29 on the 29th: A Birthday post for Motivation Monday

Fitting it should fall on a Monday – so we should call this a motivation Monday post.  This won’t be about me per se.  I’m not going to spend two hours writing about my life, expecting you to read every minute detail and be captivated.  The truth is, even though its been interesting and even hilarious at times, I haven’t really lived a life that’s any more captivating than anyone else’s.  I’ve had fun, and I’ve taken risks, and I’ve made mistakes, and I’ve loved and lost time and time again.  Even though every single person can say the same,...

A Solar Flare vs. All the Holiday lights on Earth: Which has more energy?

I’ve talked at length about Solar Flares.  They are massively energetic, and due to the Sun’s 11 year maximum period of activity, we have seen a lot of powerful ones this year.  With the holidays in full swing, sometimes the Universe can put up its own lights.   Which is More Powerful? A Solar Flare or all the Lights on Earth during the season? First of all, we need to figure out how much energy lights produce, and roughly how many homes put them up, and for how long.  We will have to make some assumptions, but we will start...

Asteroid Belt vs. Kuiper Belt vs. Oort Cloud

Have you ever wondered how they differ? The Asteroid Belt, shown above, consists of hundreds of thousands of rocks, with all kinds of different shapes, ranging in size from the Dwarf Planet Ceres at 950 Km in Diameter, down to small bits the size of dust particles.  It lies between Mars and Jupiter. The Kuiper Belt (pronounced Kai-per) consists of Icy rocks, and it a major source of short-period Comets in the Solar system.  Extending beyond the planet Neptune, Pluto was discovered to be one of the largest objects in the belt. The mysterious Oort cloud is a collection of...

Happy Winter Solstice

Time to celebrate! It’s the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, and the longest in the southern.  The first day of Winter here, and the first of Summer down south.  Although as a Canadian, Winter usually starts a lot earlier. Why do we have seasons? A common misconception is that the Earth is closer to the Sun in Summer, and further in Winter.  Well I can tell you the Earth reaches perihelion (its closest point to the Sun) on January 3rd, and it certainly isn’t a warm day in Canada, historically speaking. So the reason for the...