Dirty Snowball Model V Plasma - Comets

Jarvamundo (Alex) · #1 03-02-2010, 10:49 AM

Hi guys,

I've been doing alot of reading on plasma cosmology lately... Hannes Alfven, Eric Lerner, Anthony Perratt etc... Recently (and sorry if this has been posted about before... i searched) I've been looking into how these models line up with comets... and starting to read a bit from an Aussie Physicist Wallace Thornhill on the "electric comet".

Stumbled across this video summary on youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...28C644C0911272

Seems that these objects with dynamic orbits (comets) are going to be a great way to get some sort of quantitative data to prove or most likely disprove the dirty snowball model.

It would totally change our theory of the solar system... how it works... the evolution of it... and the future of it.

and if as, Alfven states, we can scale plasma dynamics from laboratory up to the solar system... it would seem a smaller magnitude to go galactic...

Thought provoking... the implications are huge... and just makes alot of sense to me... thought i'd pass it (video) on.

Best,

KenGee (Kenith Gee) · #2 04-02-2010, 12:00 AM

Alex, I hope you are pulling our legs! If not I don't think this is the site for you.
Most of us live in the real world where the sun is powered by fission not silly ideas. Good hint for this type of thing is if they say nasa is in on the cover up then queue the send in the clowns music.
My advice is if you have a real interest in astronomy stick to the mainstream or better yet get a subscripition to a science journal.
There are some great mainstream books out there that can explain this to you realty is interesting enough without making stuff up like these guys are doing.

OneOfOne (Trevor) · #3 04-02-2010, 07:44 AM

As I recall, we have sent a number of probes to comets already (Giotto being the first) and golly gosh...they look a lot like balls of ice. But then again NASA and the other space agencies are probably in on the cover up. Or maybe the balls of plasma are covered in ice, which somehow does not melt in contact with plasma.

Jarvamundo (Alex) · #4 04-02-2010, 10:00 AM

Hi guys thanks for your comments... to clarify and correct... (i'm not sure if you viewed the theory in entirety) @Kenny i assume you mean hydrogen-fusion of the sun... yep i'm with you here Kenny... we'll also notice if you travel north or south enough... you'll see some brilliant auroras channeling in filaments... yep the suns hot "plasma", reaching us through the magnetosphere...

my point here is plasma shouldn't be regarded as a dirty word here... just a common state of matter... one of the names mentioned above received a nobel prize for explaining such effects.

@Trevor, the electric model suggests that the comets are not "plasma"... it predicts they are predominately rock...

The "plasma" in this comet context, refers to the dust coming off the comets surface forming large filaments of charged particles.... i just don't see how simple sun-melting water/ice will do this?

Will look into the Giotto probe reports... from memory i thought that one was smashed up by rock flying off the comet? Although i see a few images from it...

I have yet to find any predictions or explanations of the double flash measured with the deep impact mission.... I also just don't get how essentially melting "ice" and "water" can cause that? An electrostatic release does make sense here...

Granted the "nasa" cover up rant at the start might be a bit much... i'm less concerned and generally ignore the rants of the youtube commentator and look more at the underlying theories and explanations of the scientists (ie... i'm clicking through and reading the papers from the nasa results sites here).... but yes i can see how those statements can offend.... us Gen-Y'ers generally see through this internet "noise"....

still don't have my answers tho gents... ?

Keen reader of mainstream... but it's not making sense to me here...

* Filaments of dust
* Double flash of impact
* How a tiny copper probe "smacking some ice" makes such a large blast...

Just not making sense to and open mind here gents...

Best,

Jarvamundo (Alex) · #5 04-02-2010, 12:57 PM

From Nasa http://www.space.com/missionlaunches...comet_ice.html
"Tempel 1 has a surface area of roughly 45 square miles, or 1.2 billion square feet. The area taken up by the water ice, however, is only 300,000 square feet. The rest of the comet surface is dust."

thats 0.025%!!! is surface water-ice..... and we still wanna call it a snowball? pfff

the headline should be... "it's 99.975% Not Ice!".... seriously... who writes these headlines?

and more recently from NASA October 29, 2009
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news116.html

But the biggest surprise discovered during the flyby came with the comet images (72 taken during the pass). The camera team, led by JPL's longtime comet expert, Ray Newburn, had expected that the comet would be a rather bland object looking somewhat like a black potato. What we saw, even in the very first picture sent back, was quite dramatic. We saw kilometer-sized deep holes bounded by vertical and even overhanging cliffs; flat topped hills surrounded by cliffs; spiky pinnacles hundreds of meters tall, pointed skyward: in addition to the numerous jets of dust and gas escaping into space. Two of the dust jets came from the comet's night side, a region that was expected to be inactive because if its lack of heating by sunlight.

and the clincher... http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/photo/cometwild2.html

check out those photos...

Quote:

golly gosh...they look a lot like balls of ice

sorry mate thats not a snow ball... It's a new surface... sharp.. hundred-meter-spikes... it's not a nice round melting ball.

I was taught in school / uni that these comets are snowballs... all the books have them pictured as that... These photos do not match up with all the books.... granted the drawings and theories were constructed before we had space probes taking up close photos of these objects...

The ice model needs some serious updating me (and nasa) reckons...

the links are there gents... go for it... it's not made up... however it IS exciting and new... these are very exciting objects.... that do differ from expectations!

OneOfOne (Trevor) · #6 05-02-2010, 07:35 AM

I had a look at the first of the videos about comets and it was sooooo boring I couldn't stand it more than a minute, the guy has to be one of the worst speakers I have ever heard. So I didn't perservere to here what was said in detail

.

I have read about some suggestions that magnetic fields and electric currents may be a factor in the creation of structure in galaxies (I think Alfven was one of the supporters of this), which is a bit "out there" but a possiblity, after all electrostatic forces are MUCH stronger than gravity...you only have to comb your hair to pick up bits of paper to overwhelm the gravity of the whole planet!

Usually if I hear a theory that has been supressed due to a cover up, I switch off. Such theories do themselves a severe disservice by adding stuff like this.

Jarvamundo (Alex) · #7 05-02-2010, 11:28 AM

Heheh all good... it probably needed 3 or 4 minutes minimum...

The Dirty Snowball Model - "Whipple" Model written in 1950 is available here
http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri...00375.000.html

After reading it, it's entirely focussed on sublimating ice of which according to his theory can only happen with sun heating effects out to 4AU! (we are seeing comet tails far beyond this). Whipple talks about the thick layers of ice required, and the sun-action and heating of jets on the gravitational body.

This is THE MAINSTREAM THEORY... it's what is taught... it's what NASA "experts" expected... It's what they designed their experiments to find!

So what did they find:
* No thick layers of surface-ice (by nasa's stats it's 99.975% NOT ICE!)
* Jets coming from behind and infront of the comet
* Double flash including a pre-impact flash
* Surface features clearly not ice... sublimating ice is not going to form 100m towers, or several KM cliffs.
* NASA designed the camera systems to the specs of this whipple theory... and they failed to take an image of the impact... cos the explosion whited-out their cameras... BIG FAIL guys... BIG FAIL!

This 60 year old theory clearly does not line up with evidence... I don't recon Whipple would continue to push it... with this depth of contrary evidence.

Yes the guy in the video is having a rant at NASA.... the more i read into this and supporting papers... and the timing and delay of NASA releasing their data to other groups... the more i understand his frustration... He is of course an american tax payer... us here in Aus get this essentially free... and with the state of their country now, and mistake with public money will be sensitive... anyways... thats probably more the "why" of the emotion.... I don't really care about that... save the headline... gimme the photos and data!

To me the implications are massive.

1) Where did the water on earth come from.... sorry guys but these comets are rock... try again.
1.1) Hypothesized unobserved Oort cloud... who are you? what are you?... are you going to change what you are made of? are you even there?
2) Why do these comets have iron / high temperature forming materials on them... when they "supposedly formed" out in the extremities of our solar system? FAIL
3) If electrostatic forces are so MASSIVE!(blast) for a TINY... repeat TINY piece of copper being flung at small bodies ice or rock... what are their effects on the bigger pieces... ie these things we call planets...

I could go on... but really this changes the model big time...

Einstein: "I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious"

Outbackmanyep · #8 05-02-2010, 02:37 PM

A lot of the questions thrown up in this thread are indeed some of MANY that astronomers would like answered by the Rosetta mission.
Ice on comets isn't completely understood, and it's a lot different from the ice in your freezer, this ice is thought to be amorphous which has no crystal lattice structure and must be bloody hard!
Not all comets are a 50/50 mix of rock and ice, and the jets are formed through active regions on the nucleus.
I would have to re-read some things on the subject of the make up of cometary nuclei, but with the data astronomers have at present the dirty snowball model is the best fit so far.

I will be interested to see what the Rosetta mission pulls up!

As for the Deep Impact mission, they were expecting a football sized area to be excavated by the energy released upon vaporisation of the impacting projectile.
From memory the copper slug was 500kgs and about the size of a washing machine!
The amount of material being blasted out is also governed by the density of the comet.
The double flash could be explained, i would imagine, by the vaporisation of the projectile firstly, and the shockwave from the rebounding surface of the comet which threw material from the nucleus afterward.

The camera used for the impact investigation was only supposed to view the crater in the aftermath of the impact, they should organised it to come back a bit later when the dust died down! lol

Rob_K · #9 05-02-2010, 03:17 PM

Thanks Alex, that's five minutes of my life wasted in watching the first video!

As soon as I hear a slick, folksy American voice and insinuation of a NASA cover-up, that's it for me! Stuff like this is demeaning of the rigour and dedication needed to advance cometary science - if he was doing the science I might at least listen, but he's just some doofer putting his own spin on stuff he's found on the web. The first bit was so full of flaws and deliberate misinformation that the rest wasn't worth watching, sorry.

And what's with the NASA cover-up? So does NASA do all of our solar system probes & astronomy science? Got it so sewn up they can say anything they like! Again, demeaning of all the thousands of hard-working people all over the world who are gradually advancing our knowledge of the Solar System. Like all things astronomical, our understanding of comets is far from complete, but evolving rapidly as we get better & better data. It's an exciting field, but not helped at all by this kind of drivel!

Guys like this one never had a platform before the WWW, but unfortunately nowadays he's probably on the conservative side of the lunatic fringe, LOL!

Anway, there goes another five minutes!

Cheers -

Jarvamundo (Alex) · #10 05-02-2010, 05:01 PM

Yeah I watched the whole series, he went on to explain his sources and the Australian physicist involved in the successful predictions of the mission, that were contrary to the consensus model. I then went on to read the original paper from Whipple, NASA's reports from the mission(s), Thornhills predictions, spectral results from ESA and SSC... all from the links of this video... and have posted quicker links here for those interested to do the same.

As mentioned I'm not defending the guys NASA bagging... although alot of his points were directly quoted from nasa... and after curiously researching the detail... i agree with some.. but not all of his points.... but definitely some of them.

Point taken "guys"... will try to find a nicer way to say what i was taught is "wrong"... unfortunately however you say "wrong" sounds a little uncomfortable... especially in here...

poetically...

Seems the mission-science leaders of the NASA mission have come up with a better way to do so....

Quote:

The consensus model of a comet leading up to the Deep Impact experiment is no longer valid, says Don Yeomans at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US, a member of the mission science team. "It's certainly not a dirty iceball or an icy dirtball," he told New Scientist. "It's a very, very weak, dusty structure with interior ices.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...icy-cargo.html

lots of questions still left for the open minds out there...

all the best

KenGee (Kenith Gee) · #11 09-02-2010, 07:05 PM

While it's good to be open minded, Don't have it so open your brain falls out.

The authors of this rubbish are leading you down a path, that leads to insanity. Ultimately they believe the world is only a few thousand years old.
Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof, so the rest of us don't have wade through this can you tell us what the standard theory predicts and get wrong and these guys ideas predicts get right?

Jarvamundo (Alex) · #12 11-02-2010, 04:19 PM

hmmm... You seem very confident of where "these authors" are leading me.... then you ask me to summarize what they are talking about? "Insanity" ""they believe the world is only a few thousand years old"
@KenGee Simply a bizarre post there buddy....? These "authors" are a combination of Nobel Laureates, IEEE fellows, NASA/JPL directors and employees....

Your outbursts seem to be on the way to representing some form of dogma... both posts have failed to discus any specifics of the topic, and you've declared you won't read/wade through any detail... simply bizarre...

Possibly a video summary might help you?... wow...i think we just asked for post #1?

anyways... I started this thread to seek interest in a discussion of a theory that has predicted some of the "surprises" we are seeing... again i don't care who is right.... I am interested in examining the science and detail of published observations.

I have already pasted links to the standard Whipple model, predictions can be taken from that... including clear calculations of sublimating ice ONLY possible to 4AU maximum. This is the model the NASA experts expected, as now have been surprised... News snippets / articles / etc have also been posted with full sources/links/urls.... ie not "ranting heresay".... but verifiable sources...

What is now clear to NASA and the mainstream theory, is that things are not clear... this is attributed to the long precession of "surprises" recently encountered....

As Outbackmanyep has confirmed... post #8 "Many questions remain"...

As far as the published predictions of the Electric Comet Model prior to these "surprizes"... you can find the by googling "deep impact predictions"... and yes as mentioned originally if you can't be bothered to "wade" through the detail.... a youtube summary of these predictions is available from post #1

i really don't know where to go from here, for you bud? At some stage one would have to pay attention to *something*.... and it might take longer than a forum thread... ? So it's probably your call there... All the material is available for you... and all the other good people of this audience.

Anyways... I'm still keen, curious and reading... and will no doubt expect the electric comet representatives to again make some fairly detailed predictions about the Rosetta mission.... i hear Wallace Thornhill is working on this at the moment.... I will endeavor to trace them down and post here prior to the mission results, along with any from NASA / mainstream...

many questions indeed...

All the best,

Outbackmanyep · #13 11-02-2010, 04:42 PM

Well let me put it this way, i am listed on the Yahoo Comets Mailing list and there has NEVER been talk about "plasma" comets.
If Don Yeomans is involved then usually something will crop up on a forum that is always constantly revolving around comets, as yet i don't ever remember this being discussed.

TheDecepticon · #14 11-02-2010, 08:33 PM

"The consensus model of a comet leading up to the Deep Impact experiment is no longer valid, says Don Yeomans at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US, a member of the mission science team. "It's certainly not a dirty iceball or an icy dirtball," he told New Scientist. "It's a very, very weak, dusty structure with interior ices."

I think this comment sums up all that needs to be said. I cannot see any conspiracy or cover up here. Can't wait till we get a flat earther joining up, that'll be good!!

KenGee (Kenith Gee) · #15 11-02-2010, 10:45 PM

The thing you need to know is that many of us have heard a lot of silly ideas and are familar with the cassic way they are presented. Most of us will not get pass the nasa cover up crap. I did enough research to see that it was not worth going on, just like i wouldn't keep researching bunyips.
Have you read the article you were quote mining. http://www.newscientist.com/article/...icy-cargo.html

how about wiki's article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfv%C3...in_cosmologies

even more damming is this link http://www.plasmacosmology.net/myth.html a look on their links page shows the god father of the movement Velikovsky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velikovsky now tell me again why we should take this seriously?

Long time readers of the US mag Astronomy may remeber seeing these nut's ad in the back pages offer $10,000 who can prove their ideas false.

Outbackmanyep · #16 12-02-2010, 08:47 AM

Thanks for the link KenGee, there's NOTHING in that article which suggests Plasma anything!
Someone is twisting this up into something it's not!

Jarvamundo (Alex) · #17 12-02-2010, 09:09 AM

@KenGeee again - I do not believe a NASA coverup is at hand.... I don't know why you keep pushing this conspiracy point? I already pointed out, with article link, NASA has agreed the consensus model "is no longer valid"? Again, you have no comment on specifics of any theories... just more credibility bashing dogma? Lets get back to the specifics of results...

Don Yeoman quote has summed it up very well indeed...

Electric comets - Predominately rock comet, Electrostatic discharges, forming thin filaments of charged particles (plasma filaments) as the tail, minimal/no ice required.... tails mainly not due to suns heat melting ice.

Standard model "Whipple" - Sublimating ice from the suns heat... dirty snowball, icey dirtball melts and forms tail... very long filaments not predicted by melting ice vapour.... but an inherent feature of charged plasma...

2 clear models... it is clear consensus needs to change, and will do so...

Outbackmanyep · #18 12-02-2010, 10:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jarvamundo

Don Yeoman quote has summed it up very well indeed.....

Electric comets - Predominately rock comet, Electrostatic discharges, forming threads of charged particles (plasma) as the tail, minimal ice.... tails mainly not due to suns heat.

Standard model "Whipple" - Sublimating ice from the suns heat... dirty snowball, icey dirtball melts and forms tail.

2 clear models... it is clear consensus needs to change.

OK, i am NOT pushing any conspiracy point, i'm open minded but not to the point where things just don't make sense.

Comets interact with the solar wind, solar wind = charged particles streaming from the Sun along magnetic field lines, this is what interacts with sublimated ices (not melted) the molecules of which are photoionised by sunlight, the charged particles from the solar wind gently repel these ions behind the comet, this is a Type 1 tail, an ION TAIL. This tail always points directly away from the sun.

Cometary DUST tails are minute particles RELEASED from ices bound with dust upon sublimation of the ices. When dust is released from the sublimated ices it forms into a tail with respect to the orbit of the comet, ie: it follows the comets path through space, sunlight acts on these particles which gently perturbs the spread of the finer material. These particles are very small and only interact with certain wavelengths of sunlight, larger particles (mm in size) follow the orbit of the comet close to the path of the nucleus.
Dust tails can be moderately curved (Type 2) or strongly curved (Type 3) depending on various orbital mechanics of the comet, they also point away from the sun but not directly. The visibility of dust depends on it's production rate.

So we understand that there are indeed electro-magnetic and gravitational components to a comet through interaction with solar wind and sunlight, as well as a third which is a non-gravitational effect. In relation to Whipple's Dirty snowball model which he used to discard the "orbiting gravel bank" idea, the understanding of how a comet behaves is still being tried and tested today but the basis which Whipple started the whole debate about "dirty snowball" comets is the most widely accepted amongst astronomers, and is being refined all the time .
I have read about the electrostatic effects on the surface of a comet (leviatation of dust and build-up of electrostatic charge and flow), which could explain one trigger for outbursts, but as far as i know, unless an in-situ observation is done, it is still only a theory!

Jarvamundo (Alex) · #19 12-02-2010, 10:58 AM

Quote:

OK, i am NOT pushing any conspiracy point

... at Ken Gee mate... not you...

and also thanks for your post.... most informative..

I guess a few questions come from this:
* Surface ice sublimation has pretty much been ruled out by these investigations... Now we are hypothesising the jets come from something within the comet?
* Why would dust held together by ices form 100m spikes and km cliffs... and not be the smooth dark rounded icey surface predicted by the model.
* Also what strikes me as a difference here in the alternative model is the action causing the release of material.
Standard Model = Material comes from photoionised... ie "photo" light.. from sun --> sublimating ice either on surface of comet or now some action deep inside?
Electric = Tail comes from Electrostatic discharging of material.... not ice sublimation by a photo-ionising process... eg you can have jets eminating from behind the comet... not required to have a sun-facing effect

* Another difference seems the origin of the material.... Whipple model is dust/ice clumping together in the extremeties of the solar system... oort cloud etc..... what if these comets turn out to be... well... just moving asteroids.... ie hard/rock

explaining the Types of tails is interesting... thanks for pointing this out..

It would seem fair to say we have no definitive model as current...

Outbackmanyep · #20 12-02-2010, 11:21 AM

Well, the one we know can be backed up by observation and it has been! But it's thrown up these other questions which can't be determined by observation until Rosetta gets to it's destination.
I doubt that one model can completely replace another, the one problem with comet observation on nuclei levels is that the coma/dust obscures what we need to know about it, and the nucleus are generally quite small, spacecraft need to spend more time observing than just fly-by.
Electro-static discharge is one mechanism which was theorised in regards to the amazing outburst of 17P/ Holmes.
Who knows what can be determined until more information comes forward from a landing craft.

I know you weren't taking a shot at me, i was just making it known that i am open minded. If anything i have learnt about astronomy science and that is that ANYTHING is possible but it has to be sound and sensible.

I'd also like to add that Don K. Yeomans is a well respected cometary scientist, but i guess we'll wait and see what new theories spring up, but only observation can help us understand what is going on!
I can only help with basic understanding of comets as we know them today and as how i understand them, anything more should be left to those with the credentials to explain it us, and the last thing we need is conspiracies and way out thinking to explain things, especially when they come from dubious sources.
Not everything on the WWW is truthful.