Posted on 12/05/2004 11:17:28 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Researchers are preparing to test the highly controversial theory of a San Diego scientist, J. Marvin Herndon, who thinks a huge, natural nuclear reactor or "georeactor" -- a vast deposit of uranium several miles wide -- exists at Earth's core, thousands of miles beneath our feet... [I]t might help to explain otherwise puzzling phenomena of planetary science, such as fluctuations in the intensity of Earth's magnetic field... If Herndon's theoretical nuclear reactor really exists, then it should be gushing out antineutrinos that would fly through the roughly 4,000 miles of solid rock and emerge at the Earth's surface.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The Centers of PlanetsBack in 1935, Eugene Wigner, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics and at the time a professor at Princeton University, suggested that hydrogen, an inert molecular gas at ambient conditions, could turn into a metallic solid, similar to lithium or sodium, at sufficiently high pressure. Wigner's proposal implied a remarkable complexity for "element one," the simplest chemical entity, one electron bound to one proton... Jupiter's magnetic field, first measured by Voyager spacecraft, is ten times stronger than Earth's, and its pattern is considerably more complex. Part of this complexity could be accounted for if the source of the field lay much farther from the center, in relative terms, than does Earth's. Wigner's prediction of metallic hydrogen was based on a simplified analysis of the electronic ground state, but the pressure he calculated for the transition to the metallic state, about 250,000 atmospheres, corresponded to a depth of less than one-twentieth of the planetary radius of Jupiter. In other words, most of the solar system's largest gas giant had to be in a metallic state -- although the metallic hydrogen would have to be a fluid rather than a solid to provide dynamo action... The fact is that the Earth's core is not pure iron but contains about 10 percent (by weight) of other constituents. If you compare the density of the outer core that is derived from seismological data with that of pure iron shocked to comparable pressures and temperatures, the core's density turns out to be about 10 percent lower. Even when the melting temperature of pure iron is accurately known at 2 million to 4 million atmospheres of pressure, we will still have to make a correction for the effect of contaminants. Alloying often decreases the freezing temperature of a material; this is why ice can be melted by putting salt on top of it. The actual freezing temperature at the inner–outer core boundary may therefore be 1,000 kelvins or so lower than that of pure iron.
by Sandro Scandolo
and Raymond Jeanloz
The theory of a nuclear reator at earth's core has problems, the chief one being the random reversal of the magnetic poles. A reactor would be expotentially declining but during magnetic reversal events we see, in the fossil record, a weakening field(it's declined some 10% in the last 150 years or so)seems to indicate fluid dynamo currents in the outer core as the B dot origin. It may continue to weaken then suddenly REVERSE(N=S, S=N), or, as the fossil record shows, return to the initial orientation. The offset fields of Uranus and Neptune also indicate a fluid flow origin for planetary magnetic fields, not a central core origin. Also, from diamond cell/ high pressure studies, it would seem that the inner core is made of hexagonal iron crystals and does not generally participate in the earth's overall magnetic field.
It seems that the magnetic field source remains elusive. That natural nuclear reactor that was found in Gabon (it was extinct) is in the crust, so I wonder how much sense it really made for Herndon to extrapolate in the first place.
Please produce the ghost of a hint of an iota of this remarkable idea.
Dr. Seuss?
What is theory on the core of the moon?
Neither does the shaft of a motor. The windings rotate through the field on a shaft(core).
#2. There is no dark side of the moon. It's all dark, you know.
Yes, this third rock from the sun is truly a rich "mansion" as Jesus would say, the nearby bodies, moon(which I call the RC for Remnant Core, theory upon request)venus and mars are one-dimensional places by comparison. 400,000V difference between ionosphere(100km up)and earth, 1800A average current flow worldwide via lightning transfer(red sprites in stratosphere, lightning in lower troposphere). Lightweight(2.67g/cc)continental "icebergs" floating around on heavier rock mantle(mafics). Churning upper core creates magnetic field(inner core thought to be hexagonal iron crystals that do not contribute to B field)and yet long term hot spots(Hawaiian island chain for example)that come up as cumulo-nimbus like diapirs. Then just today, Spritzer telescope : dust lanes around 5 distant stars + 6th that is still in plantary formation mode. To wit, we KNOW the planets form from dust lanes in the T Tauri birth phase(the TEDF theory)but earth's birth was UNIQUE, wanna know how?
I'll ask the Whos down in Whosville.
Please, go ahead.
THe variability and reversals of the earth's magnetic field strongly suggest fluid currents that generate it by Maxwell's 4th equation, the +dE/dt term(occam's razor). Journey To The Core(to see if Herndon is right)is only a hollywood movie, nothing more. About the only way to "get there" is by micro-psi/remote viewing, any volunteers?
Can't quite understand how Herndon says the Jovian and terran dust lanes were equal in mass during the T Tauri birth phase. Jupiter today is 318 earth-masses. The TEDF theory easily explains how the proto-planets were graded/sorted as accretion vortices depending on radial distance, the gradients being gravity(drops by inverse square), thermal(by some log factor) and magnetic B dot field(drops by inverse CUBE). Thus mercury and venus are refractory-rich but have virtually no spin(counter-acting CW from coriolis effect of a contracting vortex vs CCW spin from B dot field)because the lenticular-flat proto-sun had to get RID of virtually all its original spin(into planetary orbital momentum)to become spherical. In the outer gas bags, yes, they swept up virtually all of the H2/He in their dust lanes because it was cooler but also look at the ecliptic AREAS of those accretion vortices-in-dust-lanes(vs proto-earth's).
He refers to a rocky core of Jupiter.
The Moon, being a sphere, has a core. That is, there is a geometric spot in the center of it.
Nobody can "know" what is there, so there can only be "theories". I believe the present theory is that the Moon, being the remnant of the Earth's crust and the gigantic impactor which formed the Moon, is mostly non-magnetic stuff. Compressed regolith.
--Boris
Impact-splash, as a theory of earth-moon formation, is just that : a theory, not a religious tenet to be hyped by Jehovah's Witness type astronomers. It fails on 2 counts : tiny target on the proto-earth's terminator for the mars-sized impactor to hit, given the VAST area for earth orbit crossing asteroids to orbit around in, so as to re-launch a lunar mass beyond the roche lobe. And when a mars directly impacts an earth you get some 10^31 J of instant KE release, a gamma ray burster similar(but FAR larger than) the SL9 comet fragments hitting Jupiter in 1994. Even at 4.4 billion years ago that means no H2O oceans would have appeared on earth by 3.9 B years ago. We wouldn't even BE here, as water-rich critters, if I-S had happened. Wanna know where I-Sers went wrong and what REALLY happened?
You don't know what you are talking about.
East of the Rockies/Wild Card ping
You obviously bought the I-S "religion". Fine. That theory predicts a venusian environment for the earth, go live there.
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