From time to time, we like to take a break from reading the news down here on earth and to see if there’s any better news up in space, in case moving up there is an option.

I can assure you it is not.

Our first story today is from February, when, according to astronomers at NASA, a piece of the sun broke off.

Oops. Was that supposed to come off?

I didn’t even know a piece of the sun could come off, which I guess is the first thing you say the first time something breaks. Then you try to put it back so the next person thinks he broke it.

But according to space weather physicist Tamitha Skov, the phenomenon is not as alarming as it sounds. Which is exactly what they would say if something was alarming because they don’t need a panic on their hands. Where are we gonna go?

“This kind of thing happens all the time,” she told reporters, over the sounds of scientists yelling and running back and forth in her lab.

So that’s reassuring.

Also, the part that broke off was a piece of the sun’s northern pole, which, if I remember from astronomy, is its coldest part—the part that gets the least sunli…wait a minute.

Anyway, our next news story today is titled, “Aliens could be deliberately avoiding NASA rovers on Mars.”

So first of all, they’re not aliens; we are.

I think people are saying this just because it’s been a while since we’ve sent rovers up there, and we have yet to find life. But I mean, life moves. Also, it’s not like we know what we’re looking for up there. We’re going to other planets looking for life, and we’re picturing they’re going to look a lot like humans. But we already know all the humans down here, and some of them we don’t like. We’re going to go up and find something in common with those humans? Maybe they’re not even humans. Maybe life up there looks like rocks. I would say that statistically, just based on how many species there are on this planet, if there is other life up there, it will probably be insects. Have they checked under all the rocks?

The other thing we keep looking for up there is water. Life needs water—at least the life we know—so if there’s water, maybe we can go up and colonize it when this planet gets too full. But I mean, we haven’t even explored the entirety of our world. Why not explore the bottom of the ocean first? See if there’s water there! We’re going to go to a planet with no oxygen and build a dome and live in it. Why don’t we do that under the ocean? It’s a lot closer!

So really I think people want to move up there in case another piece breaks off the sun. Buy ourselves an extra five minutes.

Either way, scientists have decided that either the aliens are hiding from the rovers, or else—and this is the more likely theory—our equipment is not calibrated to find the kinds of life that might live on Mars. Now they’re saying that the kind of life living on Mars might be something called “dark microbiomes.” We’re only calibrated for light microbiomes and regular-sized biomes.

Microbiomes, in case you’re wondering, are things like bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Viruses. We’re always like, “What would happen if we met aliens?” We’d probably get sick. We’re basically looking for viruses on other planets.

And speaking of Mars, according to a recent calculation, the minimum number of people required to start a civilization on Mars, if we do that, would be 110.

Because for starters, we’d need at least two shuls. There’s the shul you daven in, and the shul you would not go to if it was the last one on the planet.

But according to scientists, this has more to do with how many people it takes to make the planet self-sustainable, in case all lines of transportation between Mars and Earth suddenly break down—between setting up breathable areas and growing food and making supplies and tools and of course putting out a humor column. (“Hey, is life here depressing? Let’s look at Earth!”)

We’d also need materials. Building materials, for starters. Which brings us to an article from a couple of years ago, titled, “Astronaut blood can be used to make concrete on Mars, scientists say.”

Great. How many astronauts have to die to make a city block, do you think? Is this why we need 110 people?

For years, scientists have been trying to figure out how to make building materials on Mars, because concrete is heavy to schlep up there. It takes 19 tons of bricks to make a 3-bedroom house, and the cost of transporting a single brick to Mars is $2 million.

“We never stopped to think that the answer might be inside us all along,” says Aled Roberts, from the University of Manchester. That sounds more poetic than what the answer actually is: Astronaut blood.

They call it AstroCrete, which is a combination of concrete and astronauts.

Anyway, that was what they were saying a couple of years ago. But now, just this past month, scientists have come out and said, “Wait. We just discovered that if you want, instead of blood, we can use potato starch.”

Potato starch: Substituting for everything since 2448.

I hope they got this information out before Mars started with the human sacrifices.

And meanwhile, every Yid is like, “Yeah, we knew this! Potato starch is a good substitute for everything. If you don’t mind your houses being a little bit rubbery. Like the bottom part of the sponge cake!”

The article had to go to some length to explain what potato starch is, for the benefit of their non-Jewish and Sefardi readers. They’re calling this new stuff StarCrete, which makes no sense, and they say it can easily be made out of Martian soil, potato starch, and salt. And I’m assuming 11 billion eggs. They estimate that just 55 pounds of dehydrated potatoes could be used to produce a half ton of StarCrete, or 200 bricks. Though if they think this will be cheaper than schlepping bricks up there, they’ve never been to a Jewish supermarket before Pesach.

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He has also published eight books and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].