THE ELECTRIC SERPENT
Under the heading "Here be serpents" in The Economist for 8 March 1997, p. 102, appeared the following article:
"NEAR the centre of the Milky way lurks something at least as weird as dark matter, but definitely visible. Through their radio telescopes, astronomers can see a bright strand, 150 light years long and a couple wide; and kinked in two places. They call it the Snake. Since its discovery in 1991 by Andrew Gray at the University of Svdney. the Snake has been a puzzle. Other "threads", as they are known, have been found inside the Galactic Centre Lobe, a barrel-shaped region of space where the interstellar gas is slightly more rarefied than outside it. Among the many exotic theories of their genesis is that they are loops of magnetism-perhaps blown like smoke rings off newly forming black holes-which bounced off the inside wall of the Lobe. But the Snake, being outside the Lobe, defies this explanation. Other theories, which did not depend on the Lobe, seemed capable of explaining smooth filaments, but not kinked ones. Gregory Benford, of the University of California, Irvine, who proposed a competing theory before the Snake was found, has just updated it, and thinks it can account for these anomalies.
** His idea is that the Snake is an electrical discharge, like a vast lightning bolt-so vast that it just hangs in space, instead of disappearing as earthly lightning does. **
Its source is a giant electrical dynamo. When something that conducts electricity sweeps through a magnetic field, a current starts to flow through it (this is the basis of a dynamo). Gas clouds in the middle of the galaxy are, everyone agrees, partly ionised radiation flying through has battered electrons off some of the atoms in the gas. Because electrons are what carry electricity, the clouds should therefore be electrical conductors. Dr Benford reckons some of them could have built up an electric current as they moved through the strong magnetic field that pervades the centre of the galaxy. Once this had happened, the current could gradually have extruded itself from one of the denser areas of cloud, and followed it as it drifted through space-hanging on, in Dr Benford's words, like a lamprey.
** However, this current itself twists around and around as it flows through the magnetic field, the way a torrent of water twists up a fire-fighter's hosepipe. That explains the kinks. Dr Benford reckons the Snake is actually something like a corkscrew shape seen side-on. **
Such knowledge may not be entirely esoteric. Dr Benford thinks a better understanding of the Snake could give clues about how to handle similar (if smaller) structures on earth. That is something nuclear fusion researchers would love to do. To achieve their goal, they need to learn how to control ionised gases similar to those thought to compose the Snake. But the Benford theory has not kicked its rivals down yet. Don Melrose, also at Sydney, points out that the gas in the middle of the galaxv might already be so strongly ionised, and thus such a good electrical conductor, that current would leak away rather than build up into a concentration like the Snake. Dr Morose also thinks that some of the other theories, though they have shortcomings, do not rule out filaments with kinks. If Dr Benford's theory is right, though, it also predicts that the Snake is slowly expiring. The radio signals that make it show up come from electrons flowing in it as they spiral through the galactic magnetic field. But this uses up energy, so the Snake is slowly glowing itself to death. Perhaps only its eventual disappearance will settle the debate." [** emphasis added **]
[Wal Thornhill Comments]:
Two items stand out:
1. The filamentary nature of "the snake".
2. The corkscrew shape.
I suppose the third thing that stands out for me is the evident lack of understanding of galactic discharges on the part of astronomers. Such a structure is expected on the basis of the plasma cosmology presented in Eric Lerner's book "The Big Bang Never Happened" - but I'll bet you won't see mention of that in any of the scientific journals.
Electric Galaxies
For more than 10 years plasma physicists have had an electrical model of galaxies. It works with real-world physics. The model is able to successfully account for the observed shapes and dynamics of galaxies without recourse to invisible dark matter and central black holes. It explains simply the powerful electric jets seen issuing along the spin axis from the cores of active galaxies. Recent results from mapping the magnetic field of a spiral galaxy confirm the electric model.
On the other hand, cosmologists cannot explain why spiral shapes are so common and they have only ad-hoc explanations for galactic magnetic fields. More recently, inter-galactic magnetic fields have been discovered which is the final straw to break the camel's back. Incredible gravitational models involving invisible "black holes" have had to be invented in a desperate attempt to explain how the attractive force of gravity can result in matter being ejected in a narrow jet at relativistic speeds.
Why do we accept such science fiction as fact when an Electric Universe predicts spiral shapes, magnetic fields and jets? The cosmic magnetic fields simply delineate the electric currents that create, move and light the galaxies.