This solar eclipse, photographed on Oct. 23, is the closest we’re getting to “total darkness” anytime soon. (AP Photo/The Wichita Eagle, Travis Heying)
Earth will not suffer six days of “total darkness.” Nearly 1 million people have shared the “news,” purportedly confirmed by NASA, that a solar storm will block out the sun from Dec. 16 to 22 this year. The rumor originated on Huzlers, a site that specializes in a particularly humorless form of fake news. It was propagated by people who apparently slept through 10th-grade Earth science.
Interestingly, Huzlers’s original story on the blackout now automatically redirects to a story about Bill Gates offering Young Thug $9 million to stop making music. For the record, this is also untrue. In fact, I struggle to imagine a world in which Bill Gates knows who Young Thug is.
(washingtonpost.com)
