The Science Behind Hurricanes, Cosmic Radiation and the Universe

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. With us today is Steve Cates, also known as Dr. Sky. And he, well, he explores our minds and tickles our minds of what the heck is going on out of space. Well, Steve Cates, tell us what the heck is going on this week.

0:16 Speaker 2 Well, good morning. Good Sunday morning to you and the listeners, John. Let’s begin with something going on in the weather. And that’s, of course, very much dependent on these particular subjects. We’re finding out, John, that the hurricane season in the Atlantic...

0:29 is really a dud so far. Now, that may be good news to people, of course. We don’t want these catastrophic hurricanes. But the question has to be asked, why is this happening? John, for the longest time, this hasn’t happened like this for about 50 or 60 years, this late in the season, where if you look at the

0:45 Atlantic Ocean, there’s basically no hurricanes. We’ve had a few minor tropical storms in the Gulf of America. But here’s the answer, at least astronomers and meteorologists think. We’re going through the Super El Nino. What is it? It’s the big warming of the water just off the coast of, let’s say, South America, causing more of those hurricanes and typhoons.

1:06 But here’s the reason why this may be happening in the Atlantic with no hurricanes. The particular El Nino, the Super El Nino, has winds that cut off the top of these storms when they develop in the ocean. And, of course, water in the, you know, heated water makes hurricanes thrive. But there’s also another cause. This is not

1:24 written reported, John. There’s a gigantic dust layer called the Saharan air layer. What’s that? It’s gigantic dust that comes off the Sahara Desert in Africa. John, it’s the size of the United States, and it too destroys the development of hurricanes. So we have to watch all these things.

1:42 The Earth is changing as far as weather, but it always seems, as you and I agree, that everything seems to come out and balance itself. But that’s what’s probably happening. Why no hurricanes in the Atlantic?

1:52 Speaker 1 Steve Cates did. earth balances itself out uh the creator who created the planet earth created us the planet we never run out of water for the last four billion years all the water we’re drinking it it gets recycled and we never run out of it the the the temperatures are steady because the hurricanes are used to bring

2:18 the temperatures up and down depending on where the planet earth is and where our Creator wants.

2:24 Speaker 2 It to be. Well said. The Earth rejuvenates. But in this case, it’s kind of odd that we don’t have hurricanes, and that’s a blessing to many who don’t want to see the destruction. But, John, we move on to another.

2:36 Speaker 1 What else would you like to talk about?

2:37 Speaker 2 Go ahead. Well, I’ve got a couple of other good ones here, John. Cosmic rays. We hear about this. Sounds sci-fi. They’re particles from space, high-energy particles from deep in space and sometimes from the sun. Now it’s getting to be something that people are paying attention to There’s now a health concern. A French organization has described radiation from space

2:58 as a work hazard. And this is not a joke. The people who fly on airlines, let’s say you work for an airline and your life is dependent on flying all the time. They’re saying that the higher incidence to be up in the atmosphere in an airplane, not that we don’t scare people, is that these cosmic rays penetrate.

3:15 They’re very, very powerful. And some are trying to link a causation to cancers over long, long periods of time. But cosmic rays, John, are quite interesting. They were discovered back in the early 20th century. Victor Hess, this physicist, went up in a balloon, and he won a Nobel Prize in physics in 1936 for identifying these. But, John,

3:36 here’s another bizarre thing. The old days when we watched our television sets and we watched TV stations go off, we saw that snow that appeared, you know, like in movies like Poltergeist. What is that? John, it’s the white noise from the explosion of the universe billions of years ago.

3:52 All those energetic particles are what we actually witnessed. We didn’t really know it. And that is bizarre. But it leads to the big one, John, always the mystery of the week. What’s the largest structure in the universe? Well, astronomers are very much studying this. They now believe that there’s this object called Kipu. It’s basically, for a South

4:13 American term, like a knot. you’d have on a rope. But what is Kipu? John, it’s a gigantic collection of galaxies, like on a string. Get a load of this. 1.3 billion light years long, making the Earth and our solar system just a tiny little speck in the vast cosmos.

4:32 Amazing how big the universe really is. And that’s probably the largest now known universe structure, this Kipu, this large big string of material. 1.3 billion light years, John. That’s amazing.

4:45 Speaker 1 There’s a lot more secrets out there in that universe than we know about. And we just have to keep exploring. And I hope we find out before our time is up more than we know now.

4:58 Speaker 2 Absolutely, John. And that’s the way this particular week shapes up. I hope you’ll new week. Coming up, don’t forget, the autumnal equinox, September 22nd, 8.04 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. And the beauty of the full harvest moon, John, on the 26th, Don’t miss it. Great things happening above our heads.

5:17 Speaker 1 Thank you so much, and we’ll talk again real soon.

5:20 Speaker 2 Have a great day. Have a great Sunday.