6.15 am, Planet Vulcan. Stardate: Now.
No, actually it's Sydney, Australia, after a night being buffeted by winds blowing in from drought-ridden regions around Canberra, Tipaburra and Broken Hill, NSW. Dust, dust, dust! The "red centre" is now on the east coast?
Funny, a few months ago Star Trek fans were complaining that JJ Abram's planet Vulcan had the wrong colour sky in the 2009 "Star Trek" movie. As in how could a planet have red sky some days (TOS, ST III) and a blue sky on other days...?
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So would Sydney be Shir'Kahr in this instance?
Well, now I know why Kirk needed the tri-ox injection to battle Spock in "Amok Time" (TOS).
The pics are literally aim-and-shoot examples from my back door, but it was the same eeriness in every direction for about six hours! Some people got up this morning and thought Armageddon had hit during the night and it was the end of the world!
The local newspapers had some cool facts and figures: Australian desert dust is much redder than the Sahara's dust because of its higher iron oxide content, which absorbs blue light. The sky appeared red because the sunlight was being absorbed by the suspended dust.
The red dust travelled 1500km to reach the New South Wales coast. At the height of the storm, 75000 tonnes of dust was being blown off the coast of NSW every hour. If it reaches New Zealand, the phenomenon settles on their snow-capped mountains, staining them red.
Daily Telegraph, 24 September, 2009.
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