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by Michael Goodspeed
12/17/2007
from
Thunderbolts Website
The day of this writing,
December 13, 2007, is the 140th anniversary of the birth of the
Norwegian-born physicist Kristian Birkeland. It was Birkeland
who correctly hypothesized in the early 20th century that electric
currents from the Sun power the earth's auroras.
For many decades, the
scientific mainstream largely rejected Birkeland’s thesis, favoring
instead the idea that Earth's magnetosphere is an impenetrable
envelope, "squeezed" by the solar wind to induce auroral activity.
Only when satellites detected the magnetic signatures of electric
currents in the aurora in 1973 was Birkeland's hypothesis
irrefutably validated - though for another two decades many
astronomers resisted the implications of this discovery.
In testing his ideas about the Earth/Sun connection, Birkeland built
a vacuum chamber and placed a magnetized metal ball called a
terrella inside it, representing the Earth. He observed how the
terrella behaved in its artificial, electrically charged
atmosphere. In addition to solving the riddle of Earth's auroras,
Birkeland's electrical experiments also uncannily simulated
planetary rings and the energetic displays of cometary jets. Yet a
full century later, astronomers continue to be mystified by these
phenomena in space. (To see Birkeland's observations on the
electrical properties of comets, published in 1913, read "Comets
- Kristian Birkeland's theory").
More than a century after Birkeland's polar expedition to
investigate the Northern Lights, mainstream scientists still express
surprise or even astonishment when they observe the telltale signs
of electrical circuitry connecting the earth and the Sun. That is
because they still cling to theoretical models that conceptually
exclude the possibility of electrical circuits in space - even when
their models are refuted by new observations that they characterize
(and sometimes discard) as "impossible."
The disconnect between astronomical theory and discovery is in full
display in the recent NASA press release, "NASA
Spacecraft Make New Discoveries about Northern Lights".
The report discusses the
THEMIS spacecraft's recent observations of,
"giant magnetic
ropes that connect Earth's upper atmosphere to the Sun and
explosions in the outskirts of Earth's magnetic field."
Describing the THEMIS
encounter with a "magnetic rope" NASA investigator Dave Sibeck
states:
"It was very large,
about as wide as Earth, and located approximately 40,000 miles
above Earth's surface in a region called the magnetosphere."
Investigators observed
that the so-called rope,
"formed and
unraveled in just a few minutes, providing a brief but
significant conduit for solar wind energy. Other ropes quickly
followed: 'They seem to occur all the time,' says Sibeck."
Magnetic "ropes"?
This expression begs the
question of how the fluid dynamics envisioned by NASA can
explain a "rope-like" structure that twists and changes dynamically,
and extends all the way from Earth back to the Sun. NASA scientists
often use the phrase "flux ropes" to describe these twisted
filamentary pathways traversed by charged particles.
But to electrical
engineers, such terminology reveals a deep confusion among
astronomers struggling to comprehend unexpected electrical activity.
Professor Donald E Scott, author of The Electric Sky,
says,
"Ropes, of course,
have beginnings and ends. Magnetic fields do not. So this use of
language from NASA fails to explain anything, and is
conceptually wrong as well as misleading."
(For a synopsis
of Prof. Scott's highly acclaimed book, see
here)
The "ropes" to which the
investigators refer are commonly described in plasma science as
electrical "Birkeland
currents," named after the aforementioned Kristian
Birkeland. The rope-like structure is not just a curiosity; it is
the structure taken by current flow due to the long-range attraction
and short-range repulsion between current filaments.
The "twisted magnetic
fields" are simply the signature of the electric current flow. In
plasma cosmology, these entwined plasma filaments act as
transmission lines carrying "field-aligned" currents across
interplanetary and interstellar space.
A layperson reading the NASA report might believe that the
observation of these "ropes" is news - as if they had never been
seen before. But Birkeland currents have been the object of plasma
research for more than a century.
The term describes an
electric current in a space plasma. It is this function of plasma
filaments that inspires Electric Universe proponents to assert,
"There are no
isolated islands in space!"
However, the term "Birkeland
current" has never been included in the mainstream astronomical
lexicon. Only in recent years have astronomers begrudgingly
entertained the concept when evidence has allowed for no
alternative.
The NASA report continues,
"The mission is only
beginning but THEMIS is already surprising us," says Vassilis
Angelopoulos the mission's principal investigator at the
University of California, Los Angeles.
The surprises for
investigators began in March, when,
"a substorm erupted
over Alaska and Canada, producing vivid auroras for more than
two hours."
The report reads:
"Right away the
substorm surprised investigators: ‘The auroras surged westward
twice as fast as anyone thought possible, crossing 15 degrees of
longitude in less than one minute,' says Angelopoulos.
The storm had traversed
an entire polar time zone in 60 seconds flat!
"Also, 'the display
was surprisingly bursty.' Photographs taken by ground cameras
and NASA's Polar satellite (also supporting the THEMIS mission)
revealed a series of staccato outbursts each lasting 10 minutes
or so. 'Some of the bursts died out while others reinforced each
other and went on to become major events.'"
The energy of this
two-hour outburst - five hundred thousand billion Joules - is
roughly the energetic equivalent of a 5.5 magnitude earthquake. In
trying to discern "where does all that energy come from?"
NASA is left groping
for explanations.
The language used by the investigators reveals their determination
to avoid describing obviously electrical displays in terms of
electrical circuitry. Rather, they cling to ideas of mechanical
"collisions" between magnetic structures - without explaining how
these structures can be magnetic in the absence of electricity -
somehow generating the observed energies.
The NASA report
describes the "magnetic ropes" (electrical Birkeland currents)
observed by THEMIS as,
"twisted bundle(s)
of magnetic fields organized much like the twisted hemp of a
mariner's rope."
This description is
colorful and poetic, but does it amount to a scientific explanation?
Left unanswered is, how are the ropes created, and why do they
twist?
The report continues,
"Spacecraft have
detected hints of these ropes before, but a single spacecraft is
insufficient to map their 3D structure. THEMIS's five satellites
were able to perform the feat.
"THEMIS has also
observed a number of relatively small explosions in Earth's
magnetic bow shock.
'The bow shock is like the bow wave in front
of a boat,' explains Sibeck. 'It is where the solar wind first
feels the effects of Earth's magnetic field.'
When a knot of
magnetism within the solar wind hits the bow shock--'Bang!' he
says. 'We get an explosion.'"
Using such language to
describe the electrical currents and powerful discharges from solar
energy replaces the language of advanced plasma science with the
mechanical language of wind and water. Nowhere does the report
mention the explosive potentials of the "double-layer," a structure
common to all plasma sheaths - the cellular strictures, such as
Earth’s magnetosphere, around charged objects in a plasma.
A double-layer consists of two parallel layers of opposite
electrical charge. A catastrophic rise in voltage across the
structure may result when flow is cut off. This causes the
double-layer to "explode" - as observed when a circuit breaker is
opened incorrectly. The explosions THEMIS has observed are the
predictable effects of instabilities in the interface of Earth’s
plasma sheath, and the out-flowing charged particles of the solar
wind.
Clarity can be gained on many space phenomena, including
unpredictable outbursts of comets, supernovae, and coronal mass
ejections, if astronomers will consider the well-documented dynamics
of electrical double-layer explosions.
The irony here is that
by clinging to gravity-only dogma ("no electricity in space"!) - a
dogma codified before we had the tools of modern plasma science -
mainstream astronomy has obstructed the path of scientific progress
pioneered by Kristian Birkeland a century ago.
"It seems to be a
natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the
whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions
of all kinds."
Kristian
Birkeland
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