Dirty Snowball Model V Plasma - Comets

[Jarvamundo]

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_list?p=A028C644C0911272

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]

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]

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]

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]

From Nasa http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/060202_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...


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]

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 :sadeyes:.

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]

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

The Dirty Snowball Model - "Whipple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Lawrence_Whipple)" Model written in 1950 is available here
http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/ApJ../0111//0000375.000.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]

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]

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

Cheers -

[Jarvamundo]

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....


http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8670-deep-impact-mission-reveals-comets-icy-cargo.html


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

all the best

[KenGee]

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

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]

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]

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]

"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]

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/dn8670-deep-impact-mission-reveals-comets-icy-cargo.html

how about wiki's article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfv%C3%A9n-Klein_model#Alfv.C3.A9n_and_Klein_c osmologies

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]

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]

@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]

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]

... 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]

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.

[KenGee]

Alex read your tag line mate.
Point 1 this is why nasa is keen to go it comets to findout exactly what makes them tick. Here is the Whipple paper from 1949 you keep talking about. http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/ApJ../0111//0000375.000.html read it
Now what the new data is doing is filling this detail and answering some of the questions raised by Whipple in not completly trashing the hypothesis.
Point 2 try low gravity.
Point 3 the plasma model as you have explained it would have the tails pointing in radome directions, but this isn't what we see.

The Whipple model needs refinement the fact that it was defined before space flight I'd say it was an example of first class science based on the know facts at the time. The fact that new facts mean it needs to be adjusted, well that's called science.

See you on the dance floor Alex.

[Jarvamundo]

Point 1: Did that link to Whipple come from my Post #7? I've read that well written paper.
Point 2: The electric model does not dismiss gravity? You are misinformed, see link below.
Point 3: False and misleading assumptions. see link below

In the interest of clearing up conceptions about the proposed Electric Model of the comet... A good description of features is http://www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pdf

Taking nothing away from the brilliance of Science's great pioneers... some answers to the puzzles we are finding with comets might come from alternative models that many professionals have been collaborating on for sometime now.

I had wished this thread to explore some of these details, as the electrical nature of the features we are finding is striking to me... These electrical features have been clearly understood on this planet for sometime, and these electrical scientists might be able to aid the astronomical community without re-inventing any wheels...

I think we are doing a bit more than refining a model, or filling in detail when the leading experts say...

It's a brave thing for mainstream come out with, and good science. I applaud it.

It would seem obvious some fundamental assumptions are being re-examined.

[Outbackmanyep]

Have a read.....

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/mccanney/index.html

[Jarvamundo]

Never heard of that guy? I think you are straying from the theory I originally presented, and going down the predictable Ad Hominem path of unrelated sources.

Have a read: IEEE paper http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4346306 of the actual theory i discussed

but then you'll say something like "IEEE (the largest professional organisation on the planet) isn't about astronomy"...

but then i'll say hey look recently 2009 NASA (astronomy mainstream) invites them to talk to them... about problems (http://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/2009-Spring/announce.scott.html) they are having.

have a watch: http://mediaman.gsfc.nasa.gov/colloquia_asx/public/ENG/2009/ENG20090316.asx

If it's alright with NASA to explore these concepts, surely you guys can come along too. cmon, its fun and wont hurt... i promise...

[Outbackmanyep]

Alex, you refer to this passage

"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."

If you went back and read the entire article in its context, Don Yeomans was NOT inferring that the "Dirty Snowball" model is dead, and it certainly does NOT suggest an "Electric Comet"..........
What i believe is being suggested is that the "dirty snowball" is being misconceived and that comets are more complex than we realise!
So in reality the article isn't telling me anything new! This is the reason why we explore.......we still don't fully understand!

[Jarvamundo]

I agree, Correct Don Yeomans did not suggest the Electric Comet... never said he did.

Wallace Thornhill has developed this theory based on plasma/solar wind interaction.... of which i originally presented #1, and IEEE paper above



This is a distinctly different model... this says the OH does not come from the comet-water-ice-sublimation, but from a solar wind / plasma ion interaction with oxygen from the comet.

In a nutshell this means... we've detected OH in the spectrograph of cometary tails... so we think "wow i think thats water there"... but then the plot thickens... because we find 99.95% absence of surface water, and a range of other features not consistent with consensus.... another word for this is "surprising"

Wallace's theory explains why when we visit a comets surface, or slam a 400kg projectile into the surface we see no increase in that OH spectrum, or any visible water ice subsurface, or a even smooth sublimated object (as Don's expert associate mentioned is required by sublimating mainstream).

Wallace's theory is also consistent with the double flash, the blinding of cameras, the large puff of "surprizingly" fine dust, the discharge of filaments from the non-sun-facing side, filaments themselves (birkeland currents), large spikes and uneven surface features, comet brightening beyond 4AU (whipple's limit).

It's a theory that made distinct, published predictions well before observations.

As mentioned the electrical (plasma) solutions to cosmological questions are now being examined at NASA, and to swiftly label them as "crack pot" is misleading and irresponsible, especially since none of the links or people you mention are part of Wallace Thornhill's specific theory. You've just merely pointed out some unrelated theory, to try and detract from this specific one.

This is what warranted the clarification.

[Outbackmanyep]

When you say "discharge of filaments from the non-sunward facing side" are you talking about jets?
Comet nuclei do rotate!

As for the uneven surface features how does plasma physics explain these features?
The surface could be just erosion of soft material from harder packed material due to sublimation processes.

What large spikes are you referring to?

This just gets more interesting doesn't it!? :)

[ngcles]

Hi Jarvamundo & All,

The way science basically works is that someone comes up with a theory that best explains a set of facts. They go away and find ways of experimentally testing the theory, perform the experiments and see if the results further support the theory. In this way the theory becomes the "standard model" -- that's not to say it's absolute fact but it is the best theory that passes the Occham's Razor test. For example the Big-Bang theory is the "standard model".

Why is it the standard model? Put simply, it explains all the observed facts in the simplest way and makes the fewest number of unsupported assumptions. If evidence comes to light that disproves a model, then the model is either modified or discarded. If over time a theory has withstood everything thrown at it, it tends to harden into "fact". Fred Whipple's theory has undergone some slight modifications but has stood the test of time well.

The Dirty Snowball model is at present, and by some distance, the best model that explains cometary behaviour. The theory of which you have spoken has little to no supporting evidence, is contradicted by a considerable body of observational evidence and (much less importantly) no-one of any standing in the field is supporting it.

When the proponents start to accuse NASA of certain conspiracies and cover-ups, their credibility takes a big hit in my and most people's eyes and ...

... when Immanuel Velikovski gets a mention (even a passing mention), I'm sorry, but my fingers go straight into my ears and I go La-La-La-La-La-La :screwy:

Does this "plasma" idea pass Occham's Razor -- not by any stretch of the imagination.


Best,

Les D

[Jarvamundo]

Cool i like it... now we are discussing things... heres the fun bit.

I've put some numbers in your quote to help explore this...

1) Thornhill explains that the surface features are due to electric discharge machining EDM of rock.



(2) The surface could be just erosion of soft material from harder packed material due to sublimation processes.

Yeah it could be... but it's a BIG BIG stretch to suggest these surface features are erosion from sublimation

From Deep Impact Team http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news116.html


If you still think sublimating erosion causes those.... hey go for it... I'm sliding over to the rock side on that one...

(3) What large spikes are you referring to?
from above: "spiky pinnacles hundreds of meters tall, pointed skyward"

again... sublimating ice erosion? hmmm .... again go for it.... i'm rock on that one too..


Thornhill's Electrical model predicted these features.... and with EDM you can get the same features in a lab experiment.

And another thing that fits is... the electrostatic even scattering of dust... (why we found big puffs of dust).... ironically some here would know that this is the EXACT method we use to coat telescope mirrors.


In response to Lez... have a read of this post... if you can tell me how whipple's model matches those VASTLY SURPRIZING facts... please tell me and NASA's expert Ray Newburn........ hmm... maybe this is how science works... maybe not... but hey.. come along and explore it'll be fun.... and i promise, we can all make our own minds up... I'll even let you bring that nifty razor of yours ;-)


you betcha! ;-)

Surely it doesn't hurt to do a little amatuer science, in the amatuer science forum?

[MuntiNZ]

Haha ha this is classic cult stuff gotta luv it!!!!! :ship2::screwy:
When I was a kid when the internet was new I joined some mail group for astronomy but it got taken over by these freaks in holland or some where that dribbled on about how space men were coming to save us and they was going to set up a school to teach kids that the aliens were on the way!!!
This thread brings back those memorys!!!!! :rofl::rofl::rofl:

[Jarvamundo]

Not my theory champ, just an IEEE published paper (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4346306). IEEE (http://www.ieee.org)'s the biggest cult of them all.

[davesmith_au]

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum, but would like to make a few points with regard to where this thread came from and where it seems to be going.

I am involved with the Thunderbolts.info site (and, by association, with Wal Thornhill's holoscience site), and can and sometimes do make statements about Electric Universe theory as proposed by Thornhill, Talbott, Scott et al when appropriate.

Alex, like many interested and well-meaning folk, posted in the first post a link to a youtube video which is NOT endorsed by nor does it constitute any part of the Electric Universe/Plasma Cosmology published data. Whilst it may contain some valid information, the "NASA cover up" and other "conspiracy" type claims should not be regarded as any part of Electric Universe theory. Taking it as anything but the personal opinion of a supporter of EU is erroneous, just as would be the quoting of a forum post here as the "Official Word" of some astronomy theory instead of the opinion of an adherent.

If people want to seriously consider the scientific issues raised by Alex, they would do well to read information published by the Electric Universe crowd themselves. Whilst the proponents have published several books for sale (as well as peer-reviewed papers as noted by Alex), they do make an enormous amount of information available on their sites. At present large portions of one of those books, The Electric Universe by Wal Thronhill and David Talbott, are being published in a series of "Special Edition" Thunderblogs (http://www.thunderbolts.info/thunderblogs/archives/special_edition/special_edition_archive.htm), presented by yours truly. Coincidentally I began with Chapter 4, "Electric Comets" and it is information from this which should be discussed in this thread, rather than the personal opinions of an adherent.

Well done Alex for having a go, and don't be discouraged by the ad hom nature of some of the respondents. Stick with the science and you won't go wrong.

Cheers, Dave Smith.

[MuntiNZ]

Even tho I am not a brainbox and didnt do uni my little brother did and I watched the stuff he was into when he did a geology degree.
Like how he read every thing about the stuff he was working on and not just the stuff which agreed with what he was saying.
So he knew every sides of the argument.
Coz if he didnt some one would trip him up with facts he didnt no about.
And the other thing was the experiments they did.
Not only to find out if there ideas were right but also to see if they were WRONG.
Its like he says the guys who support the ideas like this one above never want to read about the opposing ideas they always just memorize all of the arguments which support there fav ideas and go blahblahblah really loudly to drown out the opposition.
And where are the experimental results to support the ideas?
Dont you reckon some one would kill to win the Noble prize by proving all the current ideas are wrong?
These out there ideas are always with out any support by experiments and hard evidence.
Its always just saying 'I luv this cool idea better than the boring ones of people who went to uni and did experiments so I am gonna repeat these freak claims over and over until people stop arguing and agree that Im the greatest genius ever and didnt need to get a degree!!!!' :screwy::rofl:

[Jarvamundo]

It's you again champ... nobel your after? EU's already got a couple (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1970/alfven-bio.html) 2nd (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1932/langmuir-bio.html)

The 2nd guy "langmuir" invented this thing called a Langmuir Probe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langmuir_probe)... (in a nutshell it's a way to measure electrostatic charge seperation in plasma)....

Relevance...? Well it's EXACTLY what NASA straps onto spacecraft to take measurements on comets, asteroids, space! (http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2003/pdf/1906.pdf).

It's a big paper... just open it up... pdf search for "langmuir".... come along.. lets go measure some plasma ;-)


Les, you list that you are a contributing editor of Australian Sky and Telescope Magazine. If you are going to place that on your public profile, and make a comment like above, you have a responsibility to contribute some specific sources that are clear to this topic, and mentioned IEEE peer reviewed paper (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4346306), as i have. I am sincerely interested if you have access to knowledge or information that i, or this audience, do not. </honest respectful request>

[Rob_K]

For pity’s sake, hasn’t this thread gone on long enough? I can understand that you and your mate Dave are filled with the certainty, smugness and missionary zeal of the credulous and ill-informed, but do you have to inflict it on the rest of us? Take it somewhere else, please. :)

Cheers -

[Outbackmanyep]

According to David H Levy "comets are like cats, they have tails and do exactly what they want...."

[Jarvamundo]

Levy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Levy) was onto something... as you would be if you discovered as many comets as he did.

Birkeland currents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland_current) behave in this very manner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magnetic_rope.png)

we are now finding stars that are doing the same thing (http://mexicanskies.com/constellations/Mira.jpg) (mira) notice the intensity brightening at the poles of this star.

I'm not saying any theory (or idea or hypothesis or insert whatever word you feel would fit) is 100% right... i'm just saying, hey, everyone take their own look.... if you don't want to... thats fine... if you can't be bothered... thats fine too... i just wish someone told me about this earlier.

The best to you all,
Cheers

[MuntiNZ]

I showed this stuff to my brother and he says you need to get a dictionary out and look up 'theory' coz it doesnt mean what you think it does.

[adman]

Normally I am happy to let eveyone have their own opinions / thoughts / theories etc, but there is something about this thread that makes me very wary.

It has taken me a while to put my finger on it, but this is what I think it is....

Alex - I am very suspicious of your motives in this thread for the simple reason that you are trying too hard to get people to listen to you. It makes me think that you have some personal investment or incentive to push these ideas. The tone of your posts is almost evangelical (for want of a better word), and on occasion more than a little condescending.

That combination always makes me cautious.

Just to be clear - I am not making any comment on the merits of any of the theories or ideas that have been put forth, just the way they have been delivered.

[snas]

Adam
I have to agree with you. In the Australian Veterinary Association we have a group of homeopaths. Very righteous, almost evangelical. And any evidence based science that reputable scientists can come with to debunk their theories is always shot down with more crazy theories.
Like yourself, I am not debunking the claims that have been made here, because, after all, what do i know, I'm just a biologist with an interest in astronomy. It's the way this is presented that concerns me.
Stuart....living not far from you Adam at 27.5S 153.25E

[Jarvamundo]

Adam i also agree. There is now enough genuine peer-reviewed information here now for anyone to follow...

My enthusiasm in argument was due to the ad hom dismissal, without any comments on the specifics of the science. You will see from the first post i was just a layman exploring, then it quickly degenerated into a Velikofsky Ad Hom attack (of which i never mentioned or even studied in depth that author). It is unreleated to this peer-reviewed paper. This is just bad science. I never used this technique in the history of the post.

I really dont see how a man (Velikovsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky)) who was born in the 1800's and who published his work in 1950's has any relation to a genuine IEEE plasma physics (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4346306) 2007 paper.

My comments were purely of this peer-reviewed IEEE paper, and supporting NASA references, always thoroughly linked for verification. It is not my theory, i have not connection to it.

Might i acknowledge OutbackManyEP, who atleast took the time to comment on the specifics, and explore the science. I also learnt a thing or two from him about comet tails, and the research community... I also appreciated the private messages of support. cheers. I will say no more.

[Outbackmanyep]

Hi Alex,
I guess we can just wait for Rosetta and see what happens from there!

I attended a talk from Dr. Bryan Gaensler last year on this
http://www.australasianscience.com.au/bi2009/301Gaensler.pdf

It was an amazing talk which was backed up by observational evidence that was clearly understandable.

Cheers!

[Outbackmanyep]

Alex,
I have a question brought up by one of the comets-ml members.

"I expect one piece of evidence lacking, given the proposal that comet jets
are caused by electric discharge, is the absence of emission spectra
characteristic of such discharges. For comets, we generally only see
emission spectra from the faster-moving, more tenuous gaseous fraction
activated by irradiation from the Sun and solar wind. The claims are that
the electrical discharges are most intense at or near the comet nucleus and
are so great as to lead to 'electric discharge machining' of the surface
with the jets comprising excavated material moving along the electric field
lines or arcs. So what is their explanation for the lack of emission
spectra in and around these jets?"

[Rob_K]

For anyone reading this thread, don’t be drawn in by Alex’s ‘smooth’ talk and reference to published papers. Science is full of anomolies where one set of observational data contradicts another. What science does is try to understand and reconcile the anomolies, gradually refining or altering or discarding the model. What Alex and his associates do is start off with a "theory" (in this case the "Electric Universe" of which "Plasma Comets" are a part), then comb the published data for anything that will support it. Not only that, they often put their own interpretation on published data, not necessarily the conclusions or intent of the authors. Data that does not support it is ignored.

It’s a tried and true method of gaining initiates who are ill-equipped to discriminate between science and pseudo-science, because it is couched in the language of science and seems superficially logical (but not always, LOL). The dissemination of these sorts of "theories" is a phenomenon of the web because it gives these people a platform – none of it comes from science. The Electric Universe is a model that, as Les so eloquently put it, does not pass the Occham's Razor test. No-one is doing Electric Universe science, all they are doing is manipulating data to give the impression of doing science.

To those who recognised that there was a disturbing ‘evangelical’ tone in this thread, well done! The Electric Universe people have their own little world where they fight imaginary battles against the stupidity of the "establishment". Check this thread out (and I have a full transcript if anyone decides to clean it up!).

http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&p=33049&sid=fb098c0371641d47a369e6ac9c55c0a 4 (http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&p=33049&sid=fb098c0371641d47a369e6ac9c55c0a 4)

The missionary element is clear, viz the respondent who states: "But, good luck in your efforts. I guess that if maybe you open one mind, it is worth the effort." Funny how open means close in the wacky world of the Electric Universe!

Do we really want this stuff on Ice in Space? Because if we allow the Electric Universe to gain a foothold here, we may as well make it open slather for "Creation Science" and all the other loopy movements out there on the web. :shrug:

Cheers -

[Outbackmanyep]

Well put Rob_K! :2thumbs:

I have never seen evidence of EDM in nature, so that must go a long way to putting the ? on the EU.

[Jarvamundo]

Interesting question... Can we maybe discuss somewhere else (http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3078)? I suspect the answer involves the insulating nature of plasma double-layers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_layer_(plasma)), A NASA video i posted on this forum explains this nature very well. I said i wouldn't post here any more, and its clear it's only annoying the conservatives... For those with an eye for detail will notice.. i actually joined IIS first, and regularly support IIS and buy compendiums, i haven't once assassinated or dismissed anyones character, beyond the terms of service of this site, only the science presented (along with the good scientific nature of OutbackManyEP posts)...

i am also genuinely interested in attending such talks as you have mentioned OutbackManyEP, The paper you presented says alot about magnetism, i sincerely recommend watching that nasa video (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=57994), I'm not sure if you also studied electrical engineering, butyou will see where the magnetism comes from. Will PM you about attending.

[MuntiNZ]

Dont worry mate no one has been!!! :lol: :lol:

[Jarvamundo]

i'm gob smacked. cya guys. --outta here

[iceman]

On that note, i'm locking this thread.