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* / THUNDERBOLTS/* PICTURE OF THE DAY
Exploring the electric universe
From ancient mythology to cosmic plasma discharge
Credit: Stardust Team/JPL/NASA
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Dec 29, 2004
Prediction #3: Electric Comets and the "Domino Effect"
/2005 could be the year of the breakthrough for the “electric comet”
model. Comets without water on their nucleus will invalidate a lot more
than obsolete comet theory./
In 2005, a lot of reputations, multi-million dollar research projects,
and scientific institutions--including NASA itself--will suffer
catastrophically if the planned Deep Impact mission produces the
“surprises” expected by Wallace Thornhill, a leading theorist of the
electric comet hypothesis.
The Deep Impact craft is scheduled for launch between January 12 and
January 28, 2005. Its mission is an unprecedented encounter with a comet
nucleus. The target is Comet Tempel 1. NASA plans to fire an 820-pound
copper "impactor" toward the nucleus, which is expected to strike the
surface at about 23,000 miles per hour. According to NASA scientists,
the result should be a release of energy equivalent to that of exploding
4.8 tons of TNT, creating a deep crater. Fittingly, the scheduled date
for the celestial fireworks is July 4, 2005
But all of NASA’s expectations for the encounter are tied to current
ideas about comets. The conventional view is that comets are inert
chunks of ice and dust, or "dirty snowballs," evaporating in the heat of
the Sun. The alternative view is that comets discharge / electrically/
as they move through a radial electrical field of the Sun. No middle
ground between the two views seems possible, and if it happens that the
Deep Impact projectile strikes a /solid rock /the snowball theory of
comets is finished. Mainstream theorists will be left without an
explanation for a comet’s coma and tail.
While the electric universe model does not require/ /that the nucleus of
Tempel 1 be devoid of water, Thornhill and other advocates of the
electric comet hypothesis think that a dry comet nucleus is most likely.
Indeed, NASA has already encountered dry cometary nuclei. The surface of
comet Borrelly, visited in 2001, proved to be bone dry, prompting
investigators to suggest that water must be hidden beneath the surface.
Nor did the Stardust flyby of comet Wild 2 in January 2004 identify
water on the surface of the nucleus.
The problem with the supposition of /subsurface/ ice is that only a few
inches of dry non-volatile surface material would be sufficient to
insulate the “ice” from the heat of the Sun. Meanwhile the observed high
speed jets are far more energetic than could be reasonably expected even
if there were /no /insulating material. Nevertheless, the confidence of
investigators was unshaken by what they saw, for surely the presence of
water on comet nuclei is a fact!
The standard theory, it seems, has been kept alive by the discovery of
water in comet comas and tails, not on the nucleus itself. But what is
the source of the water in comet tails? Ironically electrical activity
within cometary comas may have deceived investigators into thinking that
their model is intact. Here is why:
The evidence suggests that comets are highly negatively charged with
respect to the Sun. As they rush toward the Sun, the voltage increases
until at some point the comet nucleus begins to discharge. Electrons are
stripped from a few points on the comet surface where the electric field
is strongest. These “spark discharges” finely machine rocky material
from the surface to form a “cathode jet” of negatively charged dust
together with surface matter that has been torn apart to release ionized
atoms and molecules, including oxygen.
Under the conventional model there is no reason for the high density of
negative ions discovered near the comet nucleus. Negative ions are
difficult to produce by solar heating and are quickly destroyed by solar
radiation. Nevertheless, in March 1986 when the Giotto spacecraft flew
within 600km of Comet Halley, an abundance of negatively charged atoms
was discovered in the inner coma—direct evidence that a comet is the
cathode in an electric exchange with the Sun. A few years later,
scientists discovered an unexpected “forbidden oxygen” line at 1128Å in
the spectrum of Comet Austin. That line is consistent with the presence
of an intense electric field and/or densities in the coma many orders of
magnitude higher than those predicted from standard cometary theory.
There is reason to believe that the positively charged ions from the
solar wind react /preferentially/ with the negatively charged oxygen
from the nucleus to generate the water observed surrounding comets. The
probe Vega 2 found the H_2 O (water) production by comet Halley was one
fifth of the OH production. But scientists had supposed that OH was
formed by photo-dissociation of H_2 O at some distance from the nucleus.
The report in Nature in May 1986 reads: "only indirect and sometimes
ambiguous evidence in favor of water has been found; indeed, some facts
appear to contradict this hypothesis." Thus, the authors suggest, "This
problem requires further analysis and may indicate the existence of
parents of OH other than H_2 O."
Such a discovery is most simply explained if the parents of OH were a
combination of solar protons (hydrogen) and negative oxygen ions
electrically removed from silicates and other minerals in the nucleus.
The greater abundance of OH would then be expected. It then becomes
clear that the water we see is being produced through electrical
exchange: Negatively charged oxygen from the comet nucleus combines with
the positively charged hydrogen ions from the Sun, via the solar wind.
Models of water production from comets assume it is sublimating from the
surface of the nucleus at a constant rate and expanding radially outward
at constant velocity. But neither of these assumptions is supported by
observations. The encounter with comet Wild 2 discovered that the
removed material is confined to very thin jets. A principal investigator
also spoke of energetic bursts “like a thunderbolt.” The electrical
model of cometary discharge does explain the observations: an electric
field accelerates matter in the jet; an electromagnetic “pinch effect”
provides densities in the thin jets many orders of magnitude higher than
those predicted from simple radial sublimation; and instabilities and
fluctuations suddenly relocate jets in exceedingly short periods of time.
This model explains a great number of puzzles about recent comet
discoveries. Why are comet nuclei coal black as if they have been burnt?
Why are the nuclei sharply cratered and rocky when they should be smooth
like a melting ice cream if they are merely sublimating in the Sun’s
heat? Why are the comet jets so narrow and energetic? Why do some comets
sport an “anomalous” Sunward spike? How can some comets produce sulfur
compounds like those found in the jets on Io that require very high
temperatures? Why is there a superabundance of extremely fine dust? Why
does the presence of water molecules increase with distance from the
nucleus – quite the reverse of what we should expect if water is driving
dust off the comet?
Often the events most disconcerting to conventional theory are the
things most quickly forgotten. While moving between the orbits of Saturn
and Uranus (14 times farther from the Sun than the Earth), Comet Halley
experienced an outburst between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus that
caused /dust/ to stretch over some 300,000 km. At that distance from the
Sun, the surface should be in deep freeze at –200 degrees C. But it
happened at a time when the Sun was at maximum activity. This does not
mean that the Sun was producing significantly more heat but rather that
there was a marked increase in the charged particles from the solar
wind. And the vast cloud of dust from the comet fits the electrical
machining model but not the sublimating ices model.
A direct confirmation of the electric connection came unwittingly from
the Chandra X-ray Observatory on July 14, 2000. At that time, the
Chandra telescope viewed the comet Linear repeatedly over a 2-hour
period, detecting unexpected X-rays from oxygen and nitrogen ions in the
coma of the comet. The capture of electrons from the negatively charged
comet by positively charged hydrogen ions in the solar wind is, of
course, nothing else than an electric discharge, nature’s highly
efficient means of X-ray production.
It needs to be understood that a loss of faith in standard comet theory
today would have drastic effects on all theoretical sciences touching on
the nature of the universe--from microcosm to macrocosm. An electric
field sufficient to cause electrical discharging on a comet beyond the
orbit of Saturn would have the electric potential to power the Sun. We
could no longer ignore the cosmic electricians’ claims: They tell us
that the Sun is not a nuclear furnace but an electric glow discharge;
its nuclear reactions are occurring not in the interior but in the
atmosphere of the Sun, where the intensity of the discharge is highest.
All theories about the evolution of the planetary system, including our
earth, would have to be reconsidered from the ground up. The nebular
hypothesis of planetary origins, claiming that the Sun and planets
emerged gravitationally from a primordial cloud, could no longer
maintain its intellectual monopoly. The fabled residue of the
hypothesized nebula, the “Oort cloud,” called upon to send comets into
the inner solar system as theorists need them, would instantly lose its
rationale. And no longer could it be maintained that the planets have
moved in clockwork fashion for billions of years. Even the accumulated
evidence of electrical dramas and planetary upheaval in the /human /past
would demand a reconsideration.
There is also the virtual certainty that electric events in our solar
system have countless analogs in deep space. Cosmological theories based
on gravity alone could not survive such a turn of events. We have good
reason, therefore, to speak of the imminent prospect of a domino effect
being unleashed, one that will set in motion one of the great
revolutions in human thought and perception.
*
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 2004: thunderbolts.info