Twelve months have passed since we counted the last minutes of 2019 and we happily shouted “Happy New Year”. We were so happily unaware of what had been reserved for us in the coming days.
For those who lost their livelihood, their health, or most tragically of all, their loved ones, there is no money that can make up for the overwhelming grief caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Or the damage caused by wildfires and large hurricanes in those years.
Some of us have been a little luckier. Except for the inconveniences like the need to ration the toilet paper or put on pants for the next Zoom meeting, 2020 was weirder than unfortunate. After all, it could have been worse.
What’s worse? Well, we can be grateful …
The Yellowstone supervolcano did not explode
About 640,000 years ago, more than a thousand cubic kilometers of rock, dirt and trees were thrown into the sky when a bubble of magma and hot gases opened up an open continent.
The same molten rock boiler, now known as the Yellowstone Boiler in North America, is technically beaten to repeat it.
Now, there are many things in that word, “technically”. Technically the last book of the Game of Thrones the series has been delayed. But the timing of previous versions is not a reliable indication of when to expect a sequel.
Still, every tremor and shaking of the national park landscape has caused people to wonder if another big one is nearby.
Last June, a series of dozens of earthquakes shook the region quickly. And just this October, the giant known as Old Faithful stopped being so loyal and fell silent suspiciously.
No one would be surprised if Yellowstone chose 2020 to explode.
Well, no one except most volcanologists in the world. Research suggests that, in any case, the Yellowstone supervolcano was much more active in the deep past, and we should readjust our expectations about when it could explode.
As long as it’s that year, 2020 wasn’t.
An asteroid did not crash into Earth
Earlier this year, all eyes were on a piece of ore called 2018VP1, which had 1 in 240 chances of hitting Earth on U.S. election day.
Barely 2 meters in diameter, the 2018VP1 is well below the 140 meters (460 feet) that NASA sets at least for the rocks we really need to worry about. It’s a pebble compared to the 10-kilometer giant that wiped out the dinosaurs, and even that one hit the planet in the worst possible way.
Still, any fast rock that is less than 5,000 miles from the planet is a good reason to think about the risks we face from dangerous asteroids near Earth.
On Friday, November 13, no less, the latest Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Warning (ATLAS) survey at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii alerted observers of the Earth’s sky. passage of a rock the size of a small house.
Just 400 kilometers above the Pacific, the observation set a new record for the closest passage of an asteroid. Worse, as it was obscured by the dazzling gaze of the Sun, we had no idea it existed until hours after it had already passed.
Not that we would have worried much, if it had arrived. The rock was not much larger than the Chelyabinsk meteor, which famously exploded over Russia in 2013.
But the close shave indicates that, under the right circumstances, we could be easily blinded by an unexpected cosmic sniper. And if an asteroid attacked us again in the Stone Age, 2020 would have made sense, right?
Needless to say, there are no asteroids worrying the Earth this year. Yay!
Solar radiation did not let us boil alive
Betelgeuse is a red giant star more than 600 light-years away that we all wish was in a hurry and died, because the resulting light show would be fantastic.
Earlier this year, everyone was thrilled when the star darkened with what we all took to wink. It happened again in August. Were these the first notes of your swan song?
No. In at least one case, it was probably a veil of intruding dust, almost as exciting as a cloud passing the Sun on a cold winter day.
Then we learned that Betelgeuse was probably much younger than it first seemed, so the supernova wouldn’t pass for a long time, and we all turned our attention to other shady issues. If Betelgeuse had exploded, it would still be too far away to do us much harm.
But if the star were a little closer, like only 65 light-years away, its death could strip our ozone from the planet and leave us exposed.
In fact, we need to worry more about the frequent explosions of moving charged particles from our own Sun. Fortunately, we have a beautiful magnetic shield that protects us … which is still well fixed, right?
This year marks the beginning of the star’s 25th solar cycle. Hip health! Right now we’re at a low point in his mood swings, which isn’t that special. We see this kind of calm every 11 years.
The aliens never invaded
Remember 2017 when our solar system was visited by a ridiculously fast asteroid?
We still have to check the spelling of “Oumuamua” every time, but since he was the first confirmed visitor from outside our solar system, it didn’t really take long before the word “aliens” was mentioned. Note that it’s a weird shape and has a reddish color, and it’s an ongoing History Channel documentary.
Therefore, to our absolute and utter surprise, it turns out that they were no strangers. Imagine.
Do not worry about it; at the end of last year we had our second confirmed interstellar visitor in the form of a comet called 2I / Borisov, so we got our hopes back.
Astronomers have been monitoring it until 2020 and we have learned a lot about the object. It’s good too. Given the chaos the Earth has endured this year, our planet would be ripe for an alien takeover. No doubt they would even bring their own supply of masks.
The armies of the undead never came out of the tomb
Archaeologists rarely find intact Egyptian tombs containing sealed sarcophagi that have been intact for centuries, much less millennia. But when they do, it’s cause for excitement.
The secrets they contain can show us not only how our ancestors might have been, 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 that would be the end of it all; in a wave of dried corpses that angrily shake the bandages as they sink through the streets, right?
With 2020 officially over, we believe we can safely admit that hordes of undead are unlikely to be on the way, and that any secrets we find in Egyptian tombs will ultimately benefit humanity.
We do not open any graves in January. Just to be sure.