Posted on 09/09/2006 8:45:54 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Though NASA officials have said nothing on the subject, astronomy today is on the edge of a critical shift in perception—a revolution that could redefine our view of the heavens.
Above, the “Great Comet” of 1996, Hyakutake. The stunning discovery of X-ray emissions from the visitor
was a milestone in comet science, as was the discovery that the comet's coherent and filamentary ion tail
spanned more than 350 million miles. - Credit: NASA
Proponents of the “Electric Universe” say that a revolution in the sciences is inescapable, and they believe the failure of modern comet theory could be the tipping point. The high-energy events exhibited by comets require a new understanding of what makes a comet work, and the answer to the mystery of comets will invariably affect all of the space sciences. For starters, a list of the enigmas would have to include these surprises: comet x-rays, a coma several times the size of the Sun glowing in ultraviolet light, strong electrical and turbulent magnetic fields, million degree coma “temperatures”, supersonic jets, collimation of these jets over great distances, coherent and filamentary comet tails spanning up to a hundred million miles and more, explosive outbursts of dust hundreds of millions of miles from the Sun, the “inexplicable” break up and complete disintegration of comet nuclei far from the Sun, sharply etched surface relief, bright surface patches (camera saturation, most obvious in the case of Tempel 1), and “impossibly” fine comet dust. Intense energetic activity has, one discovery at a time, shocked astronomers. But in fact every surprise points in the same direction.
For several years the electrical theorists have predicted that the fatal blow to modern comet mythology will come from the absence of sufficient water ice or other ices on a comet nucleus to produce the jets and coma. This prediction has already been fulfilled, but the message has yet to register. After repeated failures to find any water on comet surfaces, NASA spokesmen celebrated the “success” of the Deep Impact mission when they thought they had found, on the surface of Comet Tempel 1, a minuscule .005 of the water required by theory to explain the signals associated with water in the coma.
When findings repeatedly discredit an accepted model in the sciences, it’s time to consider the findings from a different vantage point –to look for a pattern that has been missed. For the electrical theorists, the pattern is too obvious to be missed. The unexplained features are predictable effects of an electric discharge, and nothing that an electrical expert would look for is missing from NASA’s discoveries.
It is also inconceivable that the collapse of comet theory could stand as an isolated event in astronomy. The physical universe is not a bundle of contradictions, even if modern “explanations” are. A comet discharging electrically as it approaches the Sun means simply that the Sun is the focus of electrical activity strong enough to produce the observed cometary phenomena. That includes the visible flare-up of comets while in “deep freeze” beyond the orbit of Saturn. The implication, according to Electric Universe advocates, is that sufficient electrical energy is available from the galaxy to power the Sun. A tiny charged comet occasionally taps into that solar circuit to produce a visible display.
But in the past 75 years, most astronomers never entertained electricity as a source of energy in the cosmos – despite its usefulness to mankind. A Sun energized electrically will be much more of a “shock to the system” than an electric comet. For decades we’ve been assured that the science of the Sun is well established—a few i’s to dot, a few t’s to cross, and little to fret about. But those expressing this confidence had no training in electrical discharges in thin plasma. Instead they treated the solar wind merely as a wind, with a weak magnetic field thrown in. They did not see that the magnetic field and the reaction of a comet to the solar wind, when interpreted as electrical phenomena, answer the greatest mysteries of the Sun.
Why, for example, do the charged particles of the solar wind defy gravity and continue to accelerate as they move away from the Sun, out past the planets? And how is it that the temperature of the Sun leaps from a few thousand degrees at the surface to a million degrees above the surface, at the corona?
These questions are easy to explain if the energy is coming from outside the Sun. In the electrical model, the Sun (like all stars) is an anode, or positively charged focus within a galactic discharge. The Sun's electrical influence extends out to a plasma sheath, incorrectly called the heliopause, far beyond the orbit of Pluto. The electrical acceleration of the solar wind and the ion tail of a comet, therefore, is exactly what should happen, and there is no other credible explanation of this phenomenon.
Those who are not trained in plasma discharge behavior are unaware that throughout almost the entire volume of space within the Sun's plasma sheath, the electric field remains weak but constant in strength, representing an immense electric potential across the vast distance to the boundary of the Sun’s electrical domain. It is not until charged particles are very close to the Sun that they experience strong electric fields in 'double layers' that heat the solar corona and form the global electrical storm we call a star.
The electrical theorists Wallace Thornhill and Don Scott have enumerated at least two dozen enigmas of solar behavior that immediately disappear when you grant the same electric field that is implied by the electric comet.
And what of planetary science? From an electrical vantage point, the electric arcs that have carved the surfaces of comets can be compared to those that, in an earlier phase of solar system history, etched the surfaces of planets and moons. The astronomer's bafflement at recent close-up images of comets is just like their response to enigmatic surface features of larger rocky bodies in the solar system—from the tortured surfaces of Venus and Mars to the alien worlds of Jupiter and Saturn. The sharply sculpted nuclei of comets reveal the same features we see on rocky planets and moons—craters, rilles, spires, mountains, ridges, mesas rising from flat valley floors and etched relief—just the opposite of what astronomers had expected. Of course, the prevailing model of comets, envisioning a sublimating chunk of dirty ice, does not allow that similar features could have similar causes, though that is precisely the message of the electric theorists.
To see planetary history in the terms implied by the electrical interpretation, it will be essential that science free itself from the modern fable of the “uneventful solar system”—planets moving on unchanging orbits for billions of years. The fable originated as a theoretical conjecture long before the space age began. Geological models of the 1950's did not envision the pictures of planetary violence returned from space, because they imagined isolated bodies moving like undisturbed clockwork for aeons. More than any other discovery of the space age, the electric comet will force a reconsideration of solar system evolution, with a new appreciation for the role of planetary instability and global catastrophe. What happens to comets happened in the past on a planetary scale. The present stable order of the solar system is new.
The picture of the macrocosm will change as well. If the electric force was active in solar system evolution, our little enclave in the Milky Way could hardly be an exception to a rule. Electric events evident in our neighborhood must have countless analogs in deep space. How, then, could popular cosmological theories based on a gravity-driven universe retain their hold on scientific imagination? By following the evidence, one will confront the single most costly theoretical mistake of the twentieth century: the belief that we live in an electrically sterile universe. When that mistake is corrected, the universe will no longer resemble the “big picture” that dominates popular science. And the disappearance of the big bang, black holes, dark matter, dark energy, and neutron stars from the lexicon of astronomy will be a mere beginning.
Not this crap again. I put up with your Mac stuff because you're a true believer, but this?
I love Don Scott's acronym for "dark matter", i.e. Fabricated Ad-hoc Inventions Repeatedly Invoked in Efforts to Defend Untenable Scientific Theories......
'fairiedust'
it should be just blam!
Crap? So how does a comet work? The "dirty snow ball" theory has been demonstrated to be untrue with every visit, fly-by, and modern scientific test. Are you seriously accepting that a comet, exuding "water vapor" can create a coma several times larger than the sun.
Walt Thornhill, on July 3, 2005, one day before the event, made 19 specific predictions about what would happen when the impactor from Deep Impact struck Comet Tempel 1... all of the contrary to accepted expectations. All 19 of them occurred, much to the surprise of orthodox cosmologists and cometary scientists. His predictions based on his theories were right... theirs were wrong. What does that say about their theories???
"Unusual predictions that succeed are the hallmark of a good theory. But, to this day, having a good theory considered fairly remains a huge problem if it calls into question prevailing dogma."
Read Reflections on the "Deep Impact" Anniversary Since the scientific dogma of comets cannot make accurate predictions, then it is time to dump it and look for something tht can.
"bright surface patches (camera saturation, most obvious in the case of Tempel 1)" Isn't this the same phenomenon Hoagland claims for the 'face on Mars' and a nearby 'pyramid'?
Not that I know of... but I don't follow Hoagland. If there were electrical discharge occuring in those locations, then it may be a similar phenomenom.
The camera saturation has been observed in several instances on comets and on some of the moons... in one, NASA, photoshopped the saturated pure white areas (that appear consistently on the peaks of ridges) and added the appearance of molten lava to explain the brightness that they could not explain in any other fashion.
I've been imagining that within 10 years we can have the technology & firepower to split a comet or asteriod if it comes within 2 million miles.
I will debunk point number 1. Coma several times the size of the sun would be visible anywhere in the solar system or outside for at least a thousand lightyears. Period.
This is pseudoscience. Its crap like this that propogates theories like the towers were blown up.
The problem with any directed energy weapon is that it always has to have more power at the projection end than at the target end... anything that can split an asteroid or comet will also have an equal and opposite reaction at the "gun" end. THis might be handled by a form of distribution of the input energy.
The other problem would be that the ability to "split" a comet or asteroid would be dependent on the makeup of the comet or asteroid... does the target have the capability to absorb the energy or would it reflect it? Would it distribute the energy or allow it to be concentrated in one "slice"?
Finally, even if we "split" an earth targetting asteroid/comet, the mass of the original is still there... even if we break it in to several pieces, the mass is still there. We would have to either divert the asteroid enough to miss or break it into pieces small enough that all would burn up in the atmosphere
Coma several times the size of the sun would be visible anywhere in the solar system or outside for at least a thousand lightyears. Period.The coma discussed above is in the ultraviolet, and the size discussed is apparent size, that is, observed from Earth (comet is nearby, Sun isn't as close).
Also, it's possible that the laser would heat the atmosphere of the Earth in a disastrous way. Used from orbit, however, it might be worth a try. My view is that the best way to deal with hazardous interlopers is to have some asteroid projectiles (either entirely natural, or processed out of harder materials found in space debris) parked in the libration points, and when needed, sent to head the interloper off at the pass, using a large ion engine. Nothing else we have now or will have is likely to be as effective.
Oh! Apparent size as observed from Earth! What distances are we talking? Couple million miles? Thats still a massive object that would be visible anywhere in the solar system.
Do you have any idea how blinding all those ultraviolet comets would be to Hubble? It sees in ultraviolet, visible light, and near-infrared.
Any of you guys ever heard of Occam's Razor? You ought to look it up.
Please provide your citation for this.
Here is one debunking your debunking:
Can a Comet be larger than the Sun?
Yes. Comet tails can easily extend 10s of millions of miles in length, and in some rare super-comets, over 100 million miles. The nuclear regions is perhaps only 10-50 kilometers across, but can produce a 'coma' larger than the diameter of the Sun. The above telescopic view of Comet Hale-Bopp in 1999 shows a coma size that is equal to the diameter of the Sun!
Recently the Ulysses space craft detected the tail plasma from Comet Hyakutake at a distance of 500 million miles! The above photo is of Comet Hale-Bopp taken at the ESA Southern Observatory. A portion of their Press Release follows:
The most recent image of Comet Hale-Bopp was obtained at ESO on June 18, 1999, with the SUSI2 instrument at the ESO 3.5-m New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla. This observation was somewhat difficult, as the comet was very low in the sky at the beginning of the twilight. At that time, Comet Hale-Bopp was located in the southern constellation Dorado (The Goldfish).It was about 1295 million km (8.66 AU) distant from both the Earth and the Sun, i.e. at about as far away as planet Saturn. The photo shows that there was still a substantial cloud of dust -- a "coma" -- around the comet's icy nucleus, even at this very large distance.
This photo has been contrast-enhanced to show the truly enormous size of the comet's coma, over 3 arcmin across. The optical reflection from the bright star to the lower left was also enhanced by this process.
> At the distance of the comet, the part that is visible in this photo is no less than 1.1 million km across, or nearly 10 times larger than Saturn!
No other comets have ever been found to have such a large coma at this large distance [1]. There is now little structure in the coma and no "jets" are seen any more. Much of this coma consists of dust that was ejected from the nucleus when it was closer to the Sun. However, it is likely that dust is still lost from the nucleus into the coma, perhaps as a result of a continuing outflow of certain gases (in particular CO and CO2), albeit at a lower level than before.
The maximum extent of the coma observed around Hale-Bopp when it was near the Earth and the Sun in early 1997, was 2-3 million km, or only a few times more than now; the uncertainty arises from the different observational methods used. Comae of other comets rarely ever become larger than a few hundred thousand kilometres.
There is little doubt that the exceptional dimensions of the coma around Hale-Bopp is a direct consequence of its unusually large nucleus. Although it never became possible to measure its size accurately, a variety of observational methods points towards a diameter in the 40 - 70 km range. The nuclei of most other comets are at most a few km across. With its larger surface, more material is released -- this provides a natural explanation of the unusual coma of Hale-Bopp.
The fact that this comet STILL has an enormous coma at almost 9 AU from the Sun is also a problem for the accepted cosmology... or do you believe that an object on 40-70 KM has sufficient gravity to maintain an "atmosphere" over 1.1 million KM in diameter???
Comet Hyakutake, a larger comet than Hale-Bopp, was observed to have a Coma over 5,000,000 KM in diameter. The Sun's diameter is ~1.4 million KM... hmmmmm 3 times 1.4M km is 4.2M km.... yup, more than 3 times the size of the sun!
Sorry, Sunken, but the sizes are not "apparent" but actual. The Coma of a comet is much larger than the visual coma we can see from Earth.
Occam's Razor requires a set of facts from which to work... The problem is the "facts" the current comet theorist have been using have been shot down, one by one, by their own comet expeditions.
They predicted water vapor... no water vapor... in fact NO WATER! The found what may have been the OH radical but at less than 1% of the amount necessary to produce the comas and tails they expected.
They predicted sublimated cometary surfaces... gosh they found comets that looked indistinguishable from asteroids... complete with old cratering.
Their theory says that Comas and Tails are formed by the sublimation of ice and subsequent outgassing when the comet gets close enough for the sun to heat it to boiling... but Comets have developed tails and comas more than 3 times farther away than even the most optimistic distance for such sublimation to occur.
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