Astrocast.TV

Did you think I was going to talk about the economy? Even I might have, but yesterday I received my copy of a new book by Philip Plait titled “Death From the Skies,” with the ominous subtitle “These are the Ways the World Will End.” Now I didn’t finish the book in one seating, although I might have if I hadn’t had to attend a dinner of the Potomac Geophysical Society as the president of that group is a personal acquaintance. Anyhow, between hearing a talk about the detection of low frequency sounds in the atmosphere called infrasound, and listening to the radio on the way home about how the stocks took another tumble, and how it’s a global tragedy of monumental proportions, it was cathartic to get back home and read more about disasters of truly monumental proportions. You think the stock market crash of ’08 is a disaster, you ain’t heard nothing yet. The author reviews just about every disaster of truly global proportions that this old universe (about 14 billion years old, by the way) has in store for us. This includes everything from impacts with space rocks, solar magnetic storms, gamma-ray bursts, and the ultimate fate from the expansion of the universe itself. While these and others are serious scenarios, the author maintains a cosmic wit throughout as is demonstrated even in his section subtitles. For example, there’s “Sirius Danger?,” “The Hole Truth,” and “Sunrise Sunset” which is of course followed by “Swiftly Flow the Days Millennia Eons.” By the way, if you wade through all of the cosmic disasters (speaking of which disaster itself is derived from the Greek for ‘bad star’) you’ll find in the end that you have learned a bit about almost every topic that I teach in my introductory astronomy classes. Obviously, I highly recommend the book as an enjoyable weekend read which should lead you to think, learn, and perhaps realize that all is not doom and gloom.

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