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The Solar Oxygen Crisis
Astrophysicist writes "The Astrophysical Journal this week published an article about the abundance of oxygen in the Sun. Oxygen is the third most abundant atom in the universe, behind hydrogen and helium. Most of the hydrogen and helium was formed in the Big Bang, which means that oxygen is the element most frequently produced by nuclear fusion reactions in the interior of the stars. The solar abundance of oxygen, which is key in astrophysics because of its use as a calibration reference for other objects, was thought to be well established since the 80s. However, recent evidence indicates that it has been overestimated by almost a factor of two. A revision of the solar oxygen abundance would have a cascading effect on other important elements, such as carbon, nitrogen and neon, whose abundance is only known relative to that of oxygen. In addition to the impact on the chemical composition of many stars, models of solar interior may require some reworking in order to be consistent with the new data."
That amount of oxygen is just under the amount needed to create a stable atmosphere for human life on the sun.
I guess there's always Mercury.
This takes my breath away!
Because there's half as much oxygen as they thought! We're all going to die!
and I thought my cascading errors were bad!
Wait for it...3, 2, 1:
We will now see a bunch of programmers and geeks try to display their scientific understandings and fail miserably. Usually because they read a chapter or 2 of Hawkings, or they know how to spell Fiene...Feinama...that really cool and funny fizicist...phyzi...fiscis...you know, someone who studies how the Universe works.
I think we'd be better off sharing bio-diesel recipes and gossiping about our favorite TV series that are due for cancellation.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I thought it was gonna be something else Bush and Rove were at fault for.
Headline:
Sun has less Oxygen that thought, women and children hit hardest.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Yet more evidence that Solar Warming is really happening. Before you know it, the solar polar ice caps will melt, covering the entire surface of the sun to a depth of 23 feet and extinguishing its flames. Then we're completely screwed.
I can see why the article calls this a "crisis." Scoff at your own peril.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
I am always reminded of the cartoon characters that run off a cliff, but they don't fall until they notice they aren't standing on anything. Maybe now that we notice this, the universe will implode or something. I hope not, at least until the end of the weekend - I hate it when my weekends get cut short.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
SOL Macrosystems released a statement today about a cascade error in it's Ox2 processing core... more at 11.
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.
Less oxygen around than we thought.. What process rapidly consumes oxygen? Hydrogen&Oxygen fuel cells used in rockets. Who recently flew into space? Microsoft billionaire Simonyi. What is produced in the reaction? Water vapor. What does water vapor in the atmosphere do? Act as a greenhouse gas and cause global warming. What will be one of the effects of global warming? Many more third world refugees. Who benefits from there being more third world refugees? Providers of technology for the OLPC project. Which company recently became part of the project? Microsoft!
.. So not worth it.
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Don't worry, we'll just blame it on the USA. They didn't sign the Kyoto protocol and now look at the mess we've got.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Actually, the solar crisis is caused by light industry.
But you know, why don't we just invade the sun? If we don't fight the photons there then we'll have to fight them here at home.
What if we recalculate the age of the Sun based on these new figures and it shows the Sun got created 5000 years ago . Then it would mean the Christians were right all along and all the fossil evidence was just props put in by God to puzzle the puny humans. See it IS a crisis ;)
**Life is too short to be serious**