Nexus - 1002 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

Comet Borrelly (topographic view at right) (Photo credit - NASA, Deep Space 1) The Sun expels some coronal mass. (Photo credit - SOHO) py" (below right near arrow point) (Photo credit - SOHO, 2002/06/18, 08:35) The Moon may have been formed agenda? Well, perhaps we shouldn't when a comet, perhaps 1,500 kilometres give him too much credit. I prefer to (or more) in diameter and travelling ata —_ believe that he had access to secret tremendous speed, smashed through the information, and it has only lately Earth in its early years. At the same become clear what that was. time, it may have deposited the neces- sary building blocks of life here. The Truth Comes Out—Finally When comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 In researching material for this article, broke up and crashed into Jupiter in I groped my way through an endless list 1994, it left Earth-sized marks on the of websites dedicated to all manner of surface of the giant planet and released astronomical media. Only after having forces equivalent to millions of — found some of the most obscure NASA Hiroshima-sized explosions. interfaces did I manage to determine The Sun, which reverses its polarity that rarely is everything published for every 11 years, is as capable of bringing the consumption of the average netizen. destruction as it is of spreading nurtur- Although I've long known that the ing warmth. Over a period of many government doesn't tell us everything, I solar cycles, the Sun's impact on its never really knew how much we were satellites (of which we are one) will missing when it comes to cosmic vary, bringing on widespread glacial intelligence. periods or seemingly interminable heat- In mid-June, a small asteroid (named related 2002 MN) droughts. made a close We've now flyby of our been in an little planet. extended Several years ago, It only mea- sured about 120 metres across— barely enough to take out a large metro- politan city and its sub- ago _[mid- urbs. It was 2001], but con- the second- tinuing activity has created a stark dou- closest encounter ever recorded without ble-peak in this solar cycle. Some of the Earth actually being hit in the process. solar flares and coronal mass ejections The trouble is that no one, not even (CMEs) have been remarkable and make NASA, noticed it until it had already for great on-line viewing. The corona, whipped by. In galactic terms, 120,000 which is the outermost layer of the Sun, kilometres (the estimated miss distance) sometimes throws off great heaps of _ is barely a whisker. Okay, so they material at speeds of up to 1,000 kilo- missed it. At least they tried, you say? metres per second. Well, I say that they're not trying hard When solar flares and CMEs pass our — enough. What they didn't tell us is that way, they can sometimes even cause another asteroid passed by two days solar] the Russian government held Maximu™ | an urgent meeting (attended by period for longer than | top Officials and scientists) to anticipated. discuss what they termed It was pro- jected to "The 2003 Problem". have ended about a year damage to sensitive satellites. The dis- later—at an even closer distance. ruption of power grids and communica- Unfortunately, you won't find that post- tion networks by powerful solar flares is ed anywhere. well documented. And it's not so sur- The US Federal Emergency prising once you consider that an X3- Management Agency was recently class solar flare contains as much energy assigned a mandate to construct emer- as four trillion tons of TNT. gency "tent cities" by January 2003, pre- Obviously Reagan was no "rocket sci- sumably to house people displaced by a entist", but he did have access to consid- major terrorist attack. These "cities" erable pools of scientific data and his will be capable of accommodating hun- very own science advisers. Not every- dreds of thousands of people. But are one is so lucky. You'll have to settle for we certain that the proposed disaster me. will be terrestrial in origin? Was Reagan simply trying to scare the The C2 image at far left centre is a nations of the world into cooperating picture of the asteroid that whizzed by with one another? Did he have some soon after 2002 MN made its close other mysterious New World Order approach. Since this one is not agenda? Well, perhaps we shouldn't give him too much credit. I prefer to believe that he had access to secret information, and it has only lately become clear what that was. Several years ago, the Russian government held an urgent meeting (attended by top officials and scientists) to discuss what they termed "The 2003 Problem". Orbital path of object 2002 NY40 before closest approach (above) and after (below) (Photo credit - NASA, JPL, NEO Program) me. Was Reagan simply trying to scare the nations of the world into cooperating with one another? Did he have some other mysterious New World Order 30 * NEXUS www.nexusmagazine.com FEBRUARY — MARCH 2003