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| SNEWS |
 Title text: People say setting of fireworks indoors is dangerous, but I looked at their energy release and it's like 10^-40 foe; totally negligible. |
Explanation
Ponytail is showing Hairy her bedroom. Hairy asks about the large device on the ceiling, and Ponytail explains that it is part of the SNEWS (SuperNova Early Warning System). This detects neutrinos (tiny particles that travel near the speed of light, rarely interacting with matter) to give pre-notice of supernovae, as neutrinos are produced in large quantities during the collapse of the star core, which occurs hours before the main photon production. She explains this gives astronomers warning, allowing them to observe the event with telescopes and other instruments.
Hairy then asks regarding the nature of the visible equipment mounted on the ceiling, which has several protruding barrels. His first assumption is that it is either detector as part of the SNEWS, or some kind of telescope to be used in the event the SNEWS goes off. Ponytail explains that the device it is in fact a fireworks launcher, for the purposes of waking her up so she can witness the supernova herself. This is a very bad idea for a multitude of reasons. Reckless usage of fireworks is already known for causing significant property damage and personal injury even when used outdoors; launching fireworks inside the house means causing an explosion in a controlled area, guaranteeing that it will hit the building, maximizing the opportunity for the conflagration to ignite something flammable on the structure, and containing and therefore amplifying the sound of the burst (which can already deafen people who are too close).
Some people don't easily wake up to a simple alarm clock, especially if it is in reach and has a "snooze" function where a button will silence the alarm for several minutes before it beeps again. Note the similar sounds of "snooze" and SNEWS may be part of the joke.
Understandably, Hairy leaves to sleep at his own house.
The comic title "SNEWS" is an acronym from the beginning of the strip: SuperNova Early Warning System. It is also a play on "news"
The title text is a play on the tremendous amount of energy released by a supernova. The foe is an unofficial unit of energy approximately equal to 10^44 Joule (but named directly from initials in the original quantity of "ten to the fifty-one ergs", involving a pre-SI measurement of energy), which is on the order of the usual amount of energy released by a supernova. In comparison, human-scale amounts of energy β even relatively significant ones such as firework detonations β are negligible. This ignores the fact that energy releases that are "negligible in comparison to a supernova" can still be easily fatal to humans; the baseline 'foe' value is approximately twenty-seven orders of magnitude greater than even the largest man-made nuclear explosion. The described "10-40 foe" is equal to 10 kJ, the energy released by the complete combustion of about 0.6 g of table sugar (sucrose), or the decomposition of 6.75 g of nitrocellulose.
Transcript
- [Ponytail is walking into her room. The room has a bed, a set of drawers and a large sci-fi device mounted on the ceiling. Hairy is standing in the room, pointing up at the device.]
- Hairy: What's that device?
- Ponytail: Part of the supernova early warning system.
- Ponytail: There hasn't been a Milky Way supernova in over a century.
- Ponytail: Astronomers don't want to miss the next one.
- [Close up of Ponytail, now sitting on the end of the bed]
- Ponytail: 20 years ago, we set up a supernova alert system using neutrino detectors.
- Ponytail: It should give us a few hours' advance notice.
- [In a frame-less panel the view zooms back out, showing Ponytail and Hairy.]
- Ponytail: If it ever goes off, every astronomer on earth will scramble to point their equipment at the sky.
- Hairy: Oh, OK. So is that a detector? Or some kind of telescope?
- [The panel moves to the right, showing Hairy walking away. Ponytail is still on the end of the bed, raising a clenched fist for dramatic effect.]
- Ponytail: Fireworks launcher.
- Ponytail: I refuse to sleep through a supernova.
- Hairy: I think I'll spend the night at my place instead.
Trivia
The word "off" is misspelled as "of" in the title text.
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