Science Not So Fiction

My husband and I live aboard a sailing catamaran most of the year. Yesterday, I discovered water in the port bilge. These boats aren't supposed to have water in the bilges. The joke is that you clean the bilges of these boats with a hand broom and a dustpan. Fortunately, I know where this water is coming from - the hotwater heater leaks when it's turned on. The chances of the boat sinking because of this leak are slim. This morning, while trying to cook my breakfast and boil water for that all important first cup of tea, I ran out of propane and had to grab the wrench and go switch out the tanks. This is a slightly hazardous job. Propane is a heavier than air gas and it is highly flammable. Boats blow up because of undetected propane leaks and a single stray spark. My point? The whole living aboard the boat thing has given me new respect for the notion of spacefaring in a self-contained craft. This boat is three years old, yet we already have a list of kludges and fixes (and a list of those things which may be safely ignored - like the water heater leak) so that we can operate. This is only a sailboat. Our margin for error is really pretty big. Can you imagine trying to keep a boat in repair and in shape in space? Mess something up there and it's possible you won't be able to breathe. Leaks in zero-g would be catastrophic. Sure, my fresh water leak is inconvenient and wasteful, but all I have to do is put into a dock, grab a hose and refill my tanks. What are my options in outer space if one of my fuel tanks or water tanks springs a leak? Or worse - one of my O2 generators blows out? Yeah. In some of my books, the science fiction surrounding some of the stuff that goes wrong with space craft isn't entirely fiction after all.

Coronal Rain

We have a stellar furnace at the center of our solar system and we know remarkably little about it. A new Solar Dynamics Observatory is apparently changing that. The link is worth a click through, if only for the photos. They are lovely. Be sure to click on the slideshow thumbnail on the right. Just the first photo of the sun turns our central star into something that looks like it belongs in a horror show - it's beautiful and kind of terrifying all at once. You can imagine that bright/dark star over a world of fiends. As to the point of the article, apparently, when plasma erupts from the sun, it arcs along magnetic lines in the corona and the plasma then falls back to the surface of the sun in vivid splashes - if one is allowed a watery metaphor for something registering 60,000 degrees Kelvin. The plasma falls in 'droplets' and are referred to as coronal rain. The mystery had been in why the drops fall so slowly. The new observatory offered enough detail of the sun's corona to allow scientists to realize that masses of hot gas are buoying the 'rain', slowing its descent through the solar atmosphere. Interesting, no? Nice possible romantic moment - escape your bad guys and sit watching a plasma eruption and the subsequent rain. From within the safe confines of your starship, of course. Or have to navigate close enough to a star to have to deal with the massive heat as well as the super-heated gases, as well as the potential plasma eruptions. Dodge one of those and remember that you have to dodge the coronal rain as well. Mm. Nothing like the threat of imminent death to get the creative juices flowing. Now. Where were those matches?