Have you ever wondered how the sun works? Perhaps it would be better to ask why the sun works, or why it even exists. Or perhaps instead it would be better not to ask such inter-galactical, super-celestial questions, just in case the sun hears you thinking, starts to feel objectified and decides not to bother working at all. You could argue that the sun doesn’t work at all anyway, that makes it sound like it has a game plan or an instruction manual, but I suppose if you were of a scientifically inquisitive sort of tilt you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from digging a little deeper; on the off chance the sun is filled with crisps and hot Chablis and operated by the same people who run the British prison system. Who knows how the sun works? Who cares? Well, I can’t say I’m that bothered to know, but on the rare occasion I find myself thinking about the sun more than usual I’m just grateful it exists at all, as we all should be. I think I’ll leave the rest of the heavy lifting to NASA.
I think it’s wonderful that in a world where billions of people are so poor they have to mull their own piss on Christmas Day, we can afford to set aside billions of dollars to fund a spacecraft to take a closer look at the big fireball in the sky that keeps us alive on a day to day basis. Oh no, hold on, I don’t think it’s wonderful at all. Obviously, it’s an act of supreme, wasteful stupidity. Oh yes, I’m sure the science is all very interesting etc but is it going to make the slightest difference to any of us in real terms? Of course not. Ant yet that’s what NASA are playing at this Christmas. Like children quivering with excitement under their duvets as they listen out for Santa farting in the living room, the boffins at Cape Canaveral (actual HQ: Washington DC) have had to wait for this golden moment since 2018, when they shoved their Parker Solar Probe out into the void, at ludicrous speed, and let it hurtle towards something so big and overheated it could give Gemma Collins a run for her money.
The plan, like all plans that cost billions and achieve next to nothing, is really quite simple. So simple I’m surprised I didn’t think of it myself. After six years of drifting through the best part of fuck all, with only Mercury and Venus for fleeting company, the probe has inched ever closer to the outer atmosphere of our favourite star and is now in a position to ask it some pretty probing (hence the name) questions about what it does and why it does it. As it asks these posers the sun will be exacting a huge amount of gravitational force on the probe, making it travel faster than anything ever built by humans, reaching speeds that would make you shit your teeth out if you were ever unfortunate enough to cop a feel of them. With a bit of luck we’ll then know all about solar flares and the impact they have on our weather, but since we have no control over the sun we won’t actually be able to do anything about this. We are told that the probe will get agonisingly close to the sun, as close as 3.8 million miles if things work out, which is roughly the same as any one thing being 3.8 million miles from any other thing; I know it’s all relative but that’s still quite a stretch away to call things close.
Here’s what you need to know about the sun, and I’m giving you this for free, as a well deserved Christmas present. The sun is enormous and is essentially a huge ball of gas that is burning itself out, albeit very slowly. God created the sun on the fourth day, or Thursday as we know it, and since Thursday is the new Friday he must have treated himself to a little celebratory tipple, once he’d invented celebrations and tipples, of course. In creating the sun he gave all the planets of the solar system (solar means sun in Swahili, and comes from the same family of words as pre-molar, bi-polar and Coca-Cola) something to revolve around so that children can see them all in a neat line on a poster in a classroom and explain the existence of everything ever. The power of the sun is essentially incalculable, though through centuries of scientific endeavour we at least have enough understanding of it to replicate some of the benefits – see your local tanning salon for more details.
The sun is, most importantly, responsible for all life on earth and if it died tomorrow (everything has to die sooner or later, except Joan Collins) we’d be plunged into a freezing darkness that would wipe us out in not much more than a few awful, awful days. We’ll never be able to control the sun and if we could we wouldn’t deserve such power and responsibility. What we should be doing, instead of wondering how things like the sun work, is trying to work out how to stop trying to kill each other. We should wake up every day and be deeply thankful we have a sun at all, rather than questioning whether it could be working harder, smarter or better for us. Oddly enough the ancient sun worshipping civilisations had it spot on (well, maybe not the ritual sacrifice bit and druids raping virgins) – don’t ask why the sun is there, just be glad it comes up every morning and gives us light, growth, warmth and life. For it is in our moments of greatest curiosity, philosophy and intelligent investigation that we forget fastest that one day, many years ago, we were just a bunch of fucking chimpanzees and even then, as now, the sun was simply minding its own business and getting on with the day it so graciously provided. That said, I’d love to know if the sun really does wear a hat.
G B Burton. 24.12.2024
On stupidity......and other causes for concern. 