Simplification has its virtues. For one, when honest, it simplifies a complicated phenomenon or uttering, making it easier to comprehend. But there’s also a reason why being deemed a simpleton is not a virtue. Take the headline that appeared all across media earlier this month about a ‘piece of the Sun breaking off’. Some bhakts of oversimplification interpreted this as the coming end of the world. When space weather physicist Tamitha Skov tweeted a clip of the Sun taken by Nasa on February 2, adding, ‘Talk about Polar Vortex! Material from a northern prominence just broke away from the main filament & is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of our Star,’ many non-astrophysicists in the job of information dissemination latched on to Skov’s two words, ‘broke away’. Voila, the Sun was breaking up before our eyes!
Truth is that, as any simple astrophysics textbook would tell you, solar prominences are regular features. They are large plasma and magnetic structures shooting out from the Sun’s surface, frequently looping around like a tongue touching its own companion-nose. Why these solar plasma jets occur – usually for a few days, at best, weeks – scientists are yet to figure out. Which may be enough knowledgeable ignorance for the truth to be far away from the simpler headline: It’s the end of the solar system!
