Forewarned is forepaninked...

Move over climate change, COVID, and Republicans, Neptune may well be our doom.

Guess we're have to sacrifice a bull or something...

...which we could sacrifice to
Neptune. See? It all connects.

So to be clear, it's not Neptune, god of the seas who may destroy both our world, but rather Neptune the planet. According to Astrophysicists Garrett Brown and Hanno Rein, should a rogue star--which are just flying around the galaxy I guess--pass too close to Neptune, the impact on the stability of the entire solar system could be devastating. Like, Gyrs of devastating. His paper-huh? What's a Gyr? I don't know. I looked it up and it's a lumpy Indian cow. It's probably also some kind physics thing, but they don't pay me enough to dig any deeper. The point is it's devastating, shouldn't that be the take away here?

The Solar System is essentially a Jenga set
forty AU's in diameter, hurtling through the
cosmos at 448,000 mph. So sleep tight.

It all has to do with the gravitational pull such a star would exert. This pull would only need to cause as little as a 0.1 percent change in the ice giant's orbit to result in a disruption in the other planet's orbits. And it's not just Neptune. The physicists' simulations show that screwing with any of the planets' paths could cause the entire system to spin into chaos with planets smashing into one another. One scenario has Mars actually colliding with the Earth, so obviously it's time to panic, right?

Yes. But maybe not specifically about Brown and Rein's simulations. The likelihood of this actually happening is remote, even over the incredibly long lifespan of the Sun. That is, it's way more likely that the Sun will become a red giant and consume the Earth before anything like the above scenario happens. 

"So why even bother recycling?"

-us

"Why just panic when you can panic buy?"

-Americans

What a relief, right? Yes. Instead we should start panicking about this study by the Washington State Geological Survey which modeled the effects of a magnitude seven point five earthquake along the Seattle fault line and are predicting that it could cause tsunami waves more than twenty feet high. These waves would reach the city within minutes and last for hours undoubtably destroying Seattle and everyone in it. So, you know, be prepared. Somehow. At least that's according to the State's Department of Natural Resources, the Debby Downer of state government.

"Just to clarify, should the public put their
head between their knees before kissing
their asses goodbye or after?"

"[This study] was conducted to help local and state emergency managers and planners develop and refine response preparedness plans for a tsunami in the middle of Washington's largest population center and economic hub."

-Washington's Department of 

Natural Resources on the futility of hope

Wait, is there a way to prepare for a powerful earthquake immediately followed by twenty-foot tsunami waves? 

I'm all for preparedness, but they're talking about a repeating wall of water slamming into downtown Seattle again and again for three hours. It seems like the only way to be prepared is to pack up and move far away from Seattle as soon as possible. Like maybe join us here in drought-parched California, or move to hurricane alley. I hear the Yellowstone caldera is lovely. Or we could just all keep our fingers crossed that a loose star sends us crashing into Mars before the next COVID variant gets us.

Be sure to keep some canned goods, bottled water, and a
 crank radio on hand. None of this will help of course,
but it's nice to have something to do, you know?