More polar vortex talk

Last night, in honor of the bone-chilling temperatures afflicting the US, I watched "The Day After Tomorrow". What can I say? Watching a movie about the world experiencing a new Ice Age just seemed appropriate. We're not exactly freezing in place within 15 seconds, like in the movie. But we're experiencing temperatures that are lower than any I remember in NY history.

At one point in the movie, I heard Dennis Quaid's character say that climate change was shutting down the North Atlantic Gyre, the ocean current that brings warmth up from the tropics. And this is what was causing a new Ice Age.

In recent years, I wondered when and how this idea wormed its way into the American consciousness. It's kind of funny that the source is a Hollywood movie. Turns out, a new Ice Age is not on the way -- at least, on the real Earth that we occupy. And how do I know this? Because NASA told me so.

Predictably, talk of such a scenario has led to some big misconceptions. First, a slowdown or even a stoppage of the meridional overturning circulation would NOT spell the end to the Gulf Stream. Wind and large-scale turbulence drive the bulk of the Atlantic Subtropical Gyre, of which the Gulf Stream is a part. The Gulf Stream would, however, draw significantly less water from the tropics.

Second, unlike during the Younger Dryas, a weakening of the meridional overturning circulation will NOT trigger another ice age. Rising temperatures due to global warming would offset most of the temperature drop. Armadas of icebergs floating off the New Jersey coast are just Hollywood fantasies.

So there you go. No Ice Age. I'm still not thrilled about the Gyre slowing down and possibly stopping. But at least it won't look like the world depicted in "The Day After Tomorrow". Thought I'd share this news with y'all.

Danger to Earth from cosmic impacts underestimated

On Google's news page today, right above a story with the headline "Sightings of Meteor 'Fireball' in S. California sky", I found this story:

NASA has revealed new research on the Chelyabinsk meteorite that exploded over Russia in February, and the findings aren't good: not only does it look like the astronomic models about the number of similar-sized things reaching Earth are wrong, but also the damage they can do is much greater than expected.

"Over the past few decades we've seen an impact rate about seven times greater than the current state of the telescopic surveys would indicate."

The article ends with this:

The Chelyabinsk meteorite had given new urgency to a campaign to bring more capabilities to addressing the issue of asteroid impacts ("It's a great advertisement," Johnson joked) and provided an incentive to improve our chances of spotting threats in the future. Whether governments are willing to put up the relatively small amounts of money needed to take things further is another matter however. 

Because really, why bother? We don't have time to concentrate on a possible global extermination event caused by asteroid impacts -- or climate change, for that matter. And there's a very good reason why we don't have time for thinking, and such-like. It's because we are busy doing the Lord's work of inserting Jeebus into our sacred American Constitution. So, for heaven's sake, enough with this asteroid piffle!

Now, what was I thinking about before this nonsense intruded on my beautiful mind? Oh yes, I was meditating about Jeebus' cosmically benevolent nature and his tremendous love for us, his precious Children. Mmmmmm. Jeebus.

Don't say "godspeed"

I'm a bit horrified when I hear someone say "godspeed", as I did when NASA launched a rocket yesterday.

"Godspeed on your journey to the moon, LADEE," Launch Control said. Flight controllers applauded and exchanged high-fives following the successful launch. "We are headed to the moon!" NASA said in a tweet.

Mind you, godspeed has nothing to do with god. It's a contraction of "good speed" that became common in the old days of merry England.

Still, I don't like it. It may not mean "may god send you on your way quickly" but that's exactly what people think it means. So if you find yourself reaching for this expression -- especially if you're NASA and you're on live TV -- I think you should reach for another term. How about "Happy trails to you"?

"Happy trails to you, on your journey to the moon, LADEE" sounds just fine to me.

Prepare to meet your alien overlords

Or maybe a microscopic fossil, or something. There's coy news from NASA regarding the Mars rover Curiosity. This is all they'll say at this point:

"This data is gonna be one for the history books," Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger, of Caltech in Pasadena, told NPR. "It's looking really good."

C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. Tell us! Did you discover life or not?

How can we enjoy our Thanksgiving dinner with this weighing on us? The linked story says we're going to have to wait until December 2 -- at least. Oy.

The next Mars mission

There's news about the coming Mars mission. Next time we're going to send something that can bore into the planet to find out what it's made of. Apparently, they'll be able to map out the entire interior in this manner.

That would be interesting. We need answers to certain questions. For instance, why doesn't Mars have a magnetic core, like Earth does? Because of this, Mars isn't protected from radiation and easily loses its atmosphere. Another question is whether Mars has moving continental plates. There have been hints of this, lately. We need these answers.

But there were three candidates for NASA's next mission. They turned down a mission to Titan, Saturn's moon, and chose Mars again. Why? Isn't it time to branch out? The Titan mission would have placed a boat on the surface of one of the methane lakes on its surface. I would love to know more about this planetary body. And hey, it would be completely new information, from a new place. I'm not alone in this feeling:

That's just "too much emphasis on Mars in our current plans for planetary exploration," said Carolyn Porco, a prominent scientist who studies Saturn and its moons. "Most of the solar system resides beyond the orbits of the asteroids. There is more to learn there about general planetary processes than on Mars ... Why more Mars?"

What the heck. I won't toss the upcoming mission in the garbage bin. I want the information it will bring back to us, just as NASA does. But c'mon. Plan something for Titan, guys. Have you seen photos of Titan? It's that lovely orange blur. How can you not want to go there? Titan is so enticing.

It looks like we're not alone

NASA's Kepler mission has been finding new worlds. Here's a link to the article at Scientific American, and here's a quote from it:

"We have 54 planets in the habitable zone of their stars," Borucki says, referring to the temperate orbital zone around a star that would allow for the existence of liquid water on a planet. "One of them is 0.9 times the radius of the Earth, and four of them are less than two Earth radii." Any of those would be the most Earth-like world ever detected outside the solar system. What is more, some of the larger, more Jupiter-like planets Kepler is sniffing at in the habitable zone might have moons, and some of those satellites would themselves be potentially habitable. "It's sort of awesome," Borucki says of Kepler's haul. "The implications are that there are an awful lot of planets out there."

 This is so cool. Life must be everywhere!