Past Apocalypses

Coming attractions?

(This is a repost of one of my earlier articles that I still kind of like)

Remember the last time we survived the Apocalypse? Probably not. But as it turns out the universe really had it in for us in 70,000 BC. Scientists recently detected a really small, dim star 20 light years away with an even smaller, dimmer star orbiting it, and they are heading straight away from the Earth. That means, if you rewind their path, they came perilously close to hitting us 70,000 years ago. I assume we didn't actually collide because we're still here.

Korg's reaction

Meanwhile, in other 70,000 BC news, the weather had whittled us humans down so far that there were only 40 mating pairs of us left on the earth. That's a verge-of-extinction sized population. And it wasn't just the famous Ice Age, oh no. We also had a Super-Volcano go off and fill the air with badness.

Knowing all this gives me new respect for Korg!

Korg

Jupiter takes one for the Gipper!

Jupiter does its stuff!

You may have heard about the planet Jupiter's altruistic ways, how it protects the Earth from gigantic planet-killing rocks by flinging them back out of the solar system, using its mighty, mighty gravity.

Actually there's some debate about this. Spoil sport astronomers (the same ones that demoted Pluto from being a planet no doubt. Jerks!) like to point out that, while Jupiter does a good job of catching asteroids rocketing in from the depths of space, it also has this habit of bumping into friendly, stable rocks already here, sending them in our direction.

But, however that may be, our planetary big-brother did take a bullet for us the other day.  While the ever-ready amateur astronomers accidentally watched on March 17th, something smashed into Jupiter and blew up!

Thanks, bro!

The Modern Way to View Meteor Showers

Forget going out in the middle of the night. This is the 21st century after all!  Instead, watch this Google movie of the Perseid Meteor Shower, which peaks tonight (Tuesday).

In fact, since we just had a Super Moon, the light from our satellite will make it harder to see the dimmer meteors. But you can see them all in this video. Of course the Perseids go on for hours while Google's movie is only 41 seconds long, so you'll have to have to loop it to get the full effect.