Jumble Solved – 03/23/23

Visual Description:  Man-made haze.

NGORP  =  PRONG,  RYEPK  =  PERKY,  VICAAR  =  CAVIAR,  BSTIUM  =  SUBMIT   —   Giving us:  PNGPEKCAASUIT

Clue/Question:  Our view of the night sky is changing as a result of so many satellites – – –

Answer:  TAKING UP SPACE

(Great pun, but this is no joke.  We rely so much on these satellites, and everyone . . . and their brother has at least one out there.  The leaders being the U.S., China, Russia, the UK, India, Japan, Canada, France and Germany.  Numbers vary, but would you believe that there are between 5500 and 8300 satellites in various Earth orbits?  More than half are active, but nearly half are essentially space junk now.  That is nuts!  They are/were for various purposes, but the vast majority of them are/were for communications and Earth observations . . . so yes, big brother IS watching us!  As if we didn’t already know this.

All four clue words are on the ralis95 clue word database.  But it turns out that all four jumbles are new.  At least to me they are.  I saw “prong” and “perky” right away, but it took a few looks to see “caviar” from “vicaar”.  I attribute it to my bias against fish eggs, and that it was a great jumble.  It also took me a few looks to see “submit” from “bstium”.  Another superior jumble!  The answer letter layout was a triskaideka-jumble.  But the final answer came to me quickly.

Fine cartoon of a couple of Astronomers, manning some kind of observatory.  Light pollution is a real thing, but these defunct satellites also poise a threat to the active ones.  When a live one hits a dead one it just creates more and more space junk, that can cause even more accidents.  Man is always slow to learn.  Eventually, it’s going to be a major problem, just as our over reliance on fossil fuels and plastics has caused us so many problems down here on Earth.  Oy!  Be well and do good, friends.)   —   YUR

Images courtesy of Google