A Grazin’ in the Sun

Images of the Sun captured by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager instrument.

Here’s the good news about the pandemic, which finds us hunkered and bunkered while COVID and Science duke it out in the heavyweight bout of the millennium:

Science will win.

We know this because, while coronavirus is adaptive as hell, Science gets stronger every day. Why, just look at what it did with the other hand while battling coronavirus, like Neo batting away Mr. Smith after his enlightenment. Just last week, the Solar Orbiter came within 48 million miles of the sun’s surface, the closest we’ve ever had a camera.

In honor of the achievement, a FactSlap column, solar edition, illustrated by some of Orbiter’s best tourist snapshots.

  • The sun is the most perfectly round natural object known in the universe.ESA - Solar Orbiter's first images reveal 'campfires' on the Sun
  • The Sun accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System.
  • The beautiful symmetry of a total solar eclipse happens because —by pure chance— the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but is also 400 times farther from Earth, making the two bodies appear the exact same size in the sky.Total Solar Eclipse Science
  • The theory that the Sun is the center around which the planets orbit was first proposed by the ancient Greek Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BC.Aristarchus of Samos: The Greek pioneer of the heliocentric system ...
  • The Sun does not have a definite boundary, and in its outer parts, its density decreases exponentially with increasing distance from its center.Solar Orbiter, a new mission to the sun by Europe and NASA, to ...
  • 1.3 million Earths could fit inside the sun, an average-sized star.1.3 million Earths could fit inside the sun, an average sized star ...
  • Six ten-billionths of the Sun is gold.55 Interesting Facts About Gold You May Not Know | Facts.net
  • The Sun is thought to have completed about 20 orbits during its lifetime and just 1/1250th of an orbit since the origin of humans.Milky Way Galaxy - Crystalinks
  • A third of all Russians believe the Sun revolves around the Earth, according to state pollster VsTIOM.Mirror Image" of the Earth and Sun Discovered 3000 Light-Years Away
  • As passengers on Earth, we are all carried around the sun at a mean velocity of 66,600 mph. What are some mind-blowing facts about the Sun? - Quora
  • Your eyes can get sunburned.First Aid for Eye Sunburn
  • A bolt of lightning is 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun.Hotter than the Sun and Other Facts about lighting that will ...

 

The 28th Amendment

A scientist at Houston Methodist Hospital last month preparing patient samples to be tested for the coronavirus.

Starting a new faith is a bitch. Just ask David Koresh, Jim Jones or Jesus.

I just can’t get people to buy the concept that science is a faith, as malleable as warm Silly Putty. But there’s no time for a wholesale conversion.

Now, we’ve got to form that putty into a new Amendment to the Constitution, the 28th. The last two were pretty dull: No. 26, passed in 1971, made it unconstitutional to prevent anyone older than 18 from voting (cc: The South); and No. 27, passed in 1992, that all congressional pay raises  must be voted on by Congress.

I propose Number XXVIII: Congress shall pass no laws restricting or restraining the collection and dissemination of scientific data gathered buy government health agencies (i.e., the separation of Science and State.)

The need comes after Donald Trump ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all COVID-19 patient information to a central database in Washington, starting Wednesday.

Anthony Fauci may want to hit the Craigslist job board. The administration sees the object hurtling toward it, reality — in the form of a Depression, pandemic and Cold War loss — and are hoping to deflect its impact until after the Nov. 3 election.With Dr. Fauci, Trump picked the one fight he can't win - Business ...

But this has been an Amendment whose need arose long ago. No president — Democrat or Republican — should be the gatekeeper to the scientific data collected nationwide. We fund every department in the federal and state government, including the CDC and the departments of Health and Human Services.

Every American citizen has a right to find out the crime rate in their neighborhood. Shouldn’t we have the same access to scientific data as we do criminal data? If we can obtain the murder rate in our city, why not the COVID rate?

The Trump response is to be expected. His inclination has traditionally been to NDA any problem he sees as a threat to his power or profits. The antics just get more desperate the closer we get to a quarter to late.

So come on, Joe. Propose change. The founders saw this threat when religion held sway. You can make a nod to them, while telling younger voters there’s an option of change.

We’ve got a grim choice before us come November: The ailing grandpa versus the ailing, crazy grandpa. You want a real base in your corner? Try science. They’re drawing believers by the legions.