Storm Worlds and Lunar Venus Conjunction

National Geographic Channel has come through once again with a super 3 part mini series
Storm Worlds, premiering this Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 8-11 PM ET.

Starting off, Cosmic Fire. Imagine a solar event like a huge Coronal Mass Ejection, so powerful it takes out all the power grids across the world and puts us into darkness, destroying communication satellites...no more cell phones. Using dramatic recreations and Computer Generated Imagery National Geographic Channel takes us there, don't think it's possible? Back in 1859 a solar event was so powerful it took out the technologies of the time..the telegraph, over the United States and Europe, actually starting fires in the telegraph offices and just back in 1989 a solar storm one fifth the size of the one in 1859 took out power in Quebec for 11 hours.

A dream team of scientists and policy makers meet in Washington regularly to discuss ways of understanding and dealing with space weather, a natural and alien force that stalks the Earth with the power to send us back to the Steam age. If an event like the one in 1859 was to happen.. and it is when..not if it does, we are not prepared physiologically, culturally or technologically to handle it.




Next up, Alien Wind. Watch with the aid of CGI space storms off the chart in size and power and let me tell you after watching this premier you'll be thanking your lucky stars, for as unpredictable and sometimes stupid our weather is here on our little Earth, it pales in comparison to Saturn's lightning, 10,000 times more powerful than ours..or wind gusts of 11,000 mph on extrasolar planet HD 80606B, methane rain storms on Titan or storms lasting 100's of years on Jupiter. Watch as these storms attack San Francisco using cutting-edge CGI fantasy sequences.



Have you ever wondered what would happen if a Martian size dust storm hit Earth? probably not, but you get to see it using the aid of...that's right CGI, watch as talcum fine dust sandblasts everything in it's path, searing flesh like bleach, impossible to breath and there is nowhere to hide..sucks, good thing it's just fantasy, but fun to watch.

Unfortunately again these premiers are only initially showing in the States, not to worry though, coming to a local celestial theater near you, Saturday May 15 a slim crescent Moon meets up with Venus, just look to the west at Sunset, the Moon will be just below Venus, promises to be a pretty site and great photo op.

I want to leave you now with an animation of my "Sprouting Grass Full Moon" with corona, the name given the April Full Moon by early Native Americans.