Story of the Sahara Desert- Mythology & Science Ep. 1

 Do you like listening to mythological stories? They were fantastic entertainers in our childhood, right? But did you know that they contain layers of knowledge and wisdom in them? As a grown up, it is even more interesting to peel each layer and discover the hidden meanings and concepts.

   Hello and Welcome to the 1st Episode of Mythology and Science. I will narrate wonderful stories from Greek and Indian mythology and also explain their amazing scientific implications.

  Click on the link below to enjoy this content in video format

https://youtu.be/WmQ0nkpH3mc

You can also subscribe to my youtube channel 'Balancing Act' to watch more such exciting stories.

Now it’s story time.

STORY

Once upon a time in Greece, there lived a young boy called Phaeton. His father was Helios, the Sun God and His mother was Clymene, a water nymph on earth. Helios had the job of perpetually riding his chariot of fire around the earth. Hence, he could never make time to visit his family. Clymene’s constant assurance that Helios loved his family was good enough for Phaeton to cope with his father’s absence, until one day, Phaeton’s friends accused him of lying that the Sun God was his father.

    Phaeton was furious but paralyzed with embarrassment. With his mother’s permission, he travelled to the heavens to meet his Father and ask for a testimony of their relationship.

The teenager was enamoured by the grandeur of the sun God’s golden palace. Tongue tied was Phaeton, when he beheld the Regal brilliance of Helios, but he quickly gathered himself to admonish the mighty God of being a negligent father. He spoke of his predicament and asked his father to set it right.

  Helios was full of remorse and overwhelmed with love. In an effort to make up for his absence he declared to grant anything his son might wish for. Anything!

  Phaethon who was chocked with excitement at the offer pointed to the chariot of fire and expressed his wish to ride it around the world once. Helios regretted making such a hasty commitment; for his fiery horses cannot be controlled by anyone except himself. He warned his son of the difficulty of making his steeds climb up to the sky, the danger of riding so high above the earth and the horror of plummeting rapidly into the dusk. But the flighty youth who was boiling for vindication was determined to show off the flashy ride to his friends.

      Helios was in a fix, allowing the untrained youth to ride can prove fatal but going back on his promise will break his son’s faith in him. He reluctantly lead his son to the chariot, Phaeton happily hopped on. No sooner than he held the reins did he resent his choice; for the horses went berserk. He was alarmed at how the steeds breathed out fire while heaving up the sky. Once up, they ran in full speed accelerating dangerously close to earth, the boy lost control of the reins. The chariot of fire completely scorched the vast expanse of forest turning it to a desert. People were burnt black. It was then, the God of gods, Zeus came to the rescue. He threw a powerful bolt of lightning to scare the horses away. The terrified horses turned and ran away but Phaethon got jolted off the chariot and died.

   Helios was stupefied. Unable to forgive himself for his son’s death and burning mother earth, he resigned from his duties as punishment and never left the palace. The earth then, suffered an unusually long period of darkness and cold spells. Life was diminishing without the warmth and light. It was again Zeus, the lord of Jupiter, who approached the grief stricken Sun God and cajoled him to return to his duties. With Helios resuming work, Earth came back to normalcy, but the burnt land remains a desert to this day.

 Science

     This story can be interpreted differently by a 6 year old, a parent, a psychologist etc. My interpretation is that of an Astronomer, let’s get to it.

Helios, his palace and his chariot are all metaphoric representations of the sun and its characteristics. We are all aware that the sun is stationary and its gravitational force has roped in the planets to the solar system and makes them rotate and revolve around it. For the sake of easy understanding, the story describes ‘movement’ as it is seen from the earth. So the path in which, Helios rides his chariot of fire is actually the rotary motion of the Earth that causes Day and Night. The description of the horses climbing up the sky, running high above the earth and plummeting are all representative of sunrise, high noon and sunset.

Earthling Phaeton, who is the produce of Helios, represents the gravity produced by the sun. Phaeton going to meet his father indicates the sun’s gravity pulling the earth closer to it. The earth orbits around the sun in an elliptical route which causes the changes in seasons. Although it usually travels in the same path, it has a tendency to wobble slightly inward or away from the usual route, this is called Orbital Eccentricity. When the weatherman reports of the hottest summer or the coldest winter in decades, it is probably because of this. When it orbits inwards it becomes hotter than usual, and the part of the world that receives maximum exposure tends to suffer from drought. The Ice age that lasted for centuries and the subsequent global warming were also due to the change in the orbital path.

    This story speaks of one such orbital eccentricity. When the Earth’s orbit drew close enough to the sun, the solar insolation scorched a big part of Africa that received maximum exposure and turned the land into a desert – the Sahara desert. The solar winds caused intense lightning. The earth then catapulted away from the sun causing an extreme winter. This moving away from the sun is depicted in the story as Helios refraining from his duties.

    Besides the sun, planets like Venus (which is closest to the Earth) and Jupiter (which is the largest planet on the solar system) also affect the Earth’s Orbit and climate due to their own gravitational tug. Zeus is the metaphoric representation of Jupiter. So, when the story speaks of Zeus going to Helios and asking him to resume his job is again, it actually refers to Jupiter’s gravity tugging the Earth along with it and being instrumental in bringing it back to its regular course; and restoring bearable climate.

   Scientists believe that the Sahara was formed 7 million years ago, but how did the Ancient Greeks come to know of it just a few thousand years ago? Not just that, they made a beautiful story out of it that people of all ages can savour. Intriguing, isn’t it? That brings us to the end of this episode. Subscribe to my channel ‘Balancing Act’ and I’ll meet you soon with another interesting story.

References

How the Sahara came about

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161130141053.htm

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/green-sahara-african-humid-periods-paced-by-82884405/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara#:~:text=Desertification%20and%20prehistoric%20climate,-Main%20articles%3A%20Sahara&text=One%20theory%20for%20the%20formation,or%20three%20million%20years%20ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIAkJg8knTI

Earth’s orbital eccentricity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi-VEby3m9E

Sun and Lightning

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27406358#:~:text=Activity%20on%20the%20Sun%20is,on%20Earth%2C%20a%20study%20suggests.&text=As%20the%20Sun%20rotates%2C%20the,1.8%20million%20miles%20per%20hour).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqI2T2f5mnE