Ultraviolet Light on the tiny and from the great and mighty.

One thing I enjoy about cleaning trauma scenes outdoors is the Sun's ultraviolet light. Toss a bloody, paper towel in the sunlight and bingo, those pesky micro-organisms sunburn to death. I am told that nothing kills micro-organisms in blood like light from the Sun, ultraviolet light. Judging from those sunburns I earned at the beach in my younger years, I have no doubt in the Sun's power to destroy my microscopic friends. In fact, I can recall the "bad kid" down the block toasting ants with sunlight. He focused the Sun's rays through the magnified glass and poof! Army's of tiny critters were innocently toasted by no fault of their own. The micro guys live in the dark by chance or design, and never live out of the dark by chance or design.

I guess that I've been lucky to clean in the high deserts of a number of southwester states. I've been burnt for sure, never toasted, though. Higher elevations allow more ultraviolet light to pass through the thin air, sunrise to sunset. Throw in the oven-dry, blowing wind and blood's crimson red turns volcanic black in minutes, wind or no wind. I have much respect for our Sun's ability to destroy life forms from 93 million miles away.

It is with great humility and awe that I read today about an ultraviolet light observation from an exploding supernovae. Imagine an exploding star producing the light of a million stars upon its extinction. Imagine that "The really cool thing about our observations is this light traveling ahead of the shock wave traveled through the star before it was destroyed."

It is all so great and grand, so dwarfing too. We are indeed tiny critters in a vary great and mighty place. We too can burn by no fault of our own. Check the pictures out: exploding supernovae.

Eddie Evans
Crime Scene Cleanup