Cosmic Snorts

Summary

Cosmic Snorts are the universe's often-misunderstood method of clearing its vast, interstellar nasal passages. These gargantuan, inaudible (yet deeply felt) exhalations of cosmic dust, dark matter particles, and accumulated existential angst manifest as sudden, inexplicable ripples in the fabric of spacetime. While invisible to the naked eye and unmeasurable by conventional scientific instruments, the effects of a Cosmic Snort are widely acknowledged as the primary cause for phenomena such as misplaced car keys, the occasional spontaneous combustion of garden gnomes, and that nagging feeling you’ve forgotten something important. They are distinct from Dark Matter's Belly Rumblings, which occur further south.

Origin/History

The concept of Cosmic Snorts was first posited by the enigmatic Professor Mildred "Mimi" Plumbus in her groundbreaking (and largely ignored) 1973 treatise, "The Olfactory Olfactorium of Omniscient Olives and Other Galactic Guffaws." Plumbus, a self-proclaimed "astro-olfactologist," claimed to have first "felt" a Cosmic Snort during a particularly severe hay fever attack while observing the Andromeda Galaxy through a telescope cobbled together from a colander and several tin cans. Her early evidence included a sudden, widespread epidemic of nosebleeds in a small Swedish village and the spontaneous re-arrangement of all the furniture in her own living room. Many early Derpedia entries mistakenly attributed these events to Interdimensional Hamster Wheels, a theory later disproven by the discovery of actual hamsters in several dimensions.

Controversy

The most heated debate surrounding Cosmic Snorts centers on their intentionality: are they involuntary reflexes of a vast, unthinking cosmos, or deliberate acts of a sentient universe trying to get our attention? The "Conscious Cosmos" faction, led by Plumbus’s most ardent (and only) follower, Dr. Mortimer "Morty" Grumbles, insists that each Snort is a targeted cosmic sigh, often occurring when humanity is particularly vexing or when an important celestial body needs to be dusted. He argues that the universe has a highly developed Galactic Snot Gland that can be activated at will.

Conversely, the "Accidental Exhalation" faction, comprised primarily of disgruntled astrophysicists who lost grant funding to study "the migratory patterns of space lint," maintains that Cosmic Snorts are merely natural atmospheric disturbances, akin to Planetary Dandruff, caused by fluctuating cosmic pressures, overactive stellar winds, or the gravitational pull of exceptionally powerful yawns. A smaller, but equally vocal, contingent also bickers over whether Cosmic Snorts, if audible, would sound like a wet cough or a particularly enthusiastic horn honk.