[Swordmaker]

That's kind of cool. Why does there appear to be plot points and error bars on one of the paths?

Good question, Moonman, I don't know. Those came from NASA and were Hubble plots. Probably have to do with when the plots were taken. Telescope times and schedules are sporadic so probably have to do with when that star was looked at and plotted. Since it seems to be the larges blip on the plot, it also may be a binary and that is showing the orbital extent of the two stars in their orbits.

By-the-way, thanks for looking.

[Swordmaker]

You want publication, Moonman, try this one on.

The orthodoxy is starting to wake up, although they've got it backwards, thinking magnetic fields cause electrical currents, rather than the other way around, but they're starting to get it, even if they're only doing computer simulations. They seem to think that counter to all evidence strong magnetic fields exist absent the flow of electric current.

A current filamentation mechanism for breaking magnetic field lines during reconnection

H. Che, J. F. Drake & M. Swisdak

Nature 06/01/2011 — Summary of the above entitled peer-reviewed paper

(Emphasis is mine— Swordmaker)

During magnetic reconnection, the field lines must break and reconnect to release the energy that drives solar and stellar flares1, 2 and other explosive events in space3 and in the laboratory4. Exactly how this happens has been unclear, because dissipation is needed to break magnetic field lines and classical collisions are typically weak. Ion–electron drag arising from turbulence5, dubbed ‘anomalous resistivity’, and thermal momentum transport6 are two mechanisms that have been widely invoked. Measurements of enhanced turbulence near reconnection sites in space7, 8 and in the laboratory9, 10 support the anomalous resistivity idea but there has been no demonstration from measurements that this turbulence produces the necessary enhanced drag11. Here we report computer simulations that show that neither of the two previously favoured mechanisms controls how magnetic field lines reconnect in the plasmas of greatest interest, those in which the magnetic field dominates the energy budget. Rather, we find that when the current layers that form during magnetic reconnection become too intense, they disintegrate and spread into a complex web of filaments that causes the rate of reconnection to increase abruptly. This filamentary web can be explored in the laboratory or in space with satellites that can measure the resulting electromagnetic turbulence.

(These guys need to rediscover the difference between a real hands-on laboratory working with real plasma and a computer simulation lab. . . Where they can actually see these double layers behave in the plasma microcosm exactly the same way. . . and then they might understand that an electrical current is running through the plasma and WHY the double layers collapse catastrophically when they reconnect when too much current flows through with too little plasma to support the flow. — Swordmaker)

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    Author information

    Affiliations

    Center For Integrated Plasma Studies, Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
    H. Che

    Department of Physics and Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
    J. F. Drake

    Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
    M. Swisdak