Is Iron Causing All the Flares?

Universe Today ^ | 11/18/03

[LibWhacker]

Dr. Oliver Manuel, a professor of nuclear chemistry, believes that iron, not hydrogen, is the sun’s most abundant element. In a paper accepted for publication in the Journal of Fusion Energy, Manuel asserts that the “standard solar model” -- which assumes that the sun’s core is made of hydrogen -- has led to misunderstandings of how such solar flares occur, as well as inaccurate views on the nature of global climate change.

Recent solar flares erupting on the sun’s surface have unleashed powerful geomagnetic storms -- gigantic clouds of highly charged particles that pose a threat to electric utilities, high-frequency radio communications, satellite navigation systems and television broadcasts. Continued turbulence on the sun will remain a concern for the coming days, according to space forecasters.

Manuel claims that hydrogen fusion creates some of the sun’s heat, as hydrogen -- the lightest of all elements -- moves to the sun’s surface. But most of the heat comes from the core of an exploded supernova that continues to generate energy within the iron-rich interior of the sun, Manuel says.

“We think that the solar system came from a single star, and the sun formed on a collapsed supernova core,” Manuel explains.

“The inner planets are made mostly of matter produced in the inner part of that star,” Manuel says, “and the outer planets of material that formed out of the outer layers of that star.”

Manuel’s paper, “Superfluidity in the Solar Interior: Implications for Solar Eruptions and Climate,” suggests that the conventional view of how magnetic fields in the sun’s interior -- the cause of solar flares and storms -- are formed is flawed. “The prevailing opinion in the solar physics community is that solar dynamos generate the sun’s magnetic fields by plasma flows in the outer part of the sun. ... The model of a hydrogen-filled sun offers few other options,” Manuel says.

Manuel offers another explanation, based on his assertion that the solar system was born catastrophically out of a supernova -- a theory that goes against the widely-held belief among astrophysicists that the sun and planets were formed 4.5 billion years ago in a relatively ambiguous cloud of interstellar dust. In his latest paper, Manuel posits that the changing fields are caused either by the magnetic field of the rotating neutron star at the core of the sun itself or by a reaction that converts the iron surrounding the neutron star into a superconductor. This reaction is called Bose-Einstein condensation.

While Manuel’s theory is seen as highly controversial by many in the scientific community, other researchers have confirmed that distant solar systems orbit stars that are rich in iron and other metals. Last summer, astronomer Debra Fischer at the University of California, Berkeley, presented her findings of a study of more than 750 stars at the International Astronomical Union meeting in Sydney, Australia. Fischer and her team determined that 20 percent of metal-rich stars have planets orbiting them.

Manuel believes Fischer’s research helps to confirm his 40-year effort to change the way people think about the solar system’s origins. He thinks a supernova rocked our area of the Milky Way galaxy some five billion years ago, giving birth to all the heavenly bodies that populate the solar system.

Analyses of meteorites reveal that all primordial helium is accompanied by “strange xenon,” he says, adding that both helium and strange xenon came from the outer layer of the supernova that created the solar system. Helium and strange xenon are also seen together in Jupiter.

Back in 1975, Manuel and another UMR researcher, Dr. Dwarka Das Sabu, first proposed that the solar system formed from the debris of a spinning star that exploded as a supernova. They based their claim on studies of meteorites and moon samples which showed traces of strange xenon. Data from NASA’s Galileo probe of Jupiter’s helium-rich atmosphere in 1996 reveals traces of strange xenon gases -- solid evidence against the conventional model of the solar system’s creation, Manuel says.

Manuel first began to develop the iron-rich sun theory in 1972. That year, Manual and his colleagues reported in the British journal Nature that the xenon found in primitive meteorites was a mixture of strange and normal xenon (Nature 240, 99-101). The strange xenon is enriched in isotopes that are made when a supernova explodes, the researchers reported, and could not be produced within meteorites.

Three years later, Manuel and Sabu found that all of the primordial helium in meteorites is trapped in the same sites that trapped strange xenon. Based on these findings, they concluded that the solar system formed directly from the debris of a single supernova, and the sun formed on the supernova’s collapsed core. Giant planets like Jupiter grew from material in the outer part of the supernova, while Earth and the inner planets formed out of material form the supernova’s interior. This is why the outer planets consist mostly of hydrogen, helium and other light elements, and the inner planets are made of heavier elements like iron, sulfur and silicon, Manuel says.

Strange xenon came from the helium-rich outer layers of the supernova, while normal xenon came from its interior. There was no helium in the interior because nuclear fusion reactions there changed the helium into the heavier elements, Manuel says.

[Arkinsaw]

An Iron Core in the Sun?
In 1963, Rouse found that his models fit the available information better if he used a different elemental composition for the Sun. In particular, the models worked well when Rouse assumed a small core region in the center of the Sun composed of material with a higher atomic number (Z) than hydrogen or helium -- what he called "a high-Z core." Since high-Z materials are thought to be produced only in supernova events, postulating such a core has implications for theories of solar formation as well as solar composition. One likely candidate element for such a core is iron, and Rouse's theory has been referred to (by him and others) as the idea of a solar "iron core."

Rouse's idea that the sun may have a high-Z core has been considered pretty wild by most solar physicists, not simply because his career path has made him a kind of "outsider" in the solar physics community: the main objection has been to the implications his theory has for the formation of the Sun. The solar system is commonly thought to have formed about 4.5 billion years ago from a homogeneous, well-mixed protosolar nebula, 71 percent hydrogen, 27 percent helium, and only 2 percent heavier elements. Rouse's theory implies a more inhomogeneous core of solar system formation, perhaps containing clumps of high-Z elements formed locally in some previous supernova.

But his colleague Joyce Guzik, a solar modeler at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said, "Dr. Rouse's methods are independent of or different from the ones used by most researchers, but his approach is still valid and reasonable. If he gets the same results by different methods for the interior structure of the sun, we are reassured about the correctness of our models. If Dr. Rouse obtains different results -- as he sometimes does -- we are challenged to understand and track down the reasons for the differences, which often leads us to new insights."

How is what this guy is postulating any different from what the subject of the article is postulating? I'm not sure I see the difference (except that the Rouse guy came up with it decades ago). I'm having a hard time labeling him a crackpot or a bad scientist when I find another seemingly well-respected person with basically the same theory. I haven't seen any evidence that tells me that the one is doing things badly and the other is not. Not trying to be confrontational, I just can't understand why the subject of the article is being dismissed as sort of a loser from the information we know on him.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I thought I'd read somewhere that the temp and pressure necessary to get an iron fusion reaction going was something that could only be reached on a giant star.

[RightWhale]

It's not what, it's how. Method draws the label. How to define the term kook? It's complicated. Another attribute is that the (tentative) loon spends significant time trying to convince others. It could be the PhD in the next office. It could be the janitor. It could be someone from another discipline, like Weggener.

[Physicist]

Manuel claims that hydrogen fusion creates some of the sun’s heat, as hydrogen -- the lightest of all elements -- moves to the sun’s surface. But most of the heat comes from the core of an exploded supernova that continues to generate energy within the iron-rich interior of the sun, Manuel says.

So he's saying that most of the energy of the sun comes from gravitational collapse? I don't think that will give you the right neutrino spectrum.

[LibWhacker]

LOL, another excellent point . . . So when Newton watched the apple fall, he didn't get zapped by a bunch of neutrinos?

[tortoise]

I thought I'd read somewhere that the temp and pressure necessary to get an iron fusion reaction going was something that could only be reached on a giant star.

Iron fusion is a fantastically endothermic process. It would suck up all the energy from hydrogen fusion and still be wanting for more.

[battousai]

to add to the discussion, if as he asserts the suns core is a neutron star, why haven't the outer layers of lighter matter collapsed into the core, though its no black hole, a neutron star is still pretty darn dense.

[Arkinsaw]

It's not what, it's how. Method draws the label. How to define the term kook? It's complicated. Another attribute is that the (tentative) loon spends significant time trying to convince others. It could be the PhD in the next office. It could be the janitor. It could be someone from another discipline, like Weggener.

Thats fine, but I fail to see where we have evidence of that in the article above. I can't see any difference between Rouse and the above really.

[Lazamataz]

Iron cannot in a normal state, be in gaseous form or any other form but a solid.

All elements can exist in a plasma state.

[Lazamataz]

Iron would be a gas in the hot part of a star.

Correction: Plasma.

[LibWhacker]

Yep, I was wondering the same thing. Plus, IIRC, and there is a distinct possibility I don't remember correctly, it's been so long ago, a supernova always produces a black hole, never a neutron star. Do I have that right?

Probably not. I'm sure Manuel wouldn't make that kind of mistake.

[LibWhacker]

One difference I see is that Rouse had an iron core, Manuel has a neutron star core.

[battousai]

"I don't remember correctly, it's been so long ago, a supernova always produces a black hole, never a neutron star. Do I have that right? "

It depends on the size of the original star I believe, its only the supergiants that have enough matter to colapse into neutron stars or black holes. So no not every supernova results in a blackhole. I'm not sure what the percentages would be though, I think its only a low percentile that do.

[RightWhale]

All elements can exist in a plasma state.

They cease to be elements when they lose all their electrons. Easy enugh for hydrogen. They are just undefined pieces of nuclear material fusing and fissioning freely and happily. There is no chemical reaction then, so no chemical elements. It's just plasma. Ions is an inbetween state where you can get the elements back again with ordinary electrical interactions. Right, plasma is a fourth state of matter, no elements.

[Vinnie]

And that Bose-Einstein thingy scares the crap out of me!

Get those two together and it's going to be one hell of a sound system.

[berserker]

Link to nova info.

[e_engineer]

There is some Iron in the Solar wind.

[Physicist]

So when Newton watched the apple fall, he didn't get zapped by a bunch of neutrinos?

Well, no, but dropping an apple onto the surface of a neutron star is another matter. All of the protons will want to become neutrons, and that will release neutrinos, but the neutrino energy spectrum will probably look nothing like what you'd expect from the various fusion processes that take place in the standard solar model (which is well verified by our solar neutrino observatories).

[Junior]

Ping.

[null and void]

I thought I'd read somewhere that the temp and pressure necessary to get an iron fusion reaction going was something that could only be reached on a giant star.

Yup. You can only get elements heavier than iron in a super nova. Iron is at the point where further fusion absorbs energy.