So, What Exactly IS The Galactic Death Ray, You Ask?

It's theorized that all galaxies have HUGE, SUPER-GIANT black holes at their center. Astronomers have seen many of these monstrously huge black holes shooting out vast jets of ionized gas and radiation thousands and thousands of light-years long.

Many of these galaxy-center black holes appear to be quiescent, or having no radiation jets, however. The jets, which astronomers have only seen shooting up and down from the galaxies' axis of spin, seem to "come and go" over massively long periods of time.

This is where our galaxy, the Milky Way, appears to be unique. Lucky us. Instead of rotating in the same direction as all the rest of the mass in our galaxy, in sync with the galactic disk, our monster black hole happens to be like the planet Uranus. It's axis of spin is tilted 90 degrees from the Milky way's galactic plane. This is why astronomers have thought our black hole was quiescent at this time. Instead of shooting its jets to galactic North and South, they are shooting out to galactic Left and Right, where the astronomers can't see them! (Since we're speaking in terms of three dimensions rather than two as with a paper map, galaxies have North, South, East, West, Right, and Left. North and South are like "up" and "down.")

Just our luck, on December 21st of 2012, The movement of the Solar System around the galactic plane brought us into the West edge of the Left jet of our galaxy's black hole! It will take a full four years for the Solar System to pass all the way through the jet and come out the East side.

Since the jet is composed of massive quantities of tightly-focused radiation and charged particles, it's like the entire Solar System is flying through a giant galactic all-frequency laser beam. Anything un-protected on the surface of the Earth or the top 300 meters (approximately 900 feet) of the ocean gets fried in a ferocious bath of all types of radiation! Galactic Death Ray!!

By some lucky coincidence, there are very deep caves in Peru and near Carlsbad, New Mexico that can hold lots and lots of people. You have to be at least 100 feet underground to escape the full effects of the Death Ray. You get only a partial break at 50 feet under.

By another lucky coincidence, TINFOIL, God's greatest gift to anything, interacts with the Earth's natural magnetic field to create a shield that pushes the radiation away from its surface, blocking 99.99% of the Death Ray. You can't just hang out forever under a tinfoil umbrella, because that last 0.01% would get you in a few days. You CAN, however, get outside for a few hours. (Can you say TINFOIL SHACK ten times really fast??)

The bad news is plants don't get along with the Death Ray, either. That means you have to use hydroponic chambers in the caves to grow much of anything. Only a few shade-tolerant crops will grow (poorly) under tinfoil hoop-houses.

It promises to be a truly NASTY four years...