Twelve months have passed since I counted the last minutes of 2019 and I happily shouted “Happy New Year”. We were not so happy aware of what was in store for us in the coming days.
For those who have lost their livelihood, their health or, most tragically of all, their loved ones, there is no silver lining that could compensate for the overwhelming pain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Or the damage caused by this year’s oversized fires and hurricanes.
Some of us were a little luckier. Except for the inconveniences, such as the need to rationale toilet paper or dress pants for the next Zoom meeting, 2020 was weirder than pathetic. After all, it could have been even worse.
How bad? Well, we can be grateful …
Yellowstone’s supervolcano did not explode
About 640,000 years ago, more than a thousand cubic kilometers (about 240 cubic miles) of rock, dirt, and trees were thrown up into the sky when a bubble of magma and hot gas blew across a vast continent. open.
The same molten rock caldera, now known as the Yellowstone caldera in North America, is technically expected to rehearse.
Now, there is a lot in that word, “technical.” Technically, the last book in Game of Thrones the series is delayed. But the timing of previous releases is not a reliable indication when you should expect a sequel.
However, every shake and shake of the national park landscape has made people wonder if Another Sea is near.
Last June, a series of earthquakes shook the region in rapid succession. And just this October, the usual rise of the geyser known as the Old Faithful ceased to be so faithful and fell silent suspiciously.
No one would be surprised if Yellowstone chooses 2020 to explode.
Well, no one but most of the world’s volcanologists. Research suggests that, if anything, the Yellowstone supervolcano has been much more active in the deep past and we should adjust our expectations as to when it could blow.
Whenever that year, 2020 was not.
An asteroid did not hit Earth
All eyes were on a mineral nugget called 2018VP1 earlier this year, which had a 1 in 240 chance of entering Earth on US election day.
At only 2 meters (about 7 feet), 2018VP1 does not exceed 140 meters (460 feet), NASA sets at least for the rocks we have to worry about. It’s a pebble compared to the 10-kilometer monster that wiped out the dinosaurs, and that one happened to hit the planet in the worst possible way.
However, any fast-moving boulder 5,000 kilometers from the planet is a good reason to think about the dangers facing dangerous asteroids near Earth.
On November 13 – Friday, no less – the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey conducted at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii alerted those watching the sky about the passage of a rock the size of a small house.
Just 400 kilometers across the Pacific, the observation set a new record for the closest passage of an asteroid. Worse, since it was hidden by the blinding brightness of the Sun, I had no idea it existed until a few hours after it had already passed.
It’s not that we would have worried much if he had hit. The rock was not much bigger than the Chelyabinsk meteor, which exploded famously over Russia in 2013.
But close shaving indicates that, under the right circumstances, we could be easily blinded by an unexpected cosmic sniper. And if we were thrown back into the stone age by an asteroid, 2020 would have made sense, right?
Needless to say, no worried asteroids hit Earth this year. Hatred!
We were not fried in life by solar radiation
Betelgeuse is a giant red star more than 600 light-years away, which we all want to hurry and die, because the resulting light show would be fantastic.
Earlier this year, everyone was excited when the star faded from what we all thought was a suggestive sign. It happened again in August. Were the first notes of his swan song?
Not. In at least one case, it was probably a veil of dust coming in – about as interesting as a cloud passing the Sun on a cold winter’s day.
Then we found out that Betelgeuse was probably much younger than she first looked, so we won’t go to the supernova for long, and we all turned our attention to other gloomy topics. If Betelgeuse had exploded, it would still be too far away to do us much harm.
But if the star were a little closer – as it is only 65 light-years away – its death could detach our planet from ozone and leave us exposed.
Indeed, we need to worry more about the frequent outbursts of particles charged by the Sun. Fortunately, we have a beautiful magnetic shield that protects us … which is still safe, right?
This year happens to mark the beginning of the 25th solar cycle of the star. Hip hooray! At the moment we are at a low point in his mood swings, which is nothing so special. We see this kind of break every 11 years.
The aliens never invaded
Remember in 2017 when our solar system was visited by a ridiculously fast asteroid?
We still have to triple check our spelling of “Oumuamua every time,” but since he was the first confirmed visitor from outside our Solar System, it really didn’t take long for the word “aliens” to be mentioned. Consider that it is a strange shape and has a reddish color and is a History Channel documentary in progress.
So, to our absolute and total surprise, it looks like they weren’t aliens. Realize.
Don’t worry; at the end of last year we had the second confirmed interstellar visitor in the form of a comet called 2I / Borisov, so we raised our hopes again.
Astronomers have been following him closely until 2020 and we have learned a lot about this object. It’s also a good thing. Given the chaos that Earth has endured this year, our planet would be ripe for an alien takeover. No doubt he would even bring his own supply of masks.
The undead armies never rose from the grave
Archaeologists rarely find intact Egyptian tombs containing sealed sarcophagi that have remained untouched for centuries, let alone for millennia. But when I do, it’s a cause for emotion.
The secrets they contain can show us not only how our ancestors might have looked, but how they sounded, how they lived, and how they died.
But it’s 2020. So when the sealed coffins just came in this year, we were sure it would end; in a wave of dehydrated corpses fluttering their bandages angrily as they walked the streets, right?
With the official completion of 2020, we believe we can safely recognize that hordes of undead are unlikely to be on the road, and any secrets we find in Egyptian tombs will ultimately benefit humanity.
Let’s not open graves in January. Just to be sure.