Orange and scary: the Halloween entry
I’m not scared of a lot of things; moths always bugged me when I was younger, but that’s pretty much calmed down, and my fear of nighttime thunderstorms has gone away. I’m more of a startled or nervous person. It probably has to do with the fact that I’ve really always loved science, and I think there’s a logical explanation for mostly everything. So sure, I might hear some creaks when I’m in the library alone, but I go and check it out to see where the old bookcase or pipe is.
Let me get one thing straight before I keep going: I don’t like to talk about religion on here. I’m not even going to get into my views, other than saying that I guess I could be considered mildly religious (ie, there is a God). To me the details aren’t important. Listen to Serendipity in Dogma: “It’s not about who’s right or wrong. No denomination’s nailed it yet, and they never will because they’re all too self-righteous to realize that it doesn’t matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith.”
Whoever first came up with the idea that what is unknown or different to people was a genius. That’s one scientific reasoning of why religion had such a big part of peoples’ lives in the past; they couldn’t explain what was going on around them. How could someone explain a thunderstorm other than by saying that it was a result of angering the Gods?
People two hundred years ago would’ve had a heck of a time explaining what I saw what I looked to the skies last night. It was like a movie; it was exactly what you think about when you read a story about “the sky burning” in a fire of red. There would be no way for people of the past to realize that a blip on the surface of the sun sent two billion tons of plasma our way; it must have been extremely scary for them.
That’s not to say that I wasn’t scared looking up last night; I was. I was scared because I didn’t know the answers to a lot of questions. Anyone know me well enough to know what I do when I don’t know the answers to something? I look ‘em up. The difference this time is that it seems nobody has all the answers yet; there are still a lot of unknowns about solar science. My gut reaction to a CME-related aurora bypassed the “oooh, how pretty” feeling; I went right to the unknowns. Could a charge like this disrupt or destroy the magnetic field on Earth? What would happen if there was no magnetic field? What if CME radiation reached Earth’s surface? Is something “wrong” with the sun, or could this be bad for us?
The question part lasted for a couple of minutes, and then I biked to one of the darker places on campus and looked up. It was amazing; I could see the entire “rays” of light slowly drifting across the sky and changing color. I figured that whatever happened, I’d enjoy this while it lasted.
And so I sit here today, still a little unsure of what actually has been happening over the last week or so and what it means to me. I can safely say I was scared on Halloween (well, the eve), but at the same time I was truly amazed. I don’t know if I’ll ever see anything like that again.
Lots of links that I’ve used to start understanding what’s going on:
- NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (be sure to check out the Not-So-Frequently Asked Questions and Terms, Concepts, and Definitions in the Classroom section)
- Solar Flare Theory at Goddard Space Flight Center (a nice run-through of the basics of the subject)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (more great stuff from the people at Haa’vad)
- Spaceweather.com (the latest on what’s happening in space)
- October 2003 Aurora Gallery (pictures of what’s happened this month, mostly over the last few days – more than one page! unfortunately, my pictures didn’t come out)
Enjoy, and happy Halloween!
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