What's That?

I Thought I Saw Something

Hello Friends,

Do you ever have the feeling that someone is watching you?

Or that something is lurking on your periphery, maybe looming, maybe wise, like Yoda, and holds the answer to the question that's been burning, like the Centralia Mine Fire, in the back of your mind for years?

I have been having this sensation lately: a shape, or more specifically, a cloud (can a cloud be specific?), keeps appearing on the edges of the lenses of my eye-glasses.

Of course, when I turn my head to look, nothing is there.

And, of course, you can say, "David, clean your glasses," which is fair, but I think it's more than that.

Could it be a trick of light, a cat, an eye floater? Or this guy from a fever dream?

I don't think so. I think something is really there and I haven't quite captured it yet.

Recently, two astronomers say they have discovered a ninth (I say 10th, because in my mind Pluto is still a planet) celestial body at the very edge of our solar system, out beyond Neptune. They propose it’s oscillating its way around the Kuiper Belt, the ring of rocks that Pluto rules.

This planet is a hungry pedestrian trying to cross the street (Kuiper Belt), separated from a large pastrami sandwich by a spontaneous parade of squirrels (asteroids). Ever hungry for sandwiches on either side of the street, it weaves back and forth, occasionally knocking a squirrel spiralling towards the Sun (a potential explanation for what causes comets…).

A large planet with a weird orbit that is hard to detect explains some observational oddities some astronomers say exists in the far reaches of our solar system. It seems the Kuiper belt isn't a uniform smear of space stuff—it has clumps like Aunt Mildred's mashed potatoes. And, as goes many things in space physics, if we can conjecture that something large and unseen is flopping around out there, it smooths out the lumpy maths.

Well, these two guys looked at photos of the night sky taken 23 years apart and saw a dot that moved just like a ninth planet of a certain size going in a certain direction might move if it was captured in those images.

"What's that?" one guy asked, looking at a blurry dot in the first photo. It was late, and, being scientists, he and his buddy had nothing else to do on a Saturday night.

"Dunno," said the second guy, popping the top off a cold beer.

"Where'd it go?" asked the first guy, looking at the second photo, taking the bottle from his friend and drawing a long, noisy glug.

"Right there," said the second guy, pointing at the same blurry dot in a different location in the second photo. Then he opened a beer for himself.

"Could it be?"

"I think it is." They clinked bottles and smiled knowingly at each other.

And there you have it—science!

Happy reading, happy writing, happy finding that thing that's been on your periphery for all these years.

David