “Soak Up the Sun”? SPONSORED BY:
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DEATH BY SUN (continued):
• The heat at the core of the Sun causes streams of magnetized gas to rise to the surface, in conveyor belts of gas that rise 100,000 miles high. This generates a large and complicated magnetic dynamo. • When you sprinkle iron filings around a bar magnet, the filings arrange themselves along a set of magnetic lines that form a donut-shape. These are called field lines. A compass always points north because it’s following the field lines of the magnetic net around Earth. The Sun has millions of field lines that extend high above the surface, looping upward and back down in a chaotic and ever-changing sprawl of magnetism. • When gas erupts to the surface, it follows the closest field line as it explodes upwards. When a set of field lines becomes particularly dense, they get tangled. Gas trying to make its way upwards gets trapped below. The region where the lines are tangled begins to cool off, creating what astronomers call sunspots. Some sunspots are too small to be seen even with telescopes, while others grow larger than Earth and can be seen by the naked eye at sunset. VALENTINE’S DAY/ SUPER BOWL
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• Astronomer Heinrich Schwabe showed that sunspots come and go in cycles of 11 years. At the peak of the cycle, the Sun may have over 100 sunspots, but at the minimum, there may be none. When Schwabe published his results in 1859, scientists realized that the sunspot cycle coincided exactly with peak magnetic activity on Earth. • So at the surface, tangled field lines are coiled and compressed, under tremendous tension as they are unable to expand. The sunspot grows in a convoluted mess as the pressure builds. Finally the field lines break free, releasing a huge amount of energy in what’s called a solar flare. Solar flares hurl high-energy photons and subatomic particles into space at up to 5 million mph.
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3. What current NFL stadium hosted a NASCAR race on July 21, 1956? 1. Who was the only other 4. The plastic horns famously team to lose a 24-point used by spectators at the lead in a playoff game and 2010 FIFA World Cup still win, besides the LA soccer tournament in South Rams vs. the Tampa Bay Africa are known as what? Buccaneers in this year’s The NHL’s William 5. NFL playoffs. M. Jennings Trophy is 2. What Pro Football Hall awarded annually to playof Famer was head coach ers at what position? of the Buffalo Bills from 6. What year did the Cincin1986-97 and the team’s nati Bengals go to their general manager from first Super Bowl? 2006-07?
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DEATH BY SUN (continued):
• Things can get so much worse than just a solar flare. When field lines snap free, they release energy upwards, but they also send energy downwards. The superheated gas that was trying to make its way to the surface is released. This creates seismic earthquakes of energy moving out in concentric rings as the disruption spreads. This event is called a coronal mass ejection, or CME. • A solar flare is a local event (tornado) but a CME is a regional event (hurricane). A CME is an interplanetary sonic boom, accelerating subatomic particles to extremely high energy levels. If this tsunami of energy is aimed into outer space, there’s no problem. However, if it’s aimed at Earth, there’s a problem. • It takes one to four days for this energized plasma to reach Earth. Once it arrives, it has a triple threat: high energy electromagnetic waves, followed by a radiation storm, ending with a geomagnetic storm. • The visible light we are able to see is just a small slice of a larger spectrum of electromagnetic energy. On one end, there’s infrared light, which has less energy than visible light. Radio waves and microwaves have even less energy than infrared. On the other end of the spectrum are ultraviolet light which has more energy than visible light, and X-rays with more energy than that, followed all the way up to gamma rays. Solar flares and CMEs send an flood of all of these energies outward.
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• Every photon particle that spews out of a solar flare or CME carries so much energy that it can alter any atom it hits, stripping off the atom’s electron and ionizing it. If a photon hits the metal of a satellite, the metal is ionized, creating a strong pulse of magnetic energy which damages electronic components inside the satellite in the same way a magnet can damage your computer’s drive or ruin your phone. ...continued
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DEATH BY SUN (continued):
• When the onslaught of energized particles hits Earth’s atmosphere, the upper layers of the atmosphere “puff up” and expand. High altitude satellites are built to sail through the near-vacuum of space, so when they suddenly are surrounded by an unaccustomed atmosphere, they slow down, their orbit drops, they descend into even thicker layers of atmosphere, and the problem compounds until they fall to earth. This is what doomed Skylab which fell to Earth in 1979. • Earth is protected by a magnetic field generated by the molten iron at the core of the planet. This magnetic field protects our atmosphere. When the energy of solar flares or a CME reaches this magnetic envelope, it blasts the field lines all out of shape, allowing supercharged subatomic particles to flow down towards Earth where they slam into the atmosphere, ionizing molecules in the air by stripping them of electrons. When the electrons recombine with atoms, they emit light, which causes aurora borealis in the north and aurora australis in the south. Different molecules give off different colors: green for nitrogen and red for oxygen. Feeling Down, Sad or Anxious?
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• With the Earth’s magnetic safety net overwhelmed, the energy of the CME follows any path it can find, frying electrical wires, transformers, generators, computer components, communication systems, pipelines, capacitors, semiconductors, radars, radios, aircraft parts, sensors, and so forth. One such CME in March of 1989 took down the entire power grid of Quebec, leaving 3 million people without power for days. • If a stronger CME hit the Earth head-on, instead of the glancing blow delivered to Quebec, it could take down the electrical grid for entire countries, or whole continents, or even entire hemispheres, requiring years, if not decades, to rebuild—if rebuilding were even possible.
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A Veteran Comes in From the Cold
*Answer located further back in this issue.
Full-Time Custodian Afternoon/Evening Shift Monday-Friday
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*Answer located further back in this issue.
by Freddy Groves
The dormitory veterans had made their way down to the railroad tracks in the woods, battling buffeting winds and sleet. There, it was rumored, they'd find a young homeless veteran living in a tent. The rumor was true. The veteran was given a choice: accept a basket of food and dry socks or come back to town and warm up until the snow stopped. He accepted the offer of warmth and came back to the coffee shop to wait out the storm. Sarge watched as he was escorted in, parked at the counter and given hot coffee and sandwiches. "Son," he said to the new arrival, "Did I see you limping?" "Yes, sir, probably." "Let's pull off those boots and take a look." Turned out the veteran had a case of first-stage frostbite across all of his toes. Sarge hooked a thumb toward the kitchen, where he warmed up a pan of water and had the veteran soak his feet. Meanwhile they talked, the veteran and Sarge. He'd never gone home, the veteran said, after getting out. Was certain he wouldn't be welcome, being the first in a large family of "damn pacifists" to serve in the military. His parents' home was mere miles away, and sometimes he crept up to watch them through the window, he said, but no, he'd never even called them the whole time he was away. An hour and several sandwiches later, the toes looked better and Sarge handed the young veteran a cellphone. "I want you to call your mother," he said. "I did the unforgivable," the veteran replied, shaking his head. "Call. Tell your mother you have frostbite on your toes. She'll know exactly what to do." The next morning, once the roads were plowed, Sarge drove the young veteran home, watching from a distance as 30 exuberant people came rushing out, scooped up their wayward boy in a hero's welcome, and carried him inside. Sarge smiled. (c) 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.
WITH SERVICE CU
by Lucie Winbourne
• Leona Woods was the only woman physicist on the team that built the world's first nuclear reactor as part of the Manhattan Project. She became a mother during the project, but hid her pregnancy as not to miss work. Afterward, as a professor, she authored more than 200 papers in physics and astrophysics. • A 10-second French kiss spreads around 80 million bacteria between the two smoochers. • Director Michael Bay ("Transformers") traced his interest in action films to when he attached firecrackers to a toy train and filmed the ensuing fiery disaster with his mother's 8 mm camera. The fire department was called, and Bay was grounded. • The African country of Zambia entered the Space Race in the 1960s with a plan to visit Mars and convert aliens to Christianity. The plan unraveled when one of the "Afronauts" got pregnant, another pulled out to join a local dance group and a third went missing. • Sharks can grow up to 50,000 teeth in their lifetime. • Libyan revolutionary Moammar Gadhafi had a serious obsession with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, showering her with over $200,000 in gifts and having a famous local composer write a song for her called "Black Flower in the White House." • Ever notice that the word "phonetic" is not phonetic? • As if job interviews weren't stressful enough, some notably head-scratching questions asked by employers include "If Germans were the tallest people in the world, how would you prove it?" (Hewlett-Packard), "Why is a tennis ball fuzzy?" (Xerox), and "Are you exhaling warm air?" (Walker Marketing)
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OUT OF THIS WORLD
SPACE JUNK
• In 2009, the U.S. communications satellite Iridium 33 was going along in a low earth orbit, relaying cell phone signals, when it suddenly crashed into the Russian satellite Cosmos 2251. The Russian satellite had been launched in 1993 but had ceased functioning in 2007 and was drifting in its own orbit, which sent it into the path of the Iridium 33. Over 2,000 shards of wreckage spiraled out into space, most of which is still orbiting Earth. The loss of the Iridium 33 knocked out cell phone service for many and it took days for a new satellite to take its place. • A piece of the debris from this collision nearly impacted the International Space Station (ISS) in November of 2014. A cargo vehicle had just docked to deliver a load of supplies to the space station when the warning of imminent collision came through. Controllers in France fired the thrusters of the cargo ship, which acted like a tugboat and pushed the ISS out of harm’s way. This close call illustrates the dangers of space junk. • Since Sputnik went into orbit in 1957, humans have launched over 6,600 satellites, ranging in size from shoeboxes to school buses. About 1,000 are still functioning. Another 3,000 stopped working and eventually fell to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere. About 2,600 nonoperational satellites remain in orbit. These are called zombies. • The first space junk entered orbit in June of 1961 when a rocket that carried the satellite Transit 4A exploded in space after successfully delivering its payload, shattering into around 300 pieces. Debris from that event still circles the Earth.
• Today there’s lots of space junk in orbit, including the upper stages of rockets used to launch spacecraft into orbit. Then there’s Ed White’s glove which floated away from him when he became the first U.S. astronaut to walk in space. There’s also a tool kit that floated off during a 2007 spacewalk. • Keeping a satellite in orbit is tricky, because it has to balance gravity pulling it back to Earth, while also not flying off into outer space. All this is controlled by engineers. But zombie satellites have run out of fuel and lost contact with controllers so they orbit aimlessly. When they collide, they splinter off into thousands of bits of space junk, with every piece being dangerous to other orbiting craft. • Trackers have identified over 21,000 pieces of space debris larger than 4 inches in diameter, about the size of a softball, which is big enough to rip a spacecraft apart. However, there are millions of bits that are smaller. Technology can spot objects as small as 2 inches but no smaller. • It’s been estimated that between 100 and 150 metric tons of space junk enter Earth’s atmosphere every year. China is responsible for 40% of space junk; the U.S. for 27.5%; Russia for 25.5% and the rest comes from various other space programs. • At least one piece of space junk reenters Earth’s atmosphere every day, including one zombie satellite or rocket stage each week. Most of it burns up in the atmosphere and the rest is likely to land in the ocean. • Thirteen different space agencies track space debris and coordinate information through a program called the Inter-Agency space Debris Coordination Committee. But there is little anyone can do to control space junk, aside from advising evasive maneuvers.
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by Matilda Charles
Beware of the Cold Administrators of the local senior center called it a tailgate party and envisioned many dozens of elderly gathered in the parking lot outside the center, drinking coffee and snacking on doughnuts from the bakery. They'd sent out notices and emails a week in advance. No one showed up. Not a single senior was to be seen, while center management stood on the steps wringing their hands and wondering why.
*Answer located further back in this issue.
© 2022 King Features Syndicate. All rights reserved.
The problem, we all know, is that the oldest of the senior center management team is less than half our average age, with their assistants barely out of college. Degrees galore, of course, in gerontology this and geriatric that, but framed documents hanging on the wall don't indicate a personal knowledge of what all seniors know for fact:
TIDBITSGF
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We get cold!
©2022 by King Features Syndicate, Inc. World rights reserved
Not only do we get cold, but we have to be careful. Our circulation isn't what it used to be. We lose body heat faster and sometimes don't even know it's happening. When our core temperature drops too low, it can damage our liver, kidney and heart. Hypothermia is a real risk and can be deadly. It bears repeating that we need to beware of the cold. Here's what you can do to stay on top of your own body temperature: -- Don't skimp on the heat at home. Keep the thermostat at 68-70 F and wear a sweater inside. (If you visit an elderly person in the winter, go to the thermostat and see what the setting is.) If you must save money on heating, close off rooms you're not using. -- Ask someone to install clear plastic film insulation on your windows. You'll be surprised how much it cuts down on icy drafts. -- Keep a blanket or quilt on the sofa or recliner, and cover up when you sit down. -- If you have to go out, wear layers and a good hat, gloves and scarf. Don't let body heat escape out of your neckline. And if your senior center hosts an outdoor parkinglot gathering, check the weather report.
©2022 King Features Synd., Inc.
King Features Weekly Service ©2022 King Features Syndicate, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.
(Answers located further back)
January 31, 2022
• If you store nail polish in the fridge, it will dry more quickly and last longer. • “In cold winter months, keep your robe (and slippers or whatever else) under the covers with you when you sleep. Pull it next to or over you a few minutes before you get up. It’ll be toasty and will help make the transition into the cold a little less harsh.” — G.G. in New York • As tax time draws ever closer, try taping a large manila envelope to the fridge, leaving the top open. Immediately place all tax-related forms and receipts in the envelope as they come in. This way, when you are ready to start your taxes, all items will be together and easy to find. • “To help moisten really dry feet, slather on lotion, wrap feet in plastic wrap, then slip on some socks overnight — or for as long as you can stand it.” — B.H. in Michigan • “My no-iron tip: I toss the wrinkly garment into the dryer for about five to 10 minutes with a damp washcloth, and it steams most wrinkles out. It won’t look starched and pressed, but it’s good enough for casual wear or running-late mornings. I haven’t ironed in years.” — E.W. in Florida • Don’t forget to clean your washing machine every so often by running it on the highest-temperature cycle empty after adding a gallon of vinegar. This will clean out the hoses and get rid of stuck-on detergents. • To remove soot from your carpet, sprinkle it with salt, let sit and then vacuum. Repeat as many times as necessary to remove all traces. Send your tips to Now Here’s a Tip, 628 Virginia Drive, Orlando, FL 32803.
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• On Feb. 19, 1851, an angry mob in San Francisco's business district "tries" two Australian suspects in the robbery and assault of C.J. Jansen, a store owner. When the makeshift jury deadlocked, the suspects were returned to law-enforcement officials. Local authorities convicted the men at a real court trial. • On Feb. 15, 1898, a massive explosion sinks the battleship USS Maine in Cuba's Havana harbor, killing 260 crew members. A U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry ruled that the ship was blown up by a mine, with Spain the likely suspect. • On Feb. 17, 1915, after encountering a severe snowstorm, the German zeppelin L-4 crash-lands in the North Sea near the Danish coastal town of Varde. The Danish coast guard rescued 11 members of the crew; they were brought to Odense as prisoners to be interrogated.
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• On Feb. 16, 1968, the first official 911 call is placed in the United States, but 911 was not standard across the country for many years after its adoption by Congress. By 1987, only half of the nation was using the system. • On Feb. 20, 1974, Reg Murphy, an editor of The Atlanta Constitution, is kidnapped by William A.H. Williams after being lured from his home. For the next 49 hours, Williams drove Murphy around the city, stopping to phone in ransom demands to the newspaper. The money was finally delivered to Williams and Murphy was released. Williams served only nine years in prison. • On Feb. 14, 1990, 3.7 billion miles away from the sun, the Voyager 1 spacecraft takes a photograph of Earth. The picture, known as the Pale Blue Dot, depicts our planet as a nearly indiscernible speck roughly the size of a pixel. Voyager 1's journey continues. • On Feb. 18, 2001, racer Dale Earnhardt Sr. dies in a last-lap crash at the 43rd Daytona 500, the fourth NASCAR driver to die within a nine-month period. Earnhardt, 48, was driving his famous black No. 3 Chevrolet and vying for third place when he collided with another car, then crashed into a wall.
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THE CARRINGTON EVENT
• In 1859, Richard Carrington was one of England’s foremost astronomers. On September 1st, he was in his own private observatory, studying the Sun. He did this not by staring at the Sun through his telescope, but by projecting an image of the Sun on a screen. He was drawing the group of sunspots that had recently shown up.
A team of experienced business men and women want to help you explore your idea and make it happen. • Suddenly, he saw two brilliant shafts of blinding• Free and Confidential • ly white light shoot out from the Sun. He’d been
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studying the Sun for years and had never seen anything like it. He rushed to call someone else to hurry and come witness the spectacle, but by the time he returned, the light had already diminished. He and his cohort watched as the light contracted and disappeared. Only five minutes elapsed between the appearance and disappearance of the peculiar light. Carrington had no idea what had happened, and no idea what was about to happen. He had just been the first person to witness a solar flare and a coronal mass ejection.
• It took 17.6 hours for the storm of charged particles to reach Earth. • Within a few hours, magnetomers on Earth went crazy as they registered huge fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field. All over the US, telegraph lines that had been installed only a few years earlier started sparking and catching fire. Telegraph operators with their fingers on the key were thrown to the floor unconscious. • E.W. Culgan, a telegraph manager in Pittsburgh, reported that currents flowing through telegraph wires were so powerful that platinum contacts were melting and “streams of fire” were pouring out of the circuits. In Washington, D.C., telegraph operator Frederick W. Royce was severely shocked as his forehead grazed a ground wire.
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CARRINGTON EVENT (cont):
• That night, brilliant red, green, and purple auroras were seen all over the world as far south as the Cuba, Jamaica, and Hawaii. The light was so intense that a newspaper could be read as if it were daylight.
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• The electrical disruption of the telegraph system persisted over the next day before calming down. The auroras continued for another week.
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• Carrington only suspected the connection between what he had witnessed and what subsequently transpired. Another British astronomer, Richard Hodgson, had also seen the solar flare and the two compared notes. Then astronomers all over the world got together to discuss the anomaly. It took some time to link the two events, but when the evidence was clear, the remarkable occurrence was named after Richard Carrington, and became known as the Carrington Event. • The Carrington Event happened when technology was in its infancy. The only wires that could carry the current were the telegraph wires. Temporary loss of telegraph function was annoying but not catastrophic. Now, our society revolves around a nearly infinite number of wires and circuits that have the potential to be damaged should another CME of the size of the Carrington Event occur.
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• Transportation, communication, aviation, banking, and virtually everything else that depends on electricity and electronics would go offline, and not just for the few days it takes for the geomagnetic mess to clear. A U.S. government workshop in 2008 aimed to answer the question of what would happen if a Carrington-level solar storm happened today. The result was that it would take four to ten years to get the grid up and running again. Please Recycle this copy of Tidbits. Share it with
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