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* / THUNDERBOLTS/* PICTURE OF THE DAY
Exploring the electric universe
From ancient mythology to cosmic plasma discharge
Credit: Jack Newton
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Jun 24, 2005
The Explosion that Shattered Solar Theory
In January 2005, some remarkable things happened on the Sun, and the
implications are still reverberating through the scientific community.
Between January 15^th and 19^th four powerful solar flares erupted from
“sunspot 720”, shown in the picture above. Then on January 20 the fifth
explosion produced a coronal mass ejection (CME) that achieved
velocities incomparably greater than anything astronomers had seen
before. While it often takes more than 24 hours/ /for the charged
particles of a solar outburst to reach the Earth, this one was a
profound exception. Just thirty minutes after the explosion, Earth (some
96 million miles from the Sun) was immersed in what NASA scientists
called “the most intense proton storm in decades”. Proton storms get
their name from the “rain” of positively charged particles when a mass
ejection reaches the Earth.
One reason proton storms get attention is that they interfere with
satellite communications and can even penetrate the skin of space suits
and make astronauts sick. But for the proponents of popular theories
about the Sun, this “storm” was far more than an irritant. According to
a NASA news release, the event “has shaken the foundations of space
weather theory”.
Prior to this event, how did astronomers explain proton storms? NASA’s
“Headline News” story tells us that the mass ejection “begins with an
explosion, usually above a sunspot. Sunspots are places where strong
magnetic fields poke through the surface of the Sun. For reasons no one
completely understands, these fields can become unstable and explode,
unleashing as much energy as 10 billion hydrogen bombs”.
Powerful ejections can throw off a billion tons of solar material.
Normally they travel relatively slowly. “Even the fastest ones,
traveling one to two thousand km/s, take a day or so to reach Earth. You
know a CME has just arrived when you see auroras in the sky”.
But how does the ejected material attain its observed speeds? Even
common ejections travel faster and faster as they move outward from the
Sun, achieving speeds up to a thousand miles per second or more. This
acceleration, the theory surmises, can be explained by the “shock waves”
that the CME produces. “Shock waves in front of the CME can accelerate
these protons in our direction—hence the proton storm”.
But this space weather theory is “soon to be revised”, the story says.
Here’s why: Though the speeds of typical CMEs are impressive, and have
posed a deep mystery for decades, they do not come close to the speed of
the January 20 ejection. Light from the Sun (or from a solar flare)
reaches Earth in 8 minutes. An ejection reaching Earth in 30 minutes
must be rapidly accelerated to velocities more than a quarter of the
speed of light. From the traditional viewpoint, this is unthinkable. And
yet it happened.
How, then, do theorists of the Electric Universe see all of this? Most
are amused by the commotion. In the universe now observed with better
and more versatile instruments, we see plasma jets and ejected material
often attaining velocities approaching the speed of light. In electrical
terms, the explanation is direct and obvious: electric fields in space
*/accelerate charged particles/*. On this electrical principle there is
no debate. But by banishing electric fields from their theoretical
models, astronomers and astrophysicists are left with no mechanism to
account for the things they now see. One after another, the ad hoc
guesses must be abandoned.
The electrical theorists accept the observed facts concerning CMEs, but
they consider the astronomer’s theoretical framework to be a
decades-long disaster. It is neither sufficient nor accurate to describe
sunspots as “places where strong magnetic fields poke through the
surface of the Sun”. Such a claim fails to account for the magnetic
fields themselves and leaves the associated sunspot events unexplained.
When the NASA story says that the magnetic fields “become unstable and
explode, unleashing as much energy as 10 billion hydrogen bombs”, it
adds that “no one completely understands” how this occurs.
The authors of the news release are clearly not familiar with electrical
discharge in plasma, a phenomenon outlined in great detail by Nobel
Laureate Hannes Alfvén, the founder of plasma cosmology. Alfven’s
contributions were rooted in direct observation of plasma discharge in
the laboratory. He described how the insulating layers of the cellular
structures that form in electrified plasma often break down, causing
instabilities. Such instabilities are typified by the energetic
explosions we see above sunspots.
But even when the implications are obvious to the electrical theorists,
they seem to elude solar physicists. Reflecting on the January 20
outburst, astrophysicist Robert Lin of UC Berkeley affirmed that, “We
have an important clue”. He noted that when the explosion occurred,
sunspot 720 was located at a special place on the Sun: 60 degrees west
longitude. This is significant, he said, because from this location “the
sunspot was magnetically connected to Earth”. By this he meant that the
lines of force of the Sun’s magnetic field, followed outward from that
point along their spiraling path, lead directly to the Earth. The NASA
headline article called this “a superhighway for protons leading all the
way from sunspot 720 to our planet”.
Though the article accurately describes the “highway” taken by the
charged particles, it concludes, “How they were accelerated, however,
remains a mystery”. It’s a mystery only to them. Neither Lin nor the
article’s author is familiar with the “field aligned currents”
documented by Alfvén. By following the direction of the induced magnetic
fields, electric currents move efficiently, like transmission lines,
across the vast distances of interplanetary, interstellar, and
intergalactic space.
Plasma specialist Anthony Peratt, in his textbook /The Physics of the
Plasma Universe/, begins the description of field-aligned currents with
this overview: “...electric fields aligned along the magnetic field
direction freely accelerate particles. Electrons and ions are
accelerated in opposite directions, giving rise to a current along the
magnetic field lines.”
Retired professor of electrical engineering, Donald Scott, does not
mince words when responding to the astrophysicists’ lack of knowledge of
electrical phenomena: “Any student of physics who has heard of electric
charge and electric fields knows that the easiest way to get
electrically */charged/* particles to */accelerate/* is to apply an
*/electric field/* to them. The acceleration of the positively charged
solar "wind" particles is clearly an electrical phenomenon. It is
accurately predicted by the Electric Sun model”.
The quarter-light-speed CME of January 20 is not just an isolated
exception to the “normal” solar wind. It demonstrates that the “normal”
explanation for the solar wind is mistaken and unable to account for the
extremes of solar wind behavior. (On some occasions, the wind had
stopped—an event just as unexplainable by standard theory as the January
20 event.) The electrical acceleration of plasma accounts for the entire
range of wind behavior.
(Thanks to Michael Armstrong for much of the factual content in this
Picture of the Day).
*
EXECUTIVE EDITORS: * David Talbott, Wallace Thornhill*
MANAGING EDITOR:* Amy Acheson
* CONTRIBUTING EDITORS:* Mel Acheson, Michael Armstrong, Dwardu
Cardona, Ev Cochrane,
Walter Radtke, C.J. Ransom, Don Scott, Rens van der Sluijs, Ian Tresman
* WEBMASTER:* Michael Armstrong
Copyright 2005: thunderbolts.info