Letters, I get letters...
As a kid, I loved the 70's TV series, "The Waltons." I was thinking of that show recently—specifically one episode where John-Boy was umpiring a pickup baseball game, and the grandmother (played by the late Ellen Corby) for some reason took an enthusiastic and vocal interest in the game. At one crucial moment of the game, Grandma was explaining the finer points of the game to her equally clueless friends: "And when John-Boy goes like this," she said, making the "safe" signal, "that means something."Yes, Grandma, it does. Just not anything you understand.
And with respect to the 2012 woo-woo, a recent comment on this blog concerned what the writer considers the crucial points of the whole 2012 controversy:
Sherman wrote:
I have been a great student of all this 2012 stuff for many years. I will sum it up as follows: Precession of the Equinoxes. Look it up, learn what it means. It is indisputable proof that a great event is in the process of occurring. And the Milky Way discovery that NASA has just announced in the last few days might just tie into it all...First of all, I love that Sherman invites me to "stay tuned." Who do you think is writing this blog, ducky? If I'm not "tuned," there ain't no content. But never mind.
Stay tuned!
No no, you say, Sherman means stay tuned for more exciting news on the recent NASA discovery (which he cryptically—and inexplicably—fails to name, but again, never mind). The discovery he refers to is undoubtedly G1.9+0.3, the first evidence of a supernova discovered in the Milky Way galaxy since 1680.
Well, as an amateur astronomer—more of an enthusiast, really—The Fool is indeed tuned in, and I would venture to suggest I am perhaps a bit more tuned in than Sherman. The unromantically-named G1.9+0.3 was first detected in 1985, which makes it not exactly a recent event. So what's the "new discovery" that NASA is all excited about? Well, it seems G1.9+0.3 is a bit older than they originally thought. Originally, NASA believed the nova took place about 400-1000 years ago. Thanks to new imaging from the VLA (NRAO's Very Large Array) and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, it now appears that G1.9+0.3 first exploded some twenty-five thousand years ago.
All of which means G1.9+0.3 is over 25,000 light years from Earth.
That's 1.46962495 × 1017 miles. As we say in New England, that's wicked far.
For a very cool animation of all this, check this out from the Chandra web site.
Stay tuned, kids!
Ha ha. Sherman, you're tanked ;)
I'm enjoying your writing Cods. Thanks.
Reply to this