We are, in many ways, the product of an extremely common set of conditions, here in this backwater arm's edge -- of just one of hundreds of billions of ordinary galaxies in the known universe — and one of hundreds of trillions of planets orbiting at just precisely the right distance, from the relevant host star. But it now seems our home star is quieter than most -- at about her. . . midlife. So maybe our emergence is slightly more uncommon than we might imagine, on the pure force of math.
Maybe flourishing intelligent life requires unusually stable, "whisper mode" stars, to mature more completely — i.e., far fewer massive solar flare catastrophes. . . that may be the blessing -- of our relatively “silent” star. It may seem that she is ignoring us, but perhaps that’s really what we need — collectively — to figure this all out for. . . ourselves.
In any event. . . here is the latest, from the NYT's superb science reporting:
. . . .The sun, like all stars, is a blazing ball of fusion-powered plasma. From its surface emerge magnetic field lines that can cause dark patches known as sunspots. Turn up the activity of these magnetic whorls, and you get more solar storms flinging deadly charged particles and radiation throughout our solar system. If enough of these punishing waves hit a rocky planet, that planet might end up microwaved into a dreary condition where nothing could live.
So how is it that we’re alive? A study released Thursday in the journal Science suggests that our sun is rather tame compared with its stellar siblings, and that hundreds of other sun-like stars in our galaxy have on average five times more magnetic activity than our parent star. In other words, the sun is a bit humdrum, which might be good for life here on Earth. . . .
In truth though, sometimes. . . the silence can be so. . . deafeningly hard. Onward for a mountain bike ride, by the lake -- in the 60s degreed sunshine. . . smiling.
नमस्ते
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