It's all about the sun...

How cold is it? Well, it's so cold that a picture of the sun is now on milk cartons! (Add your own rim-shot.) Didn't like that one … or just didn't get it? Then try this one: It's so cold that I heard the sun was fired due to excessive absences. (Betelgeuse, Jupiter and most of the fired NFL coaches are rumored to have an interest in the position.) OK, it's January and it's cold. And compared to most every winter except last year, it is cold beyond memory. And the sun … where's the sun? I mean as January progresses, we add almost 48 minutes of daylight. Shouldn't that equate to an increase in warmth?* Oh, how I wished it did. Unfortunately, heating up a giant ball covered in mixed surfaces takes quite a while ... months, in fact. And further, the angle of our crooked Earth allows the Southern Hemisphere to get a higher, and thus hotter, angle on the sun during our winter. And even further, and I am talking like really far … our Earth sits some 93,000,000 miles away from our sun! And from our sun's warmth … and in saying this, it should dumbfoundingly astound each of us that something so far away would have any warmth at all to share with us. Yet it does, and it does because it is so darn big. The numbers say the sun is over 100 times larger than Earth, but that's just considering the sun and Earth's diameter. By mass, the sun is 333,000 times that of Earth, and by volume it is 1,300,000 times bigger. And with numbers like that, the sun easily heats Earth. In fact, it heats the feeble atmosphere and surface of Mars to a comfortable 70 degrees, and Mars is almost 50,000,000 miles further from the sun than the Earth. So, the sun is giant and it radiates a lot of heat. But is that all it does? First off, while it is easy to compare the sun to a furnace, it is not. Instead of just burning some fuel, the sun partakes in the nuclear process of fusion. Fusion is where two things that normally care little for each other, are forcefully smashed together. The result is the creation of massive amounts of energy and light. In our sun's case, and grossly simplified, hydrogen atoms unwillingly become helium atoms. And when they do, BAM! And as millions of reactions take place the resulting light is blindingly bright, and the collective heat can roast a planet millions of miles away. Moreover, the reaction also produces gamma rays, UV light and cosmic rays and lots of other bad things. Gamma rays are electromagnetic radiation that have the shortest wavelength but contain the highest energy. Because of their tiny size, and speed-of-light movement, they can zip right through just about anything. Unfortunately, along the way they can wreak havoc, especially on living tissue and right down to the level of DNA. And before I say anything more, please allow me wax nostalgically. Do you remember how we used to play with gamma ray guns as children? What were we thinking? What were our parents thinking? What blissfully ignorant world did we used to live in? You would pull the trigger of the blasted thing, and it would whirl and spark. Was there nuclear fusion going on inside there? Were we corrupting the DNA of our childhood friends? The answer to all of this is, "Of course not!" … but the reality of it all was that we -- and this included the toy makers -- had some cursory awareness of something called gamma rays, but what they really were and what damage they could inflict was considerably lacking. But, boy were they fun! (And I looked -- toy gamma ray guns are still available today!) Luckily, our planet's atmosphere prevents nearly all of the sun's gamma rays from reaching the surface. (But, unfortunately, it is not capable of absorbing gamma rays from an errant hip-shot of a child.) Ultra-violet light -- light beyond our visual ability -- shoots out of the sun and towards Earth. UV light has been linked to cancer, especially skin cancer. As with most of the bad things emanating from the sun, our atmosphere was conveniently, or just luckily, set up to block UV penetration. The layer most directly involved is the ozone layer, and we all have heard about the ozone layer, especially its shrinkage. The good news is that the ban on chlorofluorocarbons has allowed the ozone layer to re-generate. Thus, it is estimated that by 2066, it will be significantly recovered. (And that sunscreen manufacturers will be lamenting!) Cosmic rays are another bad output of the sun's nuclear reactions. Funny, and quite confusing, is the fact that they are not actually rays, but rather high-speed particles. Still, like gamma rays, cosmic rays are tiny, ultra-fast and capable of damaging living things. (Hey, might they make a pretty cool toy gun?) (Oops, too late. They're already a thing, and they come in a long gun version.) And, of course, there are mass ejections (aka solar flares) that send charged particles our way. This time, the earth's magnetic field funnels them toward the poles, and when they interact…and get negated…by upper atmospheric gases the glow of the auroras is seen. So, next time you see the Northern Lights, remember that they are a combination of the sun sending us something bad, and our atmosphere protecting us. There is one other thing that the sun does that we should be really appreciative of and that is the fact that it keeps us all together. And by this, I don't mean as humans or even animals, but as a planet within our solar system. It is the sun's gravity, mixed with the angular motion of Earth that keeps us perfectly inline. That keeps us the living planet that we are, and I can't really think of any negatives about that. Additionally, we only get about 100 hours of sunshine in Cleveland in January. January 100 Update Our recent cold weather is impeding my 100 birds sighted in January goal. But I am plugging on ... sitting at 79 with nine days left in the month and another cold weekend in the forecast. Once again, if you see an unusual bird anywhere in our county, let me know. Have binoculars, will travel.