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Issue #913 February 3-9, 2022
Published and distributed by Alimon Publishing, LLC - www.tidbitswyoming.com - tidbits@tidbitswyoming.com - 307-473-8661
In This Issue: • Glenrock, WY – Pg 6 • Wheatland, WY– Pg 7 • Classifieds – Pg 8 • Puzzle Answers – Pg 8
• Marketplace – Pg 2 • Douglas– Pg 3 • Home & Garden – Pg 4 • Good Health - Pg 6
Q: Why doesn’t the sun go to college? A: Because it has a million degrees! ®
TIDBITS PONDERS
TROUBLE FROM THE SUN by Janet Spencer
The Sun is a star. A star is a ball of gas with nu-clear fusion at its center, whose tendency to ex-pand is counter-balanced by its own gravity. Come along with Tidbits as we explore how it could wreck society! A BIG NUCLEAR REACTOR • The Sun is a huge nuclear reactor. At the center, it’s continuously fusing the nuclei of hydrogen together, which creates helium nuclei. Every single second, the Sun converts 700 million tons of hydrogen into 695 million tons of helium. The missing 5 million tons is converted into energy. • Five million tons is the same weight as 7 loaded oil supertankers. Five million tons of energy is equal to detonating 100 billion one-megaton nuclear bombs every single second. • The Sun is capable of huge explosions, but they’re not nuclear explosions; they’re magnetic
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explosions which have the potential to wipe out our civilization. Inside the Sun, atoms are stripped of their electrons, making the atoms ionized. As the freerange electrons move through this ionized gas, magnetic fields are generated. The spinning of the Sun, as it rotates on its axis once a month, 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. 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
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February 3-9, 2022
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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. • 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. • 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 nearvacuum 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. to make its way to the surface is released. This This is what doomed Skylab which fell to Earth creates seismic earthquakes of energy moving out in 1979. in concentric rings • Earth is protected as the disruption by a magnetic field spreads. This event is And let us not be weary in generated by the called a coronal mass well doing: for in due season molten iron at the ejection, or CME. we shall reap, if we faint not. As we core of the planet. A solar flare is a local have therefore opportunity, let us do This magnetic event (tornado) but field protects our a CME is a regional good unto all men, especially unto atmosphere. When event (hurricane). them who are of the household of faith. the energy of solar A CME is an Galatians 6:9-10 KJV flares or a CME interplanetary sonic reaches this magnetic boom, accelerating Brought to you by Roger Davis envelope, it blasts subatomic particles the field lines all out to extremely high of shape, allowing energy levels. If this supercharged tsunami of energy subatomic particles to flow down towards is aimed into outer space, there’s no problem. Earth where they slam into the atmosphere, However, if it’s aimed at Earth, there’s a problem. ionizing molecules in the air by stripping them It takes one to four days for this energized of electrons. When the electrons recombine plasma to reach Earth. Once it arrives, it has with atoms, they emit light, which causes aurora a triple threat: high energy electromagnetic borealis in the north and aurora australis in the waves, followed by a radiation storm, ending with a geomagnetic storm.
HOCUS-FOCUS
SUN— (continued)
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. 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. 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 •
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DOUGLAS, WYOMING
Tidbits of Glenrock, Douglas and Wheatland
I-25 Exit 135 & 140 •
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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 lawenforcement 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
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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. 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. (c) 2022 Hearst Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Tidbits of Glenrock, Douglas and Wheatland
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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. 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
SUN— (continued)
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south. Different molecules give off different colors: green for nitrogen and red for oxygen. 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 c o m p o n e n t s , 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
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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 (10 cm) 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 (5 cm) 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 InterAgency space Debris Coordination Committee. But there is little anyone can do to control space junk, aside from advising evasive maneuvers. 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. • Suddenly, he saw two brilliant shafts of
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Tidbits of Glenrock, Douglas and Wheatland •
blindingly white light shoot out from the Sun. He’d been 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.
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1. Is the book of Philemon in the Old Testament or New Testament or either? 2. From Genesis 6:14, what was another name for the natural asphalt used to caulk Noah’s Ark? Gopher, Pitch, Chimera, Helios 3. Who told Laban he had gone 20 years without a decent sleep? Adam, Jacob, Moses, Noah 4. In John 3, who said, “How can a man be born if he is old”? Obadiah, Nicodemus, Joshua, Job 5. From Acts 13, who was called “a man after thine own heart”? David, John the Baptist, Gideon, Peter 6. Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through ...”? Prayer, Belief, Deeds, Christ
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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. 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. The electrical disruption of the telegraph system persisted over the next day before calming down. The auroras continued for another week.
ANSWERS: New, Pitch, Jacob, Nicodemus, David, Christ Hardcore trivia fan? Visit Wilson Casey’s subscriber site at www.patreon.com/ triviaguy. (c) 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.
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February 3-9, 2022
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. • Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n , 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.
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February 3-9, 2022
GOOD HEALTH. GOOD LIFE. LIFE. Paw’s Corner
by Sam Mazzotta
Training Your Dog for Hiking Season
DEAR PAW’S CORNER: My 1-year-old puppy, Corky, is an energetic mutt who loves
to be outside. I started hiking last year, before I adopted Corky, and I plan to do lots more hiking trips when the weather gets warmer. I want to bring Corky along, but I’ve read mixed advice about dogs on trails and at campsites. What’s your take? -- Ellen in Boulder, Colorado DEAR ELLEN: You can definitely take Corky along! Preparation is key: You must prepare Corky for the hike, and you need to research the trails before departing to find out important information, including: -- Are dogs allowed on the trail? -- What are other rules about pets on the trail? -- How long is the hike you’re planning? -- How far can Corky reasonably walk? -- Is water available along the trail, or will you need to carry extra for your dog? -- How good is Corky’s behavior training -will he come to you as soon as you call? When I’m on a hike, I follow Leave No Trace rules -- which also apply to dogs, so be prepared to carry out his poop -- and another set of rules I call “Annoy No Other Hikers.” Included in this personal set of rules are a few dog-specific ones: -- Keep my dog on a leash during the hike, especially on popular trails. -- Clean up after my dog. -- Make sure to carry adequate water, food, first aid and safety gear (such as booties and vest).
-- Keep my dog under control when greeting oncoming hikers. Not everyone is thrilled by dogs, and a jumping, out-of-control dog does the community no favors. Find more training and hiking tips at the American Hiking Society (americanhiking. org/resources/hiking-with-dogs/). Pick up dog gear advice at Reckless Roaming (recklessroaming.com/how-to-hike-withyour-dog/). And Chewy has some good allaround tips as well. See you on the trail! Send your tips, comments or questions to ask@pawscorner.com. (c) 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.
GLENROCK, WYOMING I-25, Exit 160 & 165
Beware of the Cold Administrators of the local senior center called cold, but we have to be it a tailgate party and careful. Our circulation envisioned many dozens isn’t what it used to be. We of elderly gathered in the lose body heat faster and parking lot outside the sometimes don’t even know center, drinking coffee and it’s happening. When our snacking on doughnuts core temperature drops from the bakery. They’d too low, it can damage our sent out notices and emails liver, kidney and heart. a week in advance. Hypothermia is a real risk No one showed up. Not and can be deadly. a single senior was to be seen, while center management stood on the steps wringing their It bears repeating that we need to beware of the cold. Here’s what you can do to stay on top hands and wondering why. The problem, we all know, is that the oldest of your own body temperature: of the senior center management team is • Don’t skimp on the heat at home. Keep the thermostat at 68-70 F and wear a sweater less than half our average age, with their inside. (If you visit an elderly person in assistants barely out the winter, go to the of college. Degrees thermostat and see THE IL LUSTRAT ED BIBLE galore, of course, in what the setting is.) If gerontology this and you must save money geriatric that, but on heating, close off framed documents rooms you’re not using. hanging on the wall • Ask someone to install don’t indicate a clear plastic film personal knowledge insulation on your of what all seniors windows. You’ll be know for fact: surprised how much We get cold! it cuts down on icy Not only do we get drafts.
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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 parking-lot gathering, check the weather report. (c) 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.
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Tidbits of Glenrock, Douglas and Wheatland
WHEATLAND, WYOMING I-25 Exit 78 & 80
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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 taxrelated 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. (c) 2022 King Features Synd., Inc.
February 3-9, 2022
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Tidbits of Glenrock, Douglas and Wheatland
February 3-9, 2022
