C.D. Reimer

A dozen residents in California’s Central Valley called 911 to report “lights in the sky.” Those lights in the sky weren’t Chinese spy balloons, the FortNite Battle Bus, or UFOs.

On Wednesday, March 1, 2023, Venus and Jupiter appeared unusually close in the Western sky after sunset. Also known as a conjunction in astronomy.

For those not familiar with the planetary neighborhood, Venus is next door to Earth and appears larger in the sky. Jupiter, the largest plane in the solar system, is a few doors over from Earth and appears smaller in the sky.

Stop calling 911 on your planetary neighbors

Research suggests that the Earth’s solid inner core may have stopped spinning and could spin backwards. The inner core spins independently of the liquid outer core and the planetary rotation.

The core spins one way for a while, stopping, and spins the other way for a while. A complete rotation takes 70 years. The last rotation change took place in the 1970s and the next rotation change will be in the mid-2040s.

Some media outlets ran headlines that skipped the “inner” part of the Earth’s core. Some people may translate that as, “We’re all gonna to die!” Those kinds of headlines will get clicks.

For the non-scientist reading those articles, there’s not a whole lot of there there. Few people will bother to click on the link to the research report. Fewer people will pay ten bucks to rent the report for 48 hours and read beyond the first page.

Unless you’re a geophysicist, it’s all gobbledygook anyway.

NOTE: Check out the longer version of this short video.