The Revolution will be Televised (None dare call it Plasma)

[robinson]

There has been a relatively quiet revolution going on, most of which hasn't been revealed yet. Much less appeared on your Telly. This will change soon.

The thread title is a wink and a nod to two old Memes, both of which predate the Internet, but one hopes a few will smile when reading them.

Sometimes new information is slow to percolate, other times a NDA prevents anything from being said, and there is also the matter of wanting credit, where credit is not only due, but some serious money is involved.

But in the end, new data does make it to the masses, and even the most hardened cynic will embrace the paradigm shift. Even if they can't bring themselves to use the word "plasma".

The overwhelming facts have been arriving in such a stream of new knowledge about our wondrous Universe, nobody can really keep up, but the various discoveries and marvels that the Chandra Observatory have revealed are so revolutionary, so unexpected by the mainstream, there is almost a bit of Future Shock going on. Something. The words "baffled," "surprised", "shocked", "confused", "perplexed", even "mystified", have actually showed up in report after report.

Combined with other orbital platforms, and earth based observations and experiments, what we are seeing out there is wilder than even the woo cosmologist predicted. I get a great deal of enjoyment from this.

If it wasn't for the multiple threads and intense fighting over multiple threads and issues, right here in the Science sub forum, I wouldn't have noticed several things about it. Things that seem most odd. Even to me.

The most obvious is how often the word "Plasma" is avoided in mainstream publications, News stories, and even conversations between scientist. I don't know why, but after reading both sides of the furious debate for months now, it is starting to make sense. Somehow "Plasma" is a bad word for mainstream scientist. We can blame Plasma Cosmology for this. Or somebody.

The other far more strange matter, is the avoidance of the word "electric", in regards to all things in outer space. Magnetism is also an orphan child at times.

Even when the evidence is overwhelming, right in front of the collected scientific mind, none dare call it plasma. The number of terms used to replace "plasma" is nothing less than brilliance. Examples abound.

But enough of that, you have suffered enough. The revolution will be televised. In fact, it already has been, if you count video on the Internet.

Right now there are many many people working very hard on real TV shows, these huge HD productions, that are going to rock your world. Some of them may be just itching to tell you about it, but there are these annoying little Non-disclosure agreements, and often the coolest stuff you can imagine, it just can't be discussed in advance.

In a certain irony, some of us will be watching the plasma revolution, on a plasma screen TV. I get a fair bit of humor out of that.

I can tell you this. Almost everything we thought we knew about the Universe is changing. And plasma, as revealed by Chandra and other means, is the driving force, or event, or something. New words may have to be invented to describe some stuff. We definitely need a word to describe the "very hot ionized gas" we are finding all over the place. Maybe an acronym, VHIG, could be used, to save typing that out.

Is it huge? Is it worth a topic? Are the Plasma Universe people going to be doing little happy dances all over the planet?

Probably. But don't get smug you bastards. You don't know the half of it either.

Nobody does. Bottom line, there be plasma, and lots of it. Invisible energies, invisible fourth state matter, invisible before now that is. It is like we have been blind, but the eyes are opening. And what we see, is a revolution. Not the little kind, where you can cobble the new findings onto the old theories, the old views.

No, this one is like when the first man saw the moons of Jupiter, and knew something nobody else in the world did.

Right now, as you are reading this, people are looking at the Universe, and seeing things nobody has ever witnessed before. Things nobody had even imagined. (OK that may not be true, some of the plasma physics experts may have, but they don't count).

A few of the startling revelations.

Huge, and we are talking light years huge, huge currents of extremely energetic plasmas are flowing between stars. Or should that be, huge VHIGs have been found moving between stars?

Much much larger amounts of plasma connects almost every Galaxy we can observe. It's all over the place. And it is very very energetic.

Vast invisible plasmas are moving through what we thought was "empty space". Galaxies of Plasma. (OK, some people thought there was Dark Matter, but it looked empty, so I can call it empty space)

X-ray sources we thought were Black Holes or Quasars, are actually multiple sources, spread out and moving.

Magnetic fields are found that extend millions of light years. Tens of millions of light years.

Electromagnetic fields of almost unmeasurable strength are responsible for much of the visible and invisible light we can see.

Super dense, super hot (2 or 3 Million Kelvin) plasmas are being found. We just couldn't see them before. And they are flowing. Not static. They are like, right there, and nobody could see them. Plasma is all over the place!

And, perhaps the most surprising to me, plasma is capable of doing things nobody ever predicted.

And so much more. So much more.

No, I don't have to provide evidence. That is NASA and all those highly paid scientists job. I'm just enjoying the show.

The Revolution will be Televised!

(None dare call it Plasma)

OK I dared, but I'm not kidding, there really is some sort of Taboo against calling a Plasma a plasma.

[robinson]

Don't even think about it. Yes you, you who hits quote, reposts the entire OP, then adds one line of text. Don't do it.

It's annoying.

Now I have to debunk myself. Because that rhetoric may have raised somebodies blood pressure, and because it is fun to be able to take both sides.

(None dare call it plasma)

Bah! That is just not true. Don't be dumb robinson. There is no taboo against the word plasma. And you left out the XMM-Newton observatory in the OP.



One stretch of the nebula, about 10 light-years wide, glows with X-rays. This glow apparently results from super-heated gas — 3 million to 3.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (1.7 million to 2.1 million degree Celsius) hot — that pervades the cloud.

Often such vast expanses of super-heated gas come from exploded stars called supernovas or from large collections of very massive stars. Now an international research team using the XMM-Newton space observatory finds this gas seems to flow from just one bright, young, massive star in the Trapezium.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22028123/

See? They didn't avoid the word "plasma" in that report.

And here:

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered two huge intergalactic clouds of diffuse hot gas. These clouds are the best evidence yet that a vast cosmic web of hot gas contains the long-sought missing matter - about half of the atoms and ions in the Universe.
http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/05_releases/press_020205.html

See? They didn't avoid the word plasma. Oh wait, not a good example.

Here:


Images of the Orion Nebula with its hot gas bubble. At left is an x-ray image taken by the XMM-Newton color-coded for photon energies. At right is a composite image taken by the XMM-Newton and a mid-infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope ...


On a large scale, the Milky Way is considered to be a vast cold region punctured with isolated hot clouds and star clusters. ...

http://www.physorg.com/news121602545.html

Damn, OK wait. Here we go.

While much of this space is cold and empty, researchers have recently discovered the phenomenon of funneling hot plasma. Flowing plasma may funnel from one region to another through empty space, connecting otherwise isolated clouds and clusters throughout the galaxy.

http://www.physorg.com/news121602545.html

See? They called it PLASMA! So you are wrong. I totally pwned you dude.

[Horatius]

Why go reinventing the acronym?

These clouds have defied detection because of their predicted temperature range of a few hundred thousand to a million degrees Celsius, and their extremely low density. Evidence for this warm-hot intergalactic matter (WHIM)


And, you haven't established that this WHIM meets the definition of a plasma yet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_%28physics%29#Definition_of_a_plasma

Have Fun!

[Reality Check]

Hi robinson.
I would say that plasma is not a word that is avoided from publications in astrophysics. There are 429 astrophysics preprints in arxiv.org for the last year that contain "plasma" (out of about 10 thousand preprints). I would say that it is used when it is needed, i.e. when the authors know that they are only looking at plasmas. The general term that authors for non-solid matter in the universe is gas. This includes plasma (which is ionized gas). For example that nebulae are referred to as gas clouds since they include dust, hydrogen and plasma.

There are some of your startling revelations that I am unaware of. Could you provide some citations?

[robinson]

If you follow the links in the second post, you will find the source of several mentions. As to the more astounding developments, we are going to have to wait.

Please note in that same post, the two sources of the same story use different terms for the exact same discovery.

The people who first observed the new discovery:
Researcher Manuel Güdel at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland and colleagues from Switzerland, France and the US have recently observed the plasma flow phenomenon for the first time in the Orion Nebula. Based on images taken with an x-ray satellite called the XMM-Newton, the researchers observed the existence of a million-degree plasma flowing from the nebula into the adjacent interstellar medium, and then into the neighboring superbubble Eridanus.
http://www.physorg.com/news121602545.html

Now look at the MSNBC report
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22028123/

One stretch of the nebula, about 10 light-years wide, glows with X-rays. This glow apparently results from super-heated gas — 3 million to 3.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (1.7 million to 2.1 million degree Celsius) hot — that pervades the cloud.

Often such vast expanses of super-heated gas come from exploded stars called supernovas or from large collections of very massive stars. Now an international research team using the XMM-Newton space observatory finds this gas seems to flow from just one bright, young, massive star in the Trapezium.

The Orion Nebula is a "stellar nursery," where thousands of new stars are being born. There are many stellar nurseries throughout the Milky Way that, like the Orion Nebula, only host a few very massive stars. The researchers expect these X-ray glows occur in many or even all of these nurseries, meaning they "may be very widespread across the entire galaxy," researcher Manuel Gudel, an astrophysicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, told Space.com.

Emphasis mine. While Güdel has no qualms about calling a plasma a plasma, the word plasma does not even appear in multiple articles about the discovery.


Writer Charles Q. Choi manages to write an entire article with out using the word plasma. Instead we read;

Huge Stars Seen as Source of Glowing Gas

.. waves of million-degree gas

... One stretch of the nebula, about 10 light-years wide, glows with x-rays. This glow apparently results from super-heated gas—some 1.7 million to 2.1 million degree Celsius hot—that pervades the cloud.

... vast expanses of super-heated gas ... this gas ..
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/071129-growing-nebula.html

Is it that he thinks readers won't understand the word plasma? What is up with this seeming avoidance of the word plasma?

Obviously real scientist, like Güdel use the correct term. Is there really some reason the term is not used? Is it because of the association with plasma Cosmology/Plasma Universe proponents? Or something simpler, that writers think we won't know what they are talking about?

I've got plenty of other examples, especially from the NASA sites.

It is an interesting oddity.

For those slavering for sources, cites and papers on the new plasma stuff, you are going to have to wait. Unless you know somebody. But, you will get to watch really really cool TV shows about all of this.

There is also some Video already on the Net. Check out this teaser:
http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=b000612_sp_chandra

Gives you a hint of what is to come.

[Darat]

It isn't an oddity, it is something that is generally called "dumbing down" or "helping explain a complex scientific term".

[robinson]

On a large scale, the Milky Way is considered to be a vast cold region punctured with isolated hot clouds and star clusters. While much of this space is cold and empty, researchers have recently discovered the phenomenon of funneling hot plasma. Flowing plasma may funnel from one region to another through empty space, connecting otherwise isolated clouds and clusters throughout the galaxy.
http://www.physorg.com/news121602545.html

It might be writers being dumb, but when technical reports from NASA make the error, it is another story.

[sol invictus]

It isn't an oddity, it is something that is generally called "dumbing down" or "helping explain a complex scientific term".

Exactly - the reason the word "plasma" isn't used very often in public press releases is that most people don't know what it means. It's incredible that anyone could find anything significant in that.

This thread should be moved to the CT forum.

[robinson]

http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/05_releases/press_072705.html

As hard as it may be to fathom, the word plasma does not appear in that web page.

It isn't hard to start off a press release, or technical paper, with a simple phrase to educate people.

Avoiding using the correct term for something isn't "dumbing down", it IS dumb, and it keeps people dumb.

The rate of this energy flow determines the location and size of a crucial stellar region called the convection zone. The zone extends from near the sun's surface inward approximately 125,000 miles. The zone is where the gas undergoes a rolling, convective motion much like the unstable air in a thunderstorm.

"This turbulent gas has an extremely important job, because nearly all of the energy emitted at the surface of the sun is transported there by convection," Drake said.

Reading that is painful. It is just bad science man. It would take 30 seconds to both correct, and educate people about reality.


The rate of this energy flow determines the location and size of a crucial stellar region called the convection zone. The zone extends from near the sun's surface inward approximately 125,000 miles. The zone is where the sun's plasma undergoes a rolling, convective motion. (Superheated, ionized gas is called plasma)

"This turbulent plasma has an extremely important job, because nearly all of the energy emitted at the surface of the sun is transported there by convection," Drake said.

[robinson]

This thread should be moved to the CT forum.

Don't even think about it. Or, at least wait until tomorrow. CT is the kiss of death to science discussions.

[DeiRenDopa]

Sorry to burst your bubble robinson, but the reality is rather boring ... (and RC has, as usual, beat me to the punch).

The study of the history of the usage of words is part of linguistics, I think. If you're interested to look at how the word 'plasma' is used in astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology papers published in the relevant peer-reviewed literature, and how that usage has changed in the last 8 decades or so, go for it ... it might be an interesting project.

Ditto with respect to its usage in popsci material.

However, if you would like to know the extent to which any changes in usage relate to changes in scientific paradigms, you need different sets of tools, those from the history and philosophy of science (Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos, etc).

I suspect if you did such a study, you'd be bored silly ... the underlying physics hasn't changed much in over a half century, but the windows on the universe and the observational techniques and capabilities have, enormously.

Astrophysicists are, generally, both very conservative and selfish ... in the sense that they focus on specific questions/puzzles/challenges serially, and strongly resist introducing 'new physics' and ad hoc concepts without very good (scientific) reasons for doing so. Despite the impression you might get from reading only popsci material, speculation beyond any reasonable possibility of testing is frowned upon (I'm talking about astrophysics).

The 'hot gas' vs 'plasma' dichotomy is almost entirely apparent ... if you read the actual papers, the relevant behaviour and phenomenology is almost never uncertain - if all you need is the physics of 'hot gas' (which includes fully ionised plasmas), then invoking 'plasmas' could be misleading; if you need the physics of 'plasmas' (which includes only very weakly ionised gases), then invoking 'cold, dusty gas' could be misleading.

Perhaps an analogy might help.

You've no doubt read about 'cold dark matter', 'hot dark matter', the 'warm-hot intergalactic medium', and 'hot gas' filling the space between galaxies in rich clusters.

Naively, you'd expect 'hot' to have the same, or similar, meaning ... and you'd be completely wrong!

'hot' as in 'hot dark matter' means the constituent particles move at relativistic speeds (very close to c, say 99.9%).

'hot' as in 'hot cluster gas' means something like fully ionised and with a temperature of ~a million degrees.

The latter applied to the former regime would be barely 'warm' (! :eye-poppi).

When you read the papers, you should never get confused, because the authors will spell out, in quantitative terms, what they mean, and they will include a nice long list of references for you to read up on the history of the concepts (including the terms).

Which brings us back to linguistics.

The language astrophysicists use is fully capable of expressing the meanings they wish to convey ... to their colleagues.

If you are not a member of that 'speech community' (I think that's what linguists call them), you might be easily confused ... because you do not understand how certain words are used differently than in your speech community.

And so it is with 'plasma cosmology' and 'plasma universe' ... within the speech community of proponents of these fringe science ideas, 'plasma' has a special meaning. Given their explicit mission - to convert the world to their new scientific paradigm - it is inevitable that much mischief is made by deliberately exploiting the many different meanings and associations of 'plasma'.

[ben m]

The most obvious is how often the word "Plasma" is avoided in mainstream publications, News stories, and even conversations between scientist. I don't know why, but after reading both sides of the furious debate for months now, it is starting to make sense. Somehow "Plasma" is a bad word for mainstream scientist. We can blame Plasma Cosmology for this. Or somebody.

The other far more strange matter, is the avoidance of the word "electric", in regards to all things in outer space. Magnetism is also an orphan child at times.

Even when the evidence is overwhelming, right in front of the collected scientific mind, none dare call it plasma. The number of terms used to replace "plasma" is nothing less than brilliance. Examples abound.

Where I now sit at an Unnamed Major Research University, I'm a stone's throw from an astrophysics lab with "plasma" in its name, a few buildings away from a lab with "space plasma" in its name. The required graduate intro-astro class at this university includes solving the Saha Equation for the ionization state of a plasma. Plasmas crop up in essentially all astro colloquia here, especially in accretion disks. The Biggest Astro Discovery of the Year, on which I've delivered journal-club talks and listened to colloquia, included a experimental constraint on intergalactic magnetic fields; I'm involved in a project whose underlying theory includes an electric field at a (unusual) stellar surface; I recently gave up on a calculation for which I hoped (unusual) stellar-interior electric fields would turn out to be important, but when I did that part of the calculation they turned out to be unimportant.

In other words, the OP is full of baloney.

[robinson]

And, you haven't established that this WHIM meets the definition of a plasma yet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_%28physics%29#Definition_of_a_plasma

I don't think you grasp the essential fact here. I'm not the one discovering, publishing and announcing this stuff. In regards to plasma, cold plasma is still several thousand degrees. When discussing any matter that is at a million degrees K, we are talking about plasma. By definition.

There are some of your startling revelations that I am unaware of. Could you provide some citations?

Did you watch the video yet?

[quarky]

Isn't plasma like blood, without the red cells?

[DeiRenDopa]

I don't think you grasp the essential fact here. I'm not the one discovering, publishing and announcing this stuff. In regards to plasma, cold plasma is still several thousand degrees. When discussing any matter that is at a million degrees K, we are talking about plasma. By definition.

... snip ...
Oh dear ...

May I conclude, robinson, that you rather enjoy not only being ignorant but actually flaunting your ignorance?

I mean, after all the hundreds of posts you must have read, and the dozens (or more) of links in them, you still don't know what a plasma is?!?

[robinson]

Isn't plasma like blood, without the red cells?

Heh. While funny, that brings up a good point. Plasma is supposedly called Plasma because Langmuir was reminded of blood plasma while observing, well, what we now call plasma.

"Oscillations in Ionized Gases,"
Irving Langmuir
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1928

[Darat]

Sounds like another entirely reasonable explanation why authors may avoid using the term "plasma" outside of specialist publications.

[robinson]

Here's another one from Chandra. Or more precise, from Dr. Ebisawa. Article is subscription only, so no copy and paste.

What he theorizes, and it is one of those "theory where we mean it in the sense of maybe, not that theory as almost law thing", is that our Galaxy, as well as every other Galaxy like ours, has the intense magnetic fields, which keep the ultra hot plasma in place.

What he calls plasma, is 20 or 30 million Kelvin, (we don't really know), so nobody is going to try and call it hot gas, is everywhere in our Galaxy.

How does he know this? Because of the X-rays measured. Why does he think there are magnetic fields everywhere? Because any plasma that hot and energetic wouldn't stick around in between the stars otherwise.

Have you seen the animations of this? The numbers behind this kind of massive plasma? The number behind the amount of magnetism involved? The science behind how plasma creates such intense x-rays?

Bah. Enough of this, I found a free source for some of this stuff.
http://www.astronomytoday.com/cosmology/xray.html

It includes some really wild stuff about quasars and background x-rays. Just the tip of the cosmic iceberg there.

Stuff about extra clumpy plasma near super novas. But like a lot of this new stuff, it raises far more questions than it answers.

I can hardly wait. This stuff is way cool. And not in that woo way either.

[DeiRenDopa]

So, did you actually read my post (#11), robinson?

[quarky]

as usual, i'm getting the feeling that there's a lot more going on than meets the eyes.
this is always the case. the universe gets bigger; the atom gets diverse...even archaeology is constantly stretching the time that we showed up.

i admire robinson's enthusiasm. and his woo disclaimer. my woo alarm didn't go off!

plasma is my favorite woo, because it is new woo. it's so not, like bigfoot woo.
if its not woo, that's cool too. i also feel a crack in the force. things are bound, by some unwritten law, to be more fantastic than what we can imagine at any point in time.

imaginers are like sperm. there's so many; 99.999999% are doomed to fail.
yet, the struggle brings forth babies.

[robinson]

More evidence that you may not have seen yet.

And more evidence against not using the word Plasma to describe, well, what we call plasma.

Astronomers detect plasma at black hole
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/science/archive/030920/science10.htm

And from the same article:

Nasa’s Chandra X-ray Observatory detected sound waves, for the first time, from a super-massive black hole. The “note” is the deepest ever detected from an object in the universe. The tremendous amounts of energy carried by these sound waves may solve a longstanding problem in astrophysics.

The black hole resides in the Perseus cluster, located 250 million light years from Earth. In 2002, astronomers obtained a deep Chandra observation that shows ripples in the plasma filling the cluster. These ripples are evidence for sound waves that have traveled hundreds of thousands of light years away from the cluster’s central black hole.

“The Perseus sound waves are much more than just an interesting form of black hole acoustics,” said Steve Allen, also of the IoA and a co-investigator in the research. “These sound waves may be the key in figuring out how galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the universe, grow,” Allen said.
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/science/archive/030920/science10.htm

Sound waves? Hundreds of thousands of light years? Through plasma? Doesn't that just sound woo? Woo woo!

One thing I love about science and discovery. It is way better than any woo crap. Recent developments in our ability to observe our Universe, makes it all seem, at least to me, even stranger than science fiction.

[Babylon Sister]

The Revolution will be Televised!


(seriously OT, but) Any points for knowing the song reference? (/OT)

[DeiRenDopa]

More evidence that you may not have seen yet.

And more evidence against not using the word Plasma to describe, well, what we call plasma.

Astronomers detect plasma at black hole
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/science/archive/030920/science10.htm

And from the same article:


http://www.dawn.com/weekly/science/archive/030920/science10.htm

Sound waves? Hundreds of thousands of light years? Through plasma? Doesn't that just sound woo? Woo woo!

One thing I love about science and discovery. It is way better than any woo crap. Recent developments in our ability to observe our Universe, makes it all seem, at least to me, even stranger than science fiction.Um ...

That's pretty old news robinson ... oh, and did you know that sound can propagate through a plasma? It seems that you didn't; however, if you recall what 'sound' is (as in what you hear when you listen to someone speaking to you across a room), it should be pretty obvious that something very similar can travel through a plasma ...

And if you want a really scifi angle, why not ask why the things astronomers are so excited about in the CMB are called 'acoustic peaks'? or why there's so much excitement about how observations of BAO (baryon acoustic oscillation) are consistent with CMB observations?

[Dancing David]

I am not afriad, plasma plasma plasmaplasma plasma...

there I said it.

If it accounts for some huge matter amounts, that is cool.

But does it make for flat rotation curves in galaxies?

Does it do anything outside of ordinary astrophysics?

If some press release uses the word 'baffled' does that mean anything?

New evidence?

I though that the temperature between galaxies and galaxy clusters was old news.

Whatever.

maybe it speels something...


"Wait , here it is, the image is becoming clearer, it appears to be writing...
...D...R...I...N...K...M...O...R...E...O...V...A.. .L...T...I...N...E...! "

[Zeuzzz]

There is also some Video already on the Net. Check out this teaser:
http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=b000612_sp_chandra

Gives you a hint of what is to come.


That video is way cool :cool:

"researchers are amazed at the amount of activity in the invisible universe. 'Every known class of astronomical object, or a subset of that class, is an Xray source, and some cases this was extremely surprising, and in some cases its extremely interesting" .......... I could say something about predictions here from a certain group of people about the pervasiveness of the EM spectrum, but i'm going to resist :)

And something else from that video jumped out at me. The third picture they show, the "Vela pulsar", nearly exactly matches the scale invariant shape of the axisymmetric sheath of plasma current created in dense plasma focus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dense_plasma_focus) devices. Its well known to people who have investigated plasma devices such as these that the plasma behaves in a scale invarient manner, ie, no matter what the size of the device, the dimensions and current remains nearly indentical. This is one of the unique and mysterious properties of plasma, and why gaining knowledge of space from plasma based experiments is such a fascinating field to be in right now.

Velar pulsar:

http://www.holoscience.com/news/img/Vela_pulsar.jpg

Dense plasma focus;

http://lh5.ggpht.com/mgmirkin/RxkQiRMeBNI/AAAAAAAACMs/E3FvWi8ZtSc/PlasmaGunPhoto.jpg?imgmax=512

(source: http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/downloads/Peratt.Dessler.pdf)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dense_plasma_focus
An important characteristic of the dense plasma focus is that the energy density of the focused plasma is practically a constant over the whole range of machines, from sub-kilojoule machines to megajoule machines, when these machines are tuned for optimal operation. This means that a small table-top-sized plasma focus machine produces essentially the same plasma characteristics (temperature and density) as the largest plasma focus. Of course the larger machine will produce the larger volume of focused plasma with a corresponding longer lifetime and more radiation yield.

Even the smallest plasma focus has essentially the same dynamic characteristics as larger machines, producing the same plasma characteristics and the same radiation products and radiation characteristics. This is due to the scalability of plasma phenomena.

See also plasmoid, the self-contained magnetic plasma ball that may be produced by a dense plasma focus.[.......]



Just read this cool paper on this very subject; (ref (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986ITPS...14..703B)) And looks like the prophetic words of Kristian Birkeland are once again being proved right, over a century since he made the observations; "From the conceptions to which our experimental analogies lead us, it is possible to form, in a natural manner, an interesting theory of the origin of worlds. This theory differs from all earlier theories in that it assumes the existence of electro-magnetic origin in addition to the force of gravitation, in order to explain the formation of the varied shapes we observe in space, of moons and rings about the planets, and of spiral and annular nebulae." Thats why he is considered the pioneer of the plasma universe, he pretty much invented the "Terrella", which is used to simulate the electromagnetic characteristics of planets and bodies in space from laboratory experiments, scaled over many of orders of magnitude. Cool thread :thumbsup: I hope it is televised, its gonna be one hell of a show.


[edit] And also, I just realised that I am familiar with the second picture in the video, of SN1987A. Supernova theory has focused exclusively on complex thermonuclear models and hypothetical states of matter, most of which are impossible to test or to falsify. A poor record of prediction and many observed anomalies prompts consideration of an alternative. "The “beaded ring” pattern of brightening is not well explained as an expanding spherical shock front into an earlier stellar “wind” It also seems to match very closely the shapes observed in the scale invarient plasma Z-pinch discharge mechanism, this is why an alternative electrical explanation has recently been put forwards for it, and other SN. See The Z-Pinch Morphology of Supernova 1987A and Electric Stars (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/4287017/04287093.pdf?temp=x) (PM me if you want full text, private access and copyright issues with direct links here, etc, etc,)

individual current filaments are maintained by their azimuthal self-magnetic fields, a property lost by increasing the number of electrical current filaments. The scaling is constant for a given hollow beam thickness, from microampere beams to multi-megaampere beams and beam diameters of millimeters to thousands of kilometers.” This scaling of plasma phenomena has been extended to at least 14 orders of magnitude, so the bright ring of SN 1987A can be considered as a stellar scale “witness plate” with the equatorial ejecta sheet acting as the witness plate for the axial Birkeland currents (Fig. 3). Peratt adds “Because the electrical current-carrying filaments are parallel, they attract via the Biot–Savart force law, in [.....]

[DeiRenDopa]

That video is way cool :cool:

"researchers are amazed at the amount of activity in the invisible universe. 'Every known class of astronomical object, or a subset of that class, is an Xray source, and some cases this was extremely surprising, and in some cases its extremely interesting" .......... I could say something about predictions here from a certain group of people about the pervasiveness of the EM spectrum, but i'm going to resist :)

And something else from that video jumped out at me. The third picture they show, the "Vela pulsar", nearly exactly matches the scale invariant shape of the axisymmetric sheath of plasma current created in dense plasma focus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dense_plasma_focus) devices. Its well known to people who have investigated plasma devices such as these that the plasma behaves in a scale invarient manner, ie, no matter what the size of the device, the dimensions and current remains nearly indentical. This is one of the unique and mysterious properties of plasma, and why gaining knowledge of space from plasma based experiments is such a fascinating field to be in right now.

Velar pulsar:

http://www.holoscience.com/news/img/Vela_pulsar.jpg

Dense plasma focus;

http://lh5.ggpht.com/mgmirkin/RxkQiRMeBNI/AAAAAAAACMs/E3FvWi8ZtSc/PlasmaGunPhoto.jpg?imgmax=512

(source: http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/downloads/Peratt.Dessler.pdf)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dense_plasma_focus




Just read this cool paper on this very subject; (ref (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986ITPS...14..703B)) And looks like the prophetic words of Kristian Birkeland are once again being proved right, over a century since he made the observations; "From the conceptions to which our experimental analogies lead us, it is possible to form, in a natural manner, an interesting theory of the origin of worlds. This theory differs from all earlier theories in that it assumes the existence of electro-magnetic origin in addition to the force of gravitation, in order to explain the formation of the varied shapes we observe in space, of moons and rings about the planets, and of spiral and annular nebulae." Thats why he is considered the pioneer of the plasma universe, he pretty much invented the "Terrella", which is used to simulate the electromagnetic characteristics of planets and bodies in space from laboratory experiments, scaled over many of orders of magnitude. Cool thread :thumbsup: I hope it is televised, its gonna be one hell of a show.


[edit] And also, I just realised that the second picture in the video, of SN1987A, which is the closest supernova to us, is the one that has perplexed many astronomers. Supernova theory has focused exclusively on complex thermonuclear models and hypothetical states of matter, most of which are impossible to test or to falsify. A poor record of prediction and many observed anomalies prompts consideration of an alternative. "The “beaded ring” pattern of brightening is not well explained as an expanding spherical shock front into an earlier stellar “wind” It also seems to match very closely the shapes observed in the scale invarient plasma Z-pinch discharge mechanism, this is why an alternative electrical explanation has recently been put forwards for it, and other SN. See The Z-Pinch Morphology of Supernova 1987A and Electric Stars (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/4287017/04287093.pdf?temp=x) (PM me if you want full text, private access and copyright issues with direct links here, etc, etc,) Step 4 (optional): list how well the cherry-picked aspect of P matches observation; unless you absolutely have to, don't use numbers.Wow!

What an astonishing coincidence!!

(HINT: it's post#304 in a JREF thread on a certain topic ...)

[Zeuzzz]

Wow!



Glad your impressed :D

[DeiRenDopa]

Glad your impressed :DDid I read your post correctly, Zeuzzz? Did you cite something written by a certain "Thornhill, W."? That wouldn't be Wallace Thornhill (rather than Ward Thornhill), would it?

[Dancing David]

http://www.physorg.com/news121602545.html

Very cool, can't wait to read more, somewhat interesting mechanism, I wonder if it will also show in other places. :cool:

[Dancing David]

Pretty nifty Zeuzz, is it oriented the right way? I am assuming it is, very cool.

[MattusMaximus]

So, did you actually read my post (#11), robinson?


Mmmm... I'm going to guess... no. :rolleyes:

[robinson]

Post #11 contained no questions. What is there to respond to?

[robinson]

A couple of day ago I viewed some astounding footage (animations and photos) of some revolutionary stuff.

Unfortunately, I am currently out of action (see signature), but even so, some stuff can't be revealed yet.

[robinson]

http://www.space.com/php/video/player.php?video_id=b000612_sp_chandra

Good to see at least two people watched the video. Did you not the key phrases they used in it?

Note the following quotes, emphasis mine:

A gaggle of energetic enigmas in the unseen Universe

Giant bubble of gas... three million Celsius degrees hot

researchers are amazed at the amount of activity in the invisible Universe

Every know object is an X-ray source

extremely surprising, in all cases extremely interesting

more surprising than anybody thought

We have only begun to see what this means to the astrophysics community

It will be revolutionary in what makes the Universe tick and our understanding of it

I don't understand why some people try to focus on an individual, rather than looking at the evidence, the data, the discoveries, and in this case, some pretty expensive productions that highlight and inform us about revolutionary advances in our understanding.

It isn't hyperbole to state that something will change our entire view of things, when that really is what is happening.

The data and discoveries from multiple new platforms, as well as some old ones, is turning over a lot of long established belief systems, about our Universe. A paradigm shift is occurring. Like with quantum physics theory, many will resist with great force facing the facts.

Like using the term plasma, to describe plasma, some people have a hard time changing their mindset. Even when faced with indisputable facts, they try to cling to what they know, rather than find themselves adrift in a sea of new knowledge.

You can't blame them, change is hard. And finding out almost everything you thought you knew about was wrong, is a crushing blow to the ego.

[DeiRenDopa]

Should this thread be moved to the CT section?

Is the OP full of baloney?

Have more than two people watched the video?

Did Weisskopf somewhat exaggerate in that video?

And just how long has Chandra (and XMM-Newton and other x-ray observatories) been sending data down to Earth??

[robinson]

double post

[BeAChooser]

And, you haven't established that this WHIM meets the definition of a plasma yet

ROTFLOL! I think you just proved robinson's point. :D

[Zeuzzz]

I stumbled across a few more webpages listed at physorg, about some of the recent electrically dynamic discoveries in space, that may be a good addition here. Seems astronomers are more and more surprised with even electrical/plasma event they discover. And I would ignore the parts where they say that gravity can form these vast filaments in space, they obviously dont understand the attractive nature of the gravitaional field, thus why they have to say that these immesnse filaments are all held together with dark matter duct tape. It has be be EM forces/plasma effects at work here on these large scales. Gravity can simply not form these structures without mysterious new untested, non-baryonic, physics.

Intergalactic particle beam is longest yet found (http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13019-intergalactic-particle-beam-is-longest-yet-found.html)

An intergalactic particle beam stretching for more than a million light years is the longest ever seen. According to the team that discovered this record breaker, it could help reveal how such jets of matter bind themselves together.


Saturn surrounded by electric ‘doughnut’ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22219252/)

'Axis of evil' a cause for cosmic concern (http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19425994.000-axis-of-evil-a-cause-for-cosmic-concern.html)

Some believe it is just a figment of overactive imaginations. But evidence is growing that the so-called "axis of evil" - a pattern apparently imprinted on the radiation left behind by the big bang - may be real, posing a threat to standard cosmology.

According to the standard model, the universe is isotropic, or much the same everywhere. However, in 2005, Kate Land and João Magueijo of Imperial College London noticed a curious pattern in the map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) created by NASA's WMAP satellite. It seemed to show that some hot and cold spots in the CMB are not distributed randomly, as expected, but are aligned along what Magueijo dubbed the axis of evil.


Strange Space Weather over Africa (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/13nov_africa.htm?list883541) - NASA

Something strange is happening in the atmosphere above Africa and researchers have converged on Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss the phenomenon. The Africa Space Weather Workshop kicked off Nov. 12th with nearly 100 scientists and students in attendance.

The strange phenomenon that brings all these people together is the ion plume—"a newly discovered form of space weather," says University of Colorado atmospheric scientist and Workshop co-organizer Tim Fuller-Rowell.

Researchers liken the plumes to smoke billowing out of a factory smokestack—except instead of ordinary ash and dust, ion plumes are made of electrified gas floating so high above ground they come in contact with space itself.


The Antennae Galaxies Found To Be Closer To Us (http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_Antennae_Galaxies_Found_To_Be_Closer_To_Us_999 .html)

This ones wierd. How could they have got this so wrong?

New research on the Antennae Galaxies using the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows that this proto-typical pair of interacting galaxies is in fact much closer to us than previously thought - at 45 million light-years instead of 65 million light-years.


Galaxies like necklace beads. Astronomers find that galaxies are not oriented randomly in space. (http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4215)

Trujillo's team found that significantly more spiral galaxies spin with their axes aligned with the filaments they are embedded in than would be expected by chance. Although the researchers can reject random orientation with 99.7-percent confidence, they need more data to specify the range of orientations. The work appears in the 1 April issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"It's a very interesting finding," says Alan Heavens, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Edinburgh, and it has the potential to tell us more about how galaxies form.


And this Star is exactly what you expect when the local current density increases rapidly from an external circuit from the galaxy, Afven predicted this was the event that likely caused supernove, quite different than the current explanation.

The Mouse That Roared: Pipsqueak Star Unleashes Monster Flare (http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_Mouse_That_Roared_Pipsqueak_Star_Unleashes_Mon ster_Flare_999.html)

And scientists at the IEEE have observed trends in supernove occurences, that should be random, and have no connection to each other in the standard nuclear evolution model of supernova.

Trends in apparent time intervals between multiple supernovae occurrences (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/28301/01265347.pdf?temp=x)

This paper presents an analysis of recent and historic supernovae and the statistics found in multiple supernovae occurrences, as related to the apparent time intervals between successive events, and the application of trends found from those simple statistics to supernova surveying-a focused search: developing target lists from the International Astronomical Union (IAU), list of all known supernovae and their host galaxies, with the greatest immediate statistical potential for a timely successive supernova. This approach has yielded consistent results for target development since its inception, with a 96% success rate over 16 months, and one direct, and immediate, result for surveying (SN2002eg). These trends found in apparent time intervals have been seen to apply to known hosts with only one recorded supernova and not otherwise known to be "prolific" supernovae producers. This strong indication of applicable periodic behavior introduces a potential new role for extra-galactic supernovae, in modern cosmology, as possible observational evidence in support of the plasma cosmology theory of Hannes Alfven, based on fundamental principles.


And this particularly enigmatic star seems to support this idea;

Brightest supernova died six times (http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/2091885.htm?space)

The brightest supernova ever detected was about 100 times brighter than the flash of typical dying star (Image: iStockphoto)
Astronomers analysing the brightest supernova ever detected say the titanic flare has reshaped thinking about the death struggle of gigantic stars.

Supernova SN 2006gy, located 240 million light-years away in galaxy NGC 1260, entered the record books in September last year when it dramatically brewed into an explosion 50 billion times brighter than the sun.

It was about 100 times brighter than the flash of a typical dying star.

And they theorise the star did not blow up just once, but several times.

[Reality Check]

No great surprises but a few interesting articles.

I stumbled across a few more webpages listed at physorg, about some of the recent electrically dynamic discoveries in space, that may be a good addition here. Seems astronomers are more and more surprised with even electrical/plasma event they discover. And I would ignore the parts where they say that gravity can form these vast filaments in space, they obviously dont understand the attractive nature of the gravitaional field, thus why they have to say that these immesnse filaments are all held together with dark matter duct tape. It has be be EM forces/plasma effects at work here on these large scales. Gravity can simply not form these structures without mysterious new untested, non-baryonic, physics.

Physicists understand the attractive nature of gravity very well. That is why normal and dark matter in the Lambda-CDM model has attractive gravity. Oddly enough computer simulations of the Lambda-CDM model produce immense filaments without any "EM forces/plasma effects".


Intergalactic particle beam is longest yet found (http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13019-intergalactic-particle-beam-is-longest-yet-found.html)

Electromagnetic forces have been known as the cause of jets from the super-massive black holes at the center of galaxies for decades. The only surprise is the length of this one.


Saturn surrounded by electric ‘doughnut’ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22219252/)

Standard plasma physics - the only surprise is that it rotates.


'Axis of evil' a cause for cosmic concern (http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19425994.000-axis-of-evil-a-cause-for-cosmic-concern.html)

No mention of plasma but an intriguing issue. One explanation is that the inflation phase of the Big Bang was not isotropic but stretched along one axis.


Strange Space Weather over Africa (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/13nov_africa.htm?list883541) - NASA

100 scientists and students in attendance in a conference about the ion plume. Plasma is even mentioned!
Ion plumes inhabit a layer of Earth's atmosphere called the "ionosphere." It is a broad region 85 km to 600 km above ground level where ultraviolet radiation from the sun knocks electrons off atoms and molecules, creating a layer of ionized gas or "plasma" surrounding our entire planet. As ham radio operators have known for more than 100 years, the ionosphere can bend, distort, reflect and even absorb radio waves. Plumes amplify these effects.
Nothing to do with plasma- just atmospheric physics.


The Antennae Galaxies Found To Be Closer To Us (http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_Antennae_Galaxies_Found_To_Be_Closer_To_Us_999 .html)

This ones wierd. How could they have got this so wrong?

I agree.


Galaxies like necklace beads. Astronomers find that galaxies are not oriented randomly in space. (http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4215)

First paragraph in the article:
Astronomers have known since the early 1990s that galaxies cluster in filaments and sheets surrounding vast voids in space. Now, an international team of astronomers has found that spiral galaxies, like the Milky Way, line up like beads on a string, with their spin axes aligned with the filaments that outline voids. The finding supports current galaxy-formation theories and forges a rare observational link between the large-scale distribution of mass in the universe and galaxy-size structures.




And this Star is exactly what you expect when the local current density increases rapidly from an external circuit from the galaxy, Afven predicted this was the event that likely caused supernove, quite different than the current explanation.
The Mouse That Roared: Pipsqueak Star Unleashes Monster Flare (http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_Mouse_That_Roared_Pipsqueak_Star_Unleashes_Mon ster_Flare_999.html)

Well known astronomy: The red dwarf that roared (http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/05/19/the-red-dwarf-that-roared/).


And scientists at the IEEE have observed trends in supernove occurences, that should be random, and have no connection to each other in the standard nuclear evolution model of supernova.

Trends in apparent time intervals between multiple supernovae occurrences (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/28301/01265347.pdf?temp=x)

And this particularly enigmatic star seems to support this idea;

Brightest supernova died six times (http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/2091885.htm?space)
Actually this has no connection with the previous article. It is a single star undergoing multiple explosions which is not unknown.

[Dancing David]

I stumbled across a few more webpages listed at physorg, about some of the recent electrically dynamic discoveries in space, that may be a good addition here. Seems astronomers are more and more surprised with even electrical/plasma event they discover. And I would ignore the parts where they say that gravity can form these vast filaments in space, they obviously dont understand the attractive nature of the gravitaional field, thus why they have to say that these immesnse filaments are all held together with dark matter duct tape. It has be be EM forces/plasma effects at work here on these large scales. Gravity can simply not form these structures without mysterious new untested, non-baryonic, physics.

Intergalactic particle beam is longest yet found (http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13019-intergalactic-particle-beam-is-longest-yet-found.html)




Saturn surrounded by electric ‘doughnut’ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22219252/)

'Axis of evil' a cause for cosmic concern (http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19425994.000-axis-of-evil-a-cause-for-cosmic-concern.html)




Strange Space Weather over Africa (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/13nov_africa.htm?list883541) - NASA




The Antennae Galaxies Found To Be Closer To Us (http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_Antennae_Galaxies_Found_To_Be_Closer_To_Us_999 .html)

This ones wierd. How could they have got this so wrong?

Easy, science is science.





Galaxies like necklace beads. Astronomers find that galaxies are not oriented randomly in space. (http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4215)

I saw that one too, very cool.





And this Star is exactly what you expect when the local current density increases rapidly from an external circuit from the galaxy, Afven predicted this was the event that likely caused supernove, quite different than the current explanation.

Um, well the best theory still accounts for the build up of iron and the trans iron elements.


The Mouse That Roared: Pipsqueak Star Unleashes Monster Flare (http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_Mouse_That_Roared_Pipsqueak_Star_Unleashes_Mon ster_Flare_999.html)

That one is cool and very interesting, science rulles.


And scientists at the IEEE have observed trends in supernove occurences, that should be random, and have no connection to each other in the standard nuclear evolution model of supernova.

I would have to look at the basis of the trend, no supernovae are not random, they are based upon the mass and age of the star, so you should in fact find clumps of them. But time is a big element compared to human astronomy.


Trends in apparent time intervals between multiple supernovae occurrences (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/28301/01265347.pdf?temp=x)




And this particularly enigmatic star seems to support this idea;

Brightest supernova died six times (http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/2091885.htm?space)


That is another one to look at, there are shells that are thrown out in the prenovae and presuper novae state as well.

Thanks there are three I had missed.

[Dancing David]

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/28301/01265347.pdf?temp=x

Sorry that seems a little exagerated, a 96% success rate over 16 months dealing with phenomena stretched over time of at least 13.5 billion years? How many evenets is that? What is the alleged statistic and is it frequentist or post facto. I need more info.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/2091885.htm?space

Sorrry, that seems a misleading title at best, it looks like sort of established theory, I will have read more sources.

[robinson]

Thanks for the links.

[BeAChooser]

Electromagnetic forces have been known as the cause of jets from the super-massive black holes at the center of galaxies for decades. The only surprise is the length of this one.

It's more than a "surprise", RC. To explain these extremely long jets, the mainstream has had to invent more gnomes.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020216/fob5.asp states that quasar PKS 1127-145 produces an X ray-emitting jet that projects at least 1 million light-years into space. According to the article, "The jet's great length makes it unlikely that the quasar could provide the energy for the X rays". So astrophysicists are forced to postulate a "novel" (in their own words) interaction between the charged particles in the jet and photons in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The theory is that "when photons in the CMB collide with electrons in the jet, the electrons get a boost in energy and emit X rays."

What they are doing is stacking gnomes on top of gnomes on top of gnomes in order to explain observations that they can't explain any other way ... because they continue to ignore the rather obvious.

[Dancing David]

This article from 2002?
Your link didn"t work for me.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/2475/title/X-Ray_Universe_Quasars_jet_goes_the_distance

What has been published since then?

[DeiRenDopa]

It's more than a "surprise", RC. To explain these extremely long jets, the mainstream has had to invent more gnomes.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020216/fob5.asp states that quasar PKS 1127-145 produces an X ray-emitting jet that projects at least 1 million light-years into space. According to the article, "The jet's great length makes it unlikely that the quasar could provide the energy for the X rays". So astrophysicists are forced to postulate a "novel" (in their own words) interaction between the charged particles in the jet and photons in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The theory is that "when photons in the CMB collide with electrons in the jet, the electrons get a boost in energy and emit X rays."

What they are doing is stacking gnomes on top of gnomes on top of gnomes in order to explain observations that they can't explain any other way ... because they continue to ignore the rather obvious.What's with the 'tude dude?

Among other things you seem to think scientific methods are wrong because observations sometimes turn up something unexpected; you also seem to think that theories and models should never be tweaked when new data comes to hand.

May I ask this: in your view, how does science in general - and astrophysics in particular - work? If it currently does not work as you feel it should (a pretty safe assumption, given everything that you've written), how do you think it should work?

And what is "the rather obvious" that "they continue to ignore"?

For the information of readers sufficiently interested, here is a recent paper on this jet, An Infrared Study of the Large-scale Jet in Quasar PKS 1136-135 (http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0703295):We present Spitzer IRAC imaging of the large-scale jet in the quasar PKS 1136-135 at wavelengths of 3.6 and 5.8 um, combined with previous VLA, HST, and Chandra observations. We clearly detect infrared emission from the jet, resulting in the most detailed multifrequency data among the jets in lobe-dominated quasars. The spectral energy distributions of the jet knots have significant variations along the jet, like the archetypal jet in 3C 273. The infrared measurements with IRAC are consistent with the previous idea that the jet has two spectral components, namely (1) the low-energy synchrotron spectrum extending from radio to infrared, and (2) the high-energy component responsible for the X-ray flux. The optical fluxes may be a mixture of the two components. We consider three radiation models for the high-energy component: inverse Compton scattering off CMB photons by radio-emitting electrons in a highly relativistic jet, synchrotron radiation by a second distinct electron population, and synchrotron radiation by ultra high energy protons. Each hypothesis leads to important insights into and constraints on particle acceleration in the jet, as well as the basic physical properties of the jet such as bulk velocity, transporting power, and particle contents.And for BAC:

Of the two components (clearly detected by their SEDs), the outer one, with a "low-energy synchrotron spectrum extending from radio to infrared" is your classic jet, explained in terms of the "electromagnetic effects" you so clearly love (i.e. plasma physics). And the three possible mechanisms for the observed "high-energy component responsible for the X-ray flux" all involve plasmas! Though only the second is likely to have been studied in labs like the one Peratt works (worked?) at (the energies involved in the other two are likely way, way beyond their capabilities).

[robinson]

I have to wonder if the scientist are dumbing stuff down, or is the reporters? Or both?

Missing matter found in deep space

WASHINGTON, May 20, 2008 (Reuters) — Astronomers have found some matter that had been missing in deep space and say it is strung along web-like filaments that form the backbone of the universe.

The ethereal strands of hydrogen and oxygen atoms could account for up to half the matter that scientists knew must be there but simply could not see, the researchers reported on Tuesday.

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20303867-space-matter/

No kidding? You mean, there is a huge amount of plasma we can't see? In outer space? What a shock.


Researcher Manuel Güdel at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland and colleagues from Switzerland, France and the US have recently observed the plasma flow phenomenon for the first time in the Orion Nebula. Based on images taken with an x-ray satellite called the XMM-Newton, the researchers observed the existence of a million-degree plasma flowing from the nebula into the adjacent interstellar medium, and then into the neighboring superbubble Eridanus.

“Although there has been a theoretical model that predicted hot gas bubbles blown by just one massive star, such has not been detected until we found confirmation in the Orion Nebula,” Güdel told PhysOrg.com. “We didn't look for it - we actually found this diffuse emission by chance while looking at the many stellar x-ray point sources in the field. As previous researchers have not reported diffuse x-ray emission from such star-forming regions but were rather arguing against its presence, we were indeed surprised to find such prominent emission across large regions of the nebula.”
http://www.physorg.com/news121602545.html

What I find interesting about the new "discoveries", is that they aren't new at all. It should be interesting to see just how long they can go with out using the word "plasma" to describe the source of Galaxies, Stars and th structure of our Universe.

The matter is spread as superheated oxygen and hydrogen in what looked like vast empty spaces between galaxies.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20303867-space-matter/

A real scientist knows how funny that is to read. The word "superheated" has several valid uses in physics, but describing plasma is not one of them. Are the researchers actually telling them to print that? Or are the reporters being dumb? I would really like to know.

"It is kind of like a spider web. The gravity of the spider web is what produced what we see," Shull said in a telephone interview. "It's very thin. Some of it is very hot gas, almost a million degrees."

This is where the dark matter comes in. The dark matter is heating up the gas, Shull said.

"Dark matter has gravity. It pulls the gas in," Shull said. "This causes what I call sonic booms -- shock waves. This shock heats it to a million degrees. That makes it even harder to see."
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20303867-space-matter/

I can't believe anyone would actually print that. Superheated gas being heated by sonic booms from dark matter. How can anyone just make that stuff up? Worse, how can it make it into print?

"The atoms of oxygen are in a stripped-down, ionized form. Five of the eight electrons are gone. It emits an ultraviolet spectrum of light that instruments aboard FUSE and Hubble can spot, Shull said.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20303867-space-matter/

I wonder where the other three electrons went?

Shull and colleagues said these webs of hydrogen and oxygen are too hot to be seen in visible light and too cool to be seen in X-rays.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20303867-space-matter/

I wonder what the webs of plasma that are only 3000K look like.








Million degree ionized hydrogen and oxygen. None dare call it plasma.

[Reality Check]

Million degree ionized hydrogen and oxygen does sound like plasma. The problem is that temperature is not the only determining factor of whether a gas is a plasma (going by the Wikipedia definition of a plasma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_%28gas%29#Definition_of_a_plasma)).
It would be nice to be able to compare the "missing matter" paper to the news article and see where the superheated term comes from and whether the paper refers to plasma (or just uses IGM which is generally considered a plasma).

The second article does use "the plasma flow phenomenon" for the flow of plasma in this galaxy. Maybe they have a reason to call the ionized gas a plasma.

If you want another example of the avoidance of the plasma word look at the Wikipedia article on the Intracluster medium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracluster_medium) (more superheated gas!). There are plenty of papers that call the ICM a plasma though.

[zosima]

I'm so confused....Why would you think that scientists avoid calling plasma 'plasma'? In the field that I work in (terrestrial space physics), practically every other word is plasma, or plasma distribution, or plasma moment or plasma flux....

Is this a joke? Or do you seriously think people avoid calling it plasma?

What fields are you talking about? Cosmology? Some particular branch or astronomy? Or do you think scientists are collaborating across fields to avoid saying 'plasma' Also, why does it matter? As long as they're communicating their point....

[Zeuzzz]

I'm so confused....Why would you think that scientists avoid calling plasma 'plasma'? In the field that I work in (terrestrial space physics), practically every other word is plasma, or plasma distribution, or plasma moment or plasma flux....

Is this a joke? Or do you seriously think people avoid calling it plasma?

What fields are you talking about? Cosmology? Some particular branch or astronomy? Or do you think scientists are collaborating across fields to avoid saying 'plasma' Also, why does it matter? As long as they're communicating their point....


some astrophysicisits are becoming quite good at involving charge separation, voltages, E-fields and plasma to certain situations recently, but when it comes to applying these relatively new ideas to the large scale, where they start to infringe on their gravitational theories, they still seem to be severely lacking.

[Dancing David]

Just like the numbers and evidence to support certain suggestive PC theories.

[DeiRenDopa]

I have to wonder if the scientist are dumbing stuff down, or is the reporters? Or both?


http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20303867-space-matter/

No kidding? You mean, there is a huge amount of plasma we can't see? In outer space? What a shock.



http://www.physorg.com/news121602545.html

What I find interesting about the new "discoveries", is that they aren't new at all. It should be interesting to see just how long they can go with out using the word "plasma" to describe the source of Galaxies, Stars and th structure of our Universe.


http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20303867-space-matter/

A real scientist knows how funny that is to read. The word "superheated" has several valid uses in physics, but describing plasma is not one of them. Are the researchers actually telling them to print that? Or are the reporters being dumb? I would really like to know.


http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20303867-space-matter/

I can't believe anyone would actually print that. Superheated gas being heated by sonic booms from dark matter. How can anyone just make that stuff up? Worse, how can it make it into print?


http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20303867-space-matter/

I wonder where the other three electrons went?


http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20303867-space-matter/

I wonder what the webs of plasma that are only 3000K look like.








Million degree ionized hydrogen and oxygen. None dare call it plasma.I'm curious.

What are you saying here robinson?

It seems to me you are mostly complaining about the poor quality of certain science writing, or reporting. If so, would you mind spending a little time to see if you could re-write a paragraph or two - choose the worst - to show what you think would be better?

Or are you genuinely interested to get some answers to the questions you posed?

[robinson]

Million degree ionized hydrogen and oxygen does sound like plasma. The problem is that temperature is not the only determining factor of whether a gas is a plasma...

Indeed.

I'm so confused....Why would you think that scientists avoid calling plasma 'plasma'? ... Also, why does it matter? As long as they're communicating their point....


Well, using the term "superheated" is not communicating the correct point at all. If you knew what "superheated gas" meant, this would be obvious.

The other important distinction is very important. A hot gas being accelerated is a completely different event than a plasma being accelerated. Hot gases do not posses the same properties as plasmas. In regards to cosmic events, especially one as vast as those being mentioned in the above articles, the difference is huge.

It is like calling the sun a ball of really hot gas, instead of describing it in accurate scientific terms.

People used to think the sun really was a ball of gas that was burning. The problem with that description, is that a hot ball of gas doesn't explain the events and behavior that a star exhibits.

[DeiRenDopa]

Indeed.




Well, using the term "superheated" is not communicating the correct point at all. If you knew what "superheated gas" meant, this would be obvious.

The other important distinction is very important. A hot gas being accelerated is a completely different event than a plasma being accelerated.It is?

Why is that robinson? I mean, in the context referred to here ...
Hot gases do not posses the same properties as plasmas. In regards to cosmic events, especially one as vast as those being mentioned in the above articles, the difference is huge.They are?

What are some of these huge differences?

It is like calling the sun a ball of really hot gas, instead of describing it in accurate scientific terms. And what would those accurate scientific terms be?


People used to think the sun really was a ball of gas that was burning. The problem with that description, is that a hot ball of gas doesn't explain the events and behavior that a star exhibits.And how does calling the Sun 'a ball of really hot gas' miss the mark?

I mean, other than for things like sunspots, flares, the corona, ...

[robinson]

I tend to ignore trolls, especially really dumb ones. I would bet good money any educated person with some physics training and an interest in plasma physics knows the difference, as well as why our sun is not considered to be made of really hot gas. As well as why a moving gas is not the same as a moving ionized plasma.

Having set forth to examine what evidence there is, out and about on the big old Internets, it is fascinating, any very odd, to find that plasma is not even mentioned in some places.

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101matter.html

Maybe that is an old page. How could anyone, much less NASA, talk about what the Universe is made of, and never mention the word plasma? Not even once?

[robinson]

Back to the revolution. You know those Science Channel shows? The cool ones about space and the Universe and new discoveries? They are getting ready to show the world the revolution in cosmology, astronomy, even our own sun is involved.

While personally I think it sucks that they hold back new information about the Universe, especially since tax dollars fund the really expensive instruments they are using, there is a certain drama in waiting to reveal new stuff, full blown with pictures and animations and all that cool stuff.

It is also a lot more fun to watch than dry published papers and data and all that.

[DeiRenDopa]

I tend to ignore trolls, especially really dumb ones.

... snip ...That's good advice robinson.

Now, how does one decide who is a troll, especially a really dumb one?

How about this (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=3713861&postcount=34) as a method?[trolls are those] who say:

Such terrible logic and huge fallacies. (without saying what, or why)?

Yet another fallacy! Marvelous. (without saying why)?

Yet another illogical assumption! (without saying what, why, how, or ...)?

Not true. (without saying why, or how, or ...)?

That claim is utter nonsense (with no explanation)?I wonder which troll could have written such dumb things? ;)

[Hellbound]

Quite frankly, I find that arguing the point that science avoids terms like plasma, while providing nothing but PR statements and articles written by reporters as evidence, is about the height of trolling.

But that's just me.

[robinson]

I would agree.

As I said, from the NASA site:
What is the Universe Made Of?

One of the key questions that needs to be answered by astrophysisits[sic] is what is really out there? And of what is it all made? Without this understanding it is impossible to come to any firm conclusions about how the universe evolved.
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_matter.html

The entire page, which is an educational page about our Universe, never mentions plasma at all. It does go on and on about theoretical Dark Matter, but according to that page, there is no plasma in our Universe.

A search of all of NASA's pages shows they make the error of calling plasma "superheated gas" many times.

The specific NASA educational pages -> site:map.gsfc.nasa.gov does mention plasma once. In regards to an animation.

Of course that isn't the whole story at all. Obviously NASA knows about plasma, and has extensive information about it.
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast07sep99_1.htm

Nobody is claiming "plasma" is never used. And the play on the old "None dare call it ..." meme was explained early on in the thread. Props to anyone who knew exactly what it meant.

But as witnessed in the story here:
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n20303867-space-matter/

Some writers don't seem to grasp the essential difference between gas, and plasma.

The point about some plasma being invisible is most important. Especially in regards to the other issue, where plasma is opaque.

The science and physics of plasma, a huge field, with the advantage of being subject to experimentation, is one of the most fascinating and growing fields of scientific inquiry.

Plasma also has the cool feature that you can make some yourself, and do your own experiments. Very cool stuff.

Plasma. The original state of the Universe.

[robinson]

I do think, based on the current threads and emotional fighting over a multitude of issues surrounding "Plasma Cosmology", that poor plasma has become associated with fringe theories, crackpots, (The thunderbolts crowd), and even worse, the electric Universe theorist.

I could be wrong of course. I think it's ridiculous for anyone to avoid a scientific term, based on something other than science. I know it happens, but still, it is sort of dumb. And does a huge disservice to those learning about our Universe.

[quixotecoyote]

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101matter.html

Maybe that is an old page. How could anyone, much less NASA, talk about what the Universe is made of, and never mention the word plasma? Not even once?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&as_qdr=all&q=plasma+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.nasa.gov&btnG=Search


(For you non-link clickers, that's a google search returning 2450 results for plasma at NASA.)

[robinson]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=14w&as_q=plasma&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=shuttle&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nasa.gov&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=off

If you remove the word "shuttle" from the search, it drops to 1,420. Many of the NASA pages are about the shuttle disaster, in which sometimes the word superheated gas is sued to describe what destroyed the shuttle on re-entry, other times it is called plasma.

[robinson]

Getting back to the revolution, here is an animation that might help you visualize what they are talking about, in regards to galaxies and the plasma "filaments" that seem to connect everything.

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/objects/mm/spin_axes_of_spiral_galaxies.mpeg

I find it fascinating, because we know there are vast amounts of energy shooting out the poles of most galaxies. To find they are lined up with each other, connected by vast cosmic bubbles, is just incredible.

[Reality Check]

Getting back to the revolution, here is an animation that might help you visualize what they are talking about, in regards to galaxies and the plasma "filaments" that seem to connect everything.

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/objects/mm/spin_axes_of_spiral_galaxies.mpeg

I find it fascinating, because we know there are vast amounts of energy shooting out the poles of most galaxies. To find they are lined up with each other, connected by vast cosmic bubbles, is just incredible.

That is not quite right. The filaments that the article is talking about are the filaments observed in the distribution of galaxies that has been known about since the 1990's. This of course includes plasma but does not have any relationship to any jets from the poles of the galaxies.
These filaments are arranged around voids in the galactic distribution
The first paragraph in the article (http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4215) states:

Astronomers have known since the early 1990s that galaxies cluster in filaments and sheets surrounding vast voids in space. Now, an international team of astronomers has found that spiral galaxies, like the Milky Way, line up like beads on a string, with their spin axes aligned with the filaments that outline voids. The finding supports current galaxy-formation theories and forges a rare observational link between the large-scale distribution of mass in the universe and galaxy-size structures



You are right that this is an incredible discovery.

[Dancing David]

I do think, based on the current threads and emotional fighting over a multitude of issues surrounding "Plasma Cosmology", that poor plasma has become associated with fringe theories, crackpots, (The thunderbolts crowd), and even worse, the electric Universe theorist.

I could be wrong of course. I think it's ridiculous for anyone to avoid a scientific term, based on something other than science. I know it happens, but still, it is sort of dumb. And does a huge disservice to those learning about our Universe.

Well so does FOX news and CNN and MSNBC, I don't think that people except for the geeky ones really care.

But you are right, there is this wierd dichotomy over plasma, we have some people who teach and research physics and they say that plasma is standard science and cosmology, but then we have the PR end where it is a word that is not used (probably because it is something that would require explanation. Like plasma is a state of matter where electrons are stripped off of atoms and there are currents and magnetic effects that make plasma behave differently than non ionised gas depending on temperature, density and motion.), and then there are other poeple like some reasearchers who claim they are ignored and then there is the way out fringe who give plasma some strange meaning.

So as usual it is communications, politics aand emotions.

[shadron]

Just like the numbers and evidence to support certain suggestive PC theories.

And that seems to be the crux, I think. I don't think there is much doubt in any physicist or astronomer's mind that there has to be a huge involvement of plasma physics into astronomy or cosmology. What they want to see is the mathematical rigidity of the current gravitational theories not compromised by the "maybe this happens, maybe that happens" sort of guesswork that plasma cosmology seems to bring; and never mind the electric-stars, iron-sun people. Anyone who says the current astronomical theory is complete without a large contribution from plasma physics (which seems to be in an analogous pre-Maxwell stage of development at this time) is not paying attention. Those who say the existing gravitational theory is wrong and need to be trashed are also fit for the meat grinder. The synthesis will be greater than both, and in our future.

Without a doubt, the synthesis is going to answer lots of questions (and probably ask some more). Complaining about gnomes isn't going to hack it; instead, the plasma physics needs to fill the gnomes where that is appropriate and can be proven to work; that is, after all, what Einstein's four papers of his youth did.

[robinson]

This of course includes plasma but does not have any relationship to any jets from the poles of the galaxies.

I think that falls in to the unknown category at present.


You are right that this is an incredible discovery.

I'm glad somebody else thinks so. I can imagine some wild stuff, but I never saw that coming.


But you are right, there is this weird dichotomy over plasma, we have some people who teach and research physics and they say that plasma is standard science and cosmology, but then we have the PR end where it is a word that is not used (probably because it is something that would require explanation....

You might be right. But that doesn't explain the NASA page that never mentions it at all. That is just unbelievable.

And that seems to be the crux, I think. I don't think there is much doubt in any physicist or astronomer's mind that there has to be a huge involvement of plasma physics into astronomy or cosmology. ...

As well as electromagnetism. (EM) I think the situation has come about in part because of the way science has evolved. Cosmology, as well as physics, had it's start in earth based knowledge, in earth based science and understanding of things. EM and plasma were not even in the picture when cosmology started.


Without a doubt, the synthesis is going to answer lots of questions (and probably ask some more). Complaining about gnomes isn't going to hack it; instead, the plasma physics needs to fill the gnomes where that is appropriate and can be proven to work; that is, after all, what Einstein's four papers of his youth did.

You sure got that right.

[zosima]

some astrophysicisits are becoming quite good at involving charge separation, voltages, E-fields and plasma to certain situations recently, but when it comes to applying these relatively new ideas to the large scale, where they start to infringe on their gravitational theories, they still seem to be severely lacking.

There is a reason for that. The strength of magnetic dipoles drop off at one over the cube of distance. Space plasma populations tend to have an equal number of protons and electrons especially in large populations. This means that space plasmas tend to neutralize on large scales. Even if there is a separation of charge, you can think of two large populations of plasma with opposing charge as a big dipole. Thus, like magnetic fields, their strength tends to drop off at one over the cube of distance. The strength of gravitational fields drops off at one over the square of distance. This means that given enough distance gravity almost always dominates and electric/magnetic fields are almost always insignificant.

While I totally agree that space plasmas are totally awesome and have really neat dynamics in many cases, they lack explanatory power for structures on the scale of light years.


...

The quality of scientific reporting is awful. Its not just their poor use of the word 'plasma'. If you get your information from these sources, you would do better to not get it at all. This includes PR statements from NASA and scientists. These too are awful, at least in terms of scientific accuracy. They're not concerned with that, they're concerned with getting people interested and convincing people that what they're doing is worthwhile. I think most of the people making these releases figure that if the people reading them wanted an accurate impression of science they would have studied it in school.

In defense of the use of 'hot gas' instead of 'plasma', these forums are a good example of why its good to avoid talking about plasma to the public. People get their panties all bunched up imagining this 'amazing', 'magical', 'novel' state of matter. People start going all sci-fi and thinking about plasma guns, or get the idea that plasma is somehow a recent discovery that is revolutionizing science. The public's conception of hot gas is probably far closer to real plasma than their hollywood skewed conception of plasma. So in many ways, it is much more accurate.

[robinson]

The publics conception of hot gas is probably far closer to real plasma than their Hollywood skewed conception of plasma. So in many ways, it is much more accurate.

That is an interesting way to look at it.

[BeAChooser]

While I totally agree that space plasmas are totally awesome and have really neat dynamics in many cases, they lack explanatory power for structures on the scale of light years.

Then explain this structure:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0004/cygloop_blair.jpg

The Cygnus Loop, which is light years in size, has the characteristics of an interstellar Birkeland current: (1) A plasma medium (2) Filamentation (3) Braiding, twisted "rope-like" structure. How do you explain the twisted rope-like structure without the dynamics of plasmas?

[DeiRenDopa]

Then explain this structure:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0004/cygloop_blair.jpg

The Cygnus Loop, which is light years in size, has the characteristics of an interstellar Birkeland current: (1) A plasma medium (2) Filamentation (3) Braiding, twisted "rope-like" structure. How do you explain the twisted rope-like structure without the dynamics of plasmas?And the rest?

magnetic field strength?

velocity dispersion of constituent ions?

strength of Stark effect?

polarisation?

synchrotron radiation?

... and so on ...

In other words, something other than 'look at this picture!'

Can you cite any papers, by 'plasma cosmologists' (or 'electric universers'), which account for the observed features .... quantitatively?

[Tubbythin]

How do you explain the twisted rope-like structure without the dynamics of plasmas?

Saturn's F ring has braiding like that... just on a much smaller scale. Plasma isn't normally invoked to explain the existence of said ring.

[robinson]

Isn't the f ring within the electromagnetic field of Saturn? And dusty plasmas are thought to be involved? Interesting connection.

[DeiRenDopa]

Isn't the f ring within the electromagnetic field of Saturn? And dusty plasmas are thought to be involved? Interesting connection.Now here's a revolutionary idea ...

... how about we start using the word 'electromagnetic', as in 'electromagnetic field', in a way that reflects reality?

But wait! There's more!!

As long as you can 'see' the F ring - in gammas, x-rays, UV, visual/optical, IR, microwave, radio wavebands (or any one) - then you are by definition, "within the electromagnetic field" of the F ring! :jaw-dropp

But in the real world ... what is it that you think you meant to say, robinson?

[BeAChooser]

Saturn's F ring has braiding like that... just on a much smaller scale. Plasma isn't normally invoked to explain the existence of said ring.

Actually you are wrong. There have been plenty of papers invoking electromagnetic effects to explain that feature as well as others in the Saturn system.

And are you suggesting that gravity is responsible for the Cygnus Loop braiding? Well the F ring theory you speak of involves shepherding satellites. You think there are some bodies in orbit around some other body creating the Cygnus Loop braiding? :)

[DeiRenDopa]

Actually you are wrong. There have been plenty of papers invoking electromagnetic effects to explain that feature as well as others in the Saturn system.

And are you suggesting that gravity is responsible for the Cygnus Loop braiding? Well the F ring theory you speak of involves shepherding satellites. You think there are some bodies in orbit around some other body creating the Cygnus Loop braiding? :)(emphasis added)

Faster than a speeding bullet! more powerful than a locomotive!! and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!!!

Hah, superman is puny weakling ... what is able to strike fear into the hearts of every astronomer, astrophysicist, and cosmologist (and, no doubt, every physicist to boot)?!?

Why it's ... {roll of drums} ... electromagnetic effects!!!! :jaw-dropp :boggled: :faint: :shocked: :yikes: :wide-eyed

too bad the reality is soooo boringly different ...

[Dancing David]

Then explain this structure:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0004/cygloop_blair.jpg

The Cygnus Loop, which is light years in size, has the characteristics of an interstellar Birkeland current: (1) A plasma medium (2) Filamentation (3) Braiding, twisted "rope-like" structure. How do you explain the twisted rope-like structure without the dynamics of plasmas?


While it is a likely looking piece of stuff (I don't rememebr the nature of it), it would be rash to assume that it is twisted and braided without more information.

I am am not presenting a rule out, yet it could be a flat sheet structure as well.

:)

[Reality Check]

Then explain this structure:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0004/cygloop_blair.jpg

The Cygnus Loop, which is light years in size, has the characteristics of an interstellar Birkeland current: (1) A plasma medium (2) Filamentation (3) Braiding, twisted "rope-like" structure. How do you explain the twisted rope-like structure without the dynamics of plasmas?


Lets look at the description of the picture (http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~idh/apod/ap000426.html):

Subtle and delicate in appearance, these are filaments of shocked interstellar gas -- part of the expanding blast wave from a violent stellar explosion. Recorded in November 1997 with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 onboard the Hubble Space Telescope, the picture is a closeup of a supernova remnant known as the Cygnus Loop. The nearly edge-on view shows a small portion of the immense shock front moving toward the top of the frame at about 170 kilometres per second while glowing in light emitted by atoms of excited Hydrogen gas. Not just another pretty picture, this particular image has provided some dramatic scientific results. In 1999, researchers used it to substantially revise downward widely accepted estimates of distance and age for this classic supernova remnant. Now determined to lie only 1,440 light-years away, the Cygnus Loop is thought to have been expanding for 5 - 10 thousand years


So this a a picture of a shockwave from a supernova as it collides with the interstellar meduim. This does not rule out Birkeland currents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland_current) (you know that well known aspect of plasma and space physics) since the required magnetic field for the current may exist. But the conventional explanation is stated in the Wikipedia article on the Veil Nebula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_Nebula) (also known as the Cygnus Loop or the Witch's Broom Nebula):

When finely resolved, some parts of the image appear to be rope like filaments. The standard explanation is that the shock waves are so thin, less than one part in 50,000 of the radius, that the shell is only visible when viewed exactly edge-on, giving the shell the appearance of a filament. Undulations in the surface of the shell lead to multiple filamentary images, which appear to be intertwined.

[Dancing David]

Cygnus loop

hot off the press
http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.0172

one possibility

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990725.html

more of the same

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/C/Cygnus_Loop.html

Yet more

http://seds.org/hst/CygnusLoop.html


sorry more shock wave stuff

http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/wpb/sci_cyglp.html

and more

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1993/01/image/a

COOL Rosat picture

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/features/objects/cygnus.html

mentions plasma but says it supports the blast wave

http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.4552

ring shape

http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1538-3881/130/1/165/

more dual super nova remnants SNR

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=13735186

data consistant with a sphere

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=3990288

Supernova and pulsar

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v225/n5229/abs/225252a0.html

[Reality Check]

Actually you are wrong. There have been plenty of papers invoking electromagnetic effects to explain that feature as well as others in the Saturn system.

And are you suggesting that gravity is responsible for the Cygnus Loop braiding? Well the F ring theory you speak of involves shepherding satellites. You think there are some bodies in orbit around some other body creating the Cygnus Loop braiding? :)
Cygnus Loop "braiding" is a supernova shockwave viewed edge on and nothing to do with Saturn's F ring.

Quick test of your first statement:
Google Scholar results for "saturn f ring braiding": 148
Google Scholar results for "saturn f ring braiding electromagnetic": 40
Thus you are right - there are plenty of papers invoking electromagnetic effects to explain that feature.

[robinson]

The dynamics of Saturn's F ring have been a matter of curiosity ever since Voyagers 1 and 2 sent back pictures of the ring's unusual features. Some of these images showed three distinct ringlets with the outer two displaying a kinked and braided appearance. Many models have been proposed to explain the braiding seen in these images; most of these invoke perturbations caused by the shepherding moons or kilometre-sized moonlets embedded in the ring and are purely gravitational in nature. These models also assume that the plasma densities and charges on the grains are small enough that electromagnetic forces can be ignored. However, Saturn's magnetic field exerts a significant perturbative force on even weakly charged micron- and submicron-sized grains causing the grains to travel in epicyclic orbits about a guiding centre. This study examines the effect of Saturn's magnetic field on the dynamics of micron-sized grains along with gravitational interactions between the F ring's shepherding moons, Prometheus and Pandora. Due to the differences in charge-to-mass ratios of the various sized grains, a phase difference between different size populations is observed in the wavy orbits imposed by passage of the shepherding moons.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iop/jphysa/2003/00000036/00000022/art00349

I don't know what that means, but there are a lot of theories that involve Saturn's magnetic field. Who knew?

[DeiRenDopa]

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iop/jphysa/2003/00000036/00000022/art00349

I don't know what that means, but there are a lot of theories that involve Saturn's magnetic field. Who knew?Odd isn't it ...

You say 'electromagnetic field', BAC says 'electromagnetic effects', and Mathews and Hyde say 'electromagnetic forces'.

Clearly, Mathews and Hyde did not consult with either you or BAC before putting fingers to keyboard ... I wonder why not?

[zosima]

Then explain this structure:

The Cygnus Loop, which is light years in size, has the characteristics of an interstellar Birkeland current: (1) A plasma medium (2) Filamentation (3) Braiding, twisted "rope-like" structure. How do you explain the twisted rope-like structure without the dynamics of plasmas?

The fact that something looks vaguely similar to something else is not evidence of a common cause. This is particularly true if you are talking about phenomena on massively different scales. It is definitely true when the characteristics of the physical equations describing the phenomenon on one scale preclude the explanation.

On the other hand, your question is kind of silly. It is trivially true that plasmas interacting are going to involve the "dynamics of plasmas". So you need to be very careful about what you mean. Birkeland currents will be present in most space plasmas. When shock waves generate the Cygnus Loop, the majority of interactions between particles in the plasma will be electromagnetic.

This differs from the behavior of plasma in a planetary or stellar magnetosphere, however. In magnetospheric interactions you have magnetic fields that span the structure. On interstellar scales this is simply impossible, it is denied by the the nature of the physical equations explaining electromagnetism. (with the possible exception of very dense, high energy objects like black holes and magnetars).

In other words, they look the similar for very different reasons.

ETA:
On the Saturn issue. Scientists are just getting a chance to analyze the Cassini data, so I don't think we can preclude any sort of explanations yet. We'll probably be learning a lot of very interesting things about Saturn's magnetosphere in the near future.

[robinson]

An interesting fact about Saturn's magnetic field. Because of the solar wind, Jupiter's huge magnetic field, distorted and stretched, extends past Saturn's orbit. So when the two are lined up, Jupiter's magnetic field interacts with Saturn's.

[zosima]

That actually reminds me of a quote from a paper by Margaret Kivelson & Fran Bagenal that I've got sitting around the house:

"The combination of a strong internal field and relatively low solar wind density at 5 AU makes the magnetosphere of Jupiter a huge object - about 1000 times the volume of the Sun, with a tail that extends at least 6 A.U. in the antisunward direction, beyond the orbit of Saturn. If the jovian magnetosphere were visible from Earth, its angular size would be much larger than the size of the sun, even though it is at least 4 times farther away."

Neat huh? The radius of the magnetopause in the sunward direction is actually an inverse function of solar wind density and a function of magnetic field strength. Less solar wind means that it exerts less pressure on the planetary magnetosphere. Interestingly enough, although the density of solar wind decrease with the inverse square of distance, the speed stays relatively constant all the way out to the termination shock.

[robinson]

That is very interesting. How do we know what the speed of the solar wind is that far out? Is it just a matter of plasma not being effected by gravity? Or something else?

I mean, how can that be? The "pressure" from the radiation of the sun drops off, the magnetic field, all twisted and swirly isn't moving straight away from the sun, how can all those molecules and ions and electrons and protons and such, how can they not be effected by gravity?

Is this a mystery? Or expected physics?

I'm reminded of another question. What happens to all the matter expelled by the sun, after the termination shock? And why can't we see the radiation from the termination shock?

Or can we?













And did I just go way off topic? How could anyone tell?

[zosima]

That is very interesting. How do we know what the speed of the solar wind is that far out? Is it just a matter of plasma not being effected by gravity? Or something else?

I mean, how can that be? The "pressure" from the radiation of the sun drops off, the magnetic field, all twisted and swirly isn't moving straight away from the sun, how can all those molecules and ions and electrons and protons and such, how can they not be effected by gravity?

Is this a mystery? Or expected physics?

I'm reminded of another question. What happens to all the matter expelled by the sun, after the termination shock? And why can't we see the radiation from the termination shock?

Or can we?

And did I just go way off topic? How could anyone tell?

Man, thats a lot of questions. Well, I think the failure for speed to drop off is predicted by theory. It has also been measure by quite a few different spacecraft over the years. Tons around earth, Cassini, Galileo, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, and Pioneer 11.

The plasma is affected by gravity but it is not a significant effect at the speeds, densities and timescales that we're talking about. So the speed probably drops off marginally but it is just tiny. The mass density of the solar wind around Pluto varies around .005 Amu/CM^3

The behavior of the solar wind in the outer heliosphere is not mysterious. It was actually predicted for decades before it was measured by the Voyager spacecraft. (The Voyagers made it there before the Pioneers and were still operable at that distance, unlike the Pioneers)

The termination shock is just the point when the speed of the solar wind drops off abruptly. This is because it is starting to encounter pressure exerted by the interstellar medium. No one really knows for sure if we can 'see' the termination shock. There are some theories that anomalous cosmic rays and certain sorts of unexplained radio emissions may be coming from the termination shock, but they haven't been proven. The results from the Voyagers on this issue were inconclusive. If ACRs are coming from the termination shock, then we can 'see' the termination shock. Its not like there is some IR glow or something, though, that we can pick up with modern technology. As mentioned above, its density is just too low. So what happens with the solar wind is that it just mixes with the interstellar medium.

[robinson]

Interesting. Do we have any idea what the density of the IM is? I know the theory is the solar magnetosphere causes the IM to flow around it, elongating it, and the solar wind joins the rest of the plasma in the Galaxy, but do we know?

If it does, is it like the Earth's or Jupiter's fields, where some of the energy creates radiation and other EM effects? I know, I know, this is theory territory, we don't have any probes that far out yet. And we can't observe what happens.

Yet.

I wonder how far the Sun's magnetosphere extends, in the direction where it is elongated. There must be all kinds of interesting stuff going on. Not just with our Star, but imagine the more energetic and magnetic ones, with huge magnetispheres. Especially the ones with a lot of spin.

[DeiRenDopa]

Interesting. Do we have any idea what the density of the IM is? I know the theory is the solar magnetosphere causes the IM to flow around it, elongating it, and the solar wind joins the rest of the plasma in the Galaxy, but do we know?

If it does, is it like the Earth's or Jupiter's fields, where some of the energy creates radiation and other EM effects? I know, I know, this is theory territory, we don't have any probes that far out yet. And we can't observe what happens.

Yet.

I wonder how far the Sun's magnetosphere extends, in the direction where it is elongated. There must be all kinds of interesting stuff going on. Not just with our Star, but imagine the more energetic and magnetic ones, with huge magnetispheres. Especially the ones with a lot of spin.Provided you take the mandatory health warning about Wikipedia materials seriously, this page about the Interstellar medium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_medium) (ISM, not IM) may get you started.

In particular, note the table with densities, scale heights, temperatures, etc about half way down.

[robinson]

Thanks DRD. I should have checked good old wikipedia first.

[BeAChooser]

The plasma is affected by gravity but it is not a significant effect at the speeds, densities and timescales that we're talking about. So the speed probably drops off marginally but it is just tiny.

The solar wind continues to accelerate as one moves away from the sun . The speed does not "drop off" until the outer heliosphere where it drops off precipitously. NASA says the source of the solar wind is the Sun's hot corona and that the temperature of the corona is so high that the Sun's gravity cannot hold on to it. But NASA can't explain why coronal temperatures are what they are. Dr Peter Gallagher of the Big Bear Solar Observatory is quoted saying that "the physics of coronal heating and the solar wind acceleration remains one of the unsolved problems of solar physics." Now electric sun theorists have an explanation for both. As far as the later, if a weak but positive E field extends out to the solar system's boundary with interstellar space, that would account for the continued acceleration of the solar wind.

The behavior of the solar wind in the outer heliosphere is not mysterious. It was actually predicted for decades before it was measured by the Voyager spacecraft.

False. Dr. Stone, Voyager's project scientist and the former director of JPL, said "The solar wind is supposed to slow down out there, just as the water in your sink slowed down to make the 'sluggish ring, but not this slow." Before Voyager 1 arrived, computer models predicted a wind speed of 200,000 to 300,000 mph. Voyager 1 measured only about 34,000 mph. They did not predict what they observed and were actually surprised by what they found. But not electric universe theorists. And the acceleration anomaly of various spacecraft, including Voyager, are still unexplained ... by mainstream scientists, that is. :)

No one really knows for sure if we can 'see' the termination shock. There are some theories that anomalous cosmic rays and certain sorts of unexplained radio emissions may be coming from the termination shock, but they haven't been proven. The results from the Voyagers on this issue were inconclusive. If ACRs are coming from the termination shock, then we can 'see' the termination shock.

Actually, mainstream scientists were surprised to find theat ACRs were unaffected by the termination shock. A report in Science stated "This acceleration is the issue. Immediately upon ionization, the interstellar particles are picked up by the solar wind and acquire energies on the order of 1 keV/nucleon. They must be accelerated by four orders of magnitude to the observed energies of greater than 10 MeV/nucleon. The termination shock has long been considered the likely location for the acceleration. Indeed, the termination shock should be an accessible example of shock acceleration at work, just like the acceleration at supernovae shocks that is postulated to produce galactic cosmic rays. However, at the location of the termination shock seen by Voyager 1, there is no evidence of acceleration of the traditional ACR's. Low-energy ions, below 3 MeV/nucleon, are clearly and indeed abruptly accelerated, but the higher energy ACR's, which we have been observing for decades, are unaffected by the termination shock. …The termination shock doesn't perform as we expected; it is clear it is a shock, but not the prodigious accelerator we expected. Indeed, as Voyager 1 flies downstream from the termination shock, the intensity of ACR's continues to grow, as if its source still lies ahead."

[robinson]

Ahh, I just knew this was an unresolved issue.

I sense fireworks in the near future.

[Dancing David]

Where is the citation on the gallagher quote?

MMMMM?

here is a more recent one and he even mentions magnatism:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080402154252.htm


“We’ve thought for some time that the tsunamis might be caused by magnetic shockwaves but, in previous snapshots, the waves appeared to be travelling too slowly. However, we’ve seen from this set of observations that if the time interval between images is too long, it’s easy to underestimate the speed that the waves are moving. With a few more rapid-sequence observations of solar tsunamis, we should finally be able to identify the cause of these waves,” said Gallagher.

[Dancing David]

Hmm here is the Voyager JPL pages and what is it on that page
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/

Why plasma science!

http://web.mit.edu/space/www/voyager/voyager_data/overview_plot_recent.gif

Which is just a plot graph, no explanation.

But there is more plasma science:
http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena/org/s/space/www/voyager/voyager_data/voyager_data.html


And that is just from the Voyager FAQ


Also on the page we have "the local interstellar magnetic field."


On the first read more page we have
"The solar wind is a thin gas of electrically charged particles (plasma) blown into space by the sun. The solar wind blows in all directions, carving a bubble into interstellar space that extends past the orbit of Pluto." bolding is mine.

and a possible explanation for the lower speed after the termination shock
"In a normal shock wave, fast-moving material slows down and forms a denser, hotter region as it encounters an obstacle. However, Voyager 2 found a much lower temperature beyond the shock than was predicted. This probably indicates that the energy is being transferred to cosmic ray particles that were accelerated to high speeds at the shock. "

[Dancing David]

And there are some models for solar wind acceleration:

http://astro.physics.uiowa.edu/~srs/IPS+SW.ppt#14

http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0209/0209301.pdf

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1998/97JA03598.shtml

Alfven waves!

http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/15/295/2008/npg-15-295-2008.html

[Zeuzzz]

And there are some models for solar wind acceleration:

http://astro.physics.uiowa.edu/~srs/IPS+SW.ppt#14

http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0209/0209301.pdf

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1998/97JA03598.shtml

Alfven waves!

http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/15/295/2008/npg-15-295-2008.html



Yeah, over twenty completely different models have been proposed, and no reason to prefer any of them over the other. The same for coronal heating. We need ones that are testable. That would resolve this long outstanding problem of solar wind acceleration.

[Zeuzzz]

Provided you take the mandatory health warning about Wikipedia materials seriously, this page about the Interstellar medium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_medium) (ISM, not IM) may get you started.

In particular, note the table with densities, scale heights, temperatures, etc about half way down.


I would personally reccomend Interstellar Matters: Essays on Curiosity and Astronomical Discovery (http://books.google.com/books?id=K7osTj6w2kQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Interstellar+matters+:+essays+on+curiosity+and+ astronomical+discovery#PPP1,M1) by Plasma Cosmologist Gerrit L. Verschuur who is an expert in this field. He emphasises the most important aspects that have recently been discovered, and states that he does not think there is a definitive boundry where the solar wind stops. And theres a wealth of info in there about this subject, and its really well written and probably worth a read anyway. I'm able to see the whole book in google books at the link provided above, i'm not sure that your supposed to be able to see every page, it is copyrighted, but i'm certainly not complaining. :)


http://www.amazon.com/Interstellar-Matters-Curiosity-Astronomical-Discovery/dp/B000SBKCU4
In this provocative book, radio astronomer and author Gerrit L. Verschuur describes the phenomena of scientific curiosity and discovery by following the exciting story of interstellar matter. The discovery of "stuff between the stars" was the result of decades of work by hundreds of astronomers, and the evolving recognition of its existence has profoundly changed the way we view the Universe. Verschuur begins with E.E. Barnard, who puzzled for a quarter century over the interpretation of photographs of dark patches between the stars. Verschuur then traces the tortuous path to acceptance of the existence of interstellar matter. He shares with us the thrill of discovery that motivates astronomers, the use of metaphors and modeling by scientist, and other tricks of the astronomical trade. Finally, we learn about the modern study of interstellar matter: the discovery of complex organic molecules between the stars and how they may have seeded the early earth with the precursors for life, new insights into star formation, the structure of the Milky Way and the elusive interstellar magnetic field. More than a history, Interstellar Matters is a detective story that evokes the excitement and serendipity of science against the background of a century of shared effort by the world community of astronomers.[...]



Definately worth a read for anyone interested in this area...

[zosima]

Look BeAC, I was just trying to answer some questions without getting bogged down in the details. You are picking a bunch of nits by narrowly interpreting the hyperbolic comments of a bunch of scientists in their press releases. Scientists always try to make science seem more dramatic, surprising,etc.. than it really is. Thats why I'm adamant about the poor quality of scientific news and reporting. Misreading these things is a big source of woo. Also,I don't really want to spend my time arguing with your alternative view of reality. So I'm going to try to be brief.

The solar wind continues to accelerate as one moves away from the sun . The speed does not "drop off" until the outer heliosphere where it drops off precipitously. NASA says the source of the solar wind is the Sun's hot corona and that the temperature of the corona is so high that the Sun's gravity cannot hold on to it. But NASA can't explain why coronal temperatures are what they are. Dr Peter Gallagher of the Big Bear Solar Observatory is quoted saying that "the physics of coronal heating and the solar wind acceleration remains one of the unsolved problems of solar physics." Now electric sun theorists have an explanation for both. As far as the later, if a weak but positive E field extends out to the solar system's boundary with interstellar space, that would account for the continued acceleration of the solar wind.

I'm 99% sure that Gallagher is talking about how the solar wind is initially accelerated and its behavior near the sun. By the time the solar wind reaches earth it is traveling at a constant average speed and it stays that way all the way out to the termination shock.


False. Dr. Stone, Voyager's project scientist and the former director of JPL, said "The solar wind is supposed to slow down out there, just as the water in your sink slowed down to make the 'sluggish ring, but not this slow." Before Voyager 1 arrived, computer models predicted a wind speed of 200,000 to 300,000 mph. Voyager 1 measured only about 34,000 mph. They did not predict what they observed and were actually surprised by what they found. But not electric universe theorists.

I'm not saying they didn't learn anything, that they didn't improve their models, they learned a lot and they were surprised by many things. There are many other things to learn. But its an issue of closer approximations, not revolutions. But I guess whether or not you consider it 'mysterious' is a matter of opinion.


And the acceleration anomaly of various spacecraft, including Voyager, are still unexplained ... by mainstream scientists, that is. :)

The Pioneer effect, while interesting, mysterious, and unexplained, is not a large acceleration nor is it significant to scientists studying the outer heliosphere. At this point a lot of engineering issues need to be eliminated and it needs to be repeated, before it can be considered a series physical phenomenon. The effect is absolutely tiny, 8 x10^-10 M/S^S.


Actually, mainstream scientists were surprised to find theat ACRs were unaffected by the termination shock. A report in Science stated "This acceleration is the issue. Immediately upon ionization, the interstellar particles are picked up by the solar wind and acquire energies on the order of 1 keV/nucleon. They must be accelerated by four orders of magnitude to the observed energies of greater than 10 MeV/nucleon. The termination shock has long been considered the likely location for the acceleration. Indeed, the termination shock should be an accessible example of shock acceleration at work, just like the acceleration at supernovae shocks that is postulated to produce galactic cosmic rays. However, at the location of the termination shock seen by Voyager 1, there is no evidence of acceleration of the traditional ACR's. Low-energy ions, below 3 MeV/nucleon, are clearly and indeed abruptly accelerated, but the higher energy ACR's, which we have been observing for decades, are unaffected by the termination shock. …The termination shock doesn't perform as we expected; it is clear it is a shock, but not the prodigious accelerator we expected. Indeed, as Voyager 1 flies downstream from the termination shock, the intensity of ACR's continues to grow, as if its source still lies ahead."

You are making mountains out of molehills. Did some scientists have theories that predicted ACRs from the termination shock? Yes. Of course they were surprised; they had a vested interest in those theories. Who cares?

The statement overall agress with what I said, the theories are unproven and the results are inconclusive.

@Robinson: Believe whatever interpretation you want, I'm trying to communicate scientific consensus(which admittedly is a bit like herding cats), BeAC is trying to make a case for his alternative cosmology. I guess it depends on where you like to get your information.

[DeiRenDopa]

Ahh, I just knew this was an unresolved issue.

I sense fireworks in the near future.No surprise there ...

... given that this is one of the EU crowd's fave topics, and that zosima seems to be doing some honest-to-goodness research in this field ...

... perhaps the only uncertainty is just how outraged zosima will get at the misunderstandings, mis-representations, nonsense, and outright lies that will surely be soon posted ...

I'll be watching on the sidelines, hoping to learn something ...

[Zeuzzz]

... perhaps the only uncertainty is just how outraged zosima will get at the misunderstandings, mis-representations, nonsense, and outright lies that will surely be soon posted ...



I'm quite sure that Zozima will be able to contribute some worthwhile knowledge to this thread, in a non angry way like he has done so far. Pejorative suppositions like this dont really achieve much. How about waiting to see what gets posted before reaching this conclusion. Theres a few questions I have about the ISM and boundaries of solar winds, and theres no need to presume they are all lies and nonsense before I even post them...

[shadron]

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iop/jphysa/2003/00000036/00000022/art00349

I don't know what that means, but there are a lot of theories that involve Saturn's magnetic field. Who knew?

Yeah, just an observation, but how does the fact that the magnetic environment (and Jupiter and the Earth and the Sun as well) are being investigated so hard if astronomers are being so obtuse as to be ignoring plasma physics theory? Surely this must shoot some kind of hole into the belief that those big bad astrophysicists are stonewalling the theory just because they're so entrenched in gravitics.

You want a theory? Try this: the astrophysicists (and I'd include Alfven and some of the others as well) have known for a long time that plasma and the resulting electromagnetic fields have a lot to do with solar winds and such, but until recently simply haven't had any hard data (real numbers) to quantify any theories. So they waited, and now the numbers are starting to come in thanks to deep space probes, and now the electromechanical effects are being noted and quantified, and new theories (!) along with older modified theories are being worked to explain that which was not formerly known. They're actually doing science, the sort of amalgamation of gravitics and electromechanics (and even weak and strong forces) that will explain it all.

Are you surprised, robinson? Is that not what you expected? You expected those BBAs to stonewall into the next century before collapsing in a huge heap of bodies similar to what Einstein witnessed? In actuality, most physicists almost immediately accepted Einstein's early theories, though some few were more cautious. Were they guilty of stupidity, robinson? I think not, though history wrote/is writing the last chapter there, just as it is here.

One final question: has any of these new findings said anything invalidating the primarily gravitic nature of the Sun (and not just modifying the physics of its atmosphere)?

[robinson]

I would personally reccomend Interstellar Matters: Essays on Curiosity and Astronomical Discovery (http://books.google.com/books?id=K7osTj6w2kQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Interstellar+matters+:+essays+on+curiosity+and+ astronomical+discovery#PPP1,M1) by Plasma Cosmologist Gerrit L. Verschuur

http://www.amazon.com/Interstellar-Matters-Curiosity-Astronomical-Discovery/dp/B000SBKCU4

Nice link, thanks.



Are you surprised, robinson? Is that not what you expected? You expected those BBAs to stonewall into the next century before collapsing in a huge heap of bodies similar to what Einstein witnessed?

I think you are confused. I'm only surprised by new discoveries that nobody expected. Not the idiocy of human beings, the stubbornness of the human ego, and the slow evolution of human knowledge.

That is just business as usual.

Much like the insipid comments by a few people here, who mistake stupid insulting personal comments for scientific discussions.

Who cares? Such inane attempts to get a rise out of someone are most common.

And it is doubtful any of them are busy working on bringing the new discoveries to mankind, with some cool soundtracks and whizzbang animations.

:)


The revolution

will


be


televised.

















Everything else will be forgotten.

[robinson]

Speaking of, did anyone else catch the João Magueijo's Big Bang series?

[Zeuzzz]

The expected shock from the heliosphere is expected to be ~> 100 AU I believe, Pioneer and Voyager may never reach this shock, as they aren't really travelling fast enough, and aren't going to last much longer. I find it unlikely that there will be a definitive shock region for this, the ions travelling out will filament, and all travel at varying speeds depending where they are located, so not form a definitive boundry as such. In other words, I dont think that the hydrogen wall will have a shape, but will be irratic depedning on the local conditions (current density, ionization %, pinches) and not form a visible wall or shock at all.

We observe plasma (mainly hydrogen and helium) being ionized and dragged into the solar wind as pickup ions. Now, are all the ions that are picked up all from our own sun? or do we share the pickup ions with the particles also ejected into the ISM from other stars too? (They surely must be shared, unless the ISM is nearly perfectly static, which we know it isn't.)

And another thing, I'm mainly asking Zozima, how far can you take the analogy of the heliosphere being like the relationship between the Earths magnetosphere and the solar wind? Essentially a magnetopause being created at the end of the heliosphere. The currents of ions in the ISM and surrounding hot molecular clouds would interact with the magnetopause in a similar way to the Earths interaction with the solar wind.

[robinson]

And another thing, I'm mainly asking Zozima, ...

Who in the hell is "Zozima"?

[Dancing David]

The expected shock from the heliosphere is expected to be ~> 100 AU I believe, Pioneer and Voyager may never reach this shock, as they aren't really travelling fast enough, and aren't going to last much longer. I find it unlikely that there will be a definitive shock region for this, the ions travelling out will filament, and all travel at varying speeds depending where they are located, so not form a definitive boundry as such. In other words, I dont think that the hydrogen wall will have a shape, but will be irratic depedning on the local conditions (current density, ionization %, pinches) and not form a visible wall or shock at all.

Well the terminal shock as crossed by Voyager 2 was fairly inconsistent, they said it was crossed five times, as though there were waves of turbulence.

[robinson]

It's a shame Plasma theorist don't have a billion dollars to spend on doing experiments with diffuse plasmas and electromagnetic boundaries. I bet there is some wicked cool stuff going on when plasmas meet.

Shucks, my little plasma ball can do some amazing stuff, and it only cost $10 bucks at WalMart.

Imagine what could be done with some real money.

[Zeuzzz]

Well the terminal shock as crossed by Voyager 2 was fairly inconsistent, they said it was crossed five times, as though there were waves of turbulence.


I haven't got a particular problem in with the terminal shock, its more where the solar wind is supposed to stop.

PLASMA IN THE UNIVERSE (http://www.aldebaran.cz/astrofyzika/plazma/occurence_en.html#mgs)
[.......] In the heliopause the Voyager detected a drop in the velocity of the solar wind from 1.6 million of km/hr down to 250 thousand of km/hr, the place where the solar wind clashes against the stellar wind. The Voyagers’ cosmic ray detector, magnetometer, plasma wave detector and low-energy charged particle detector are operational and still sending data back to Earth, as of today, June 2005. From the Sun it is expelled an uninterrupted current of neutral and electrically charged particles, which we call solar wind [......]



So its still travelling about 40 radii of the Earth every hour even at the heliopause, but I wonder if it ever really stops at any definitive point as it interacts with the surrounding plasma, so no real 'boundary' as such. Some thing highly active seems to be happening somewhere out infront of the voyager spacecraft;

http://newton.ex.ac.uk/aip/physnews.131.html
RADIO SIGNALS FROM THE HELIOPAUSE have been detected by the two Voyager spacecraft. The heliopause, where the solar wind particles streaming out from the sun meet the directional flow of interstellar-wind particles, essentially constitutes the edge of the solar system. Speaking at last week's meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Donald Gurnett of the University of Iowa provided this explanation: a powerful solar flare event in May-June 1991 caused a surge of solar-wind particles which subsequently interacted with the heliopause, setting up huge radio bursts (at more than 10**13 Watts, the most powerful radio source in the solar system) detected by the Voyagers beginning in July 1992. High in power but low in frequency (2-3 kHz), the radio signals could not be detected in the inner solar system. However, Voyager 1, at a distance of 52 AU (an astronomical unit is the distance between the Earth and sun), and Voyager 2, at 40 AU, were well placed to made a measurement. Ralph McNutt of Johns Hopkins said that from the timing of the signals the distance to the heliopause could be estimated to be between 80 and 130 AU.


"at more than 1013 Watts, the most powerful radio source in the solar system"
Are we potentially talking electrical activity in the plasma interactions between the ions in the solar wind and the surronding hot molecular cloud in the local bubble generating these Radio signals? We know that the local bubble has a temparature of 6000° C, which is the same temperature as the surface of the Sun, so theres plenty of energy there.


Who in the hell is "Zozima"?


I mean't Zosima, slip of the finger

They are right next to each other :)

[robinson]

We know that the local bubble has a temparature of 6000° C,

What?? How do we know that? And where is that enormous amount of energy coming from? Are we talking about plasma? 6000° C plasma? And it is moving at great speeds? Immense relative velocities that is?

How can we possibly know this? How much is theory? And what is the composition of the Galactic medium? And the density?

Why couldn't we detect all that radio energy? More questions. Always more questions.

I'm going to hold you to the same task I do everyone else. Do you have a source for that? The temperature you stated?

[Dancing David]

it is kinetic temperature (isn't it all) in the rarified ISM look here:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004ApJ...613.1004R

and wiki the interstellar medium

[zosima]

The expected shock from the heliosphere is expected to be ~> 100 AU I believe, Pioneer and Voyager may never reach this shock, as they aren't really travelling fast enough, and aren't going to last much longer. I find it unlikely that there will be a definitive shock region for this, the ions travelling out will filament, and all travel at varying speeds depending where they are located, so not form a definitive boundry as such. In other words, I dont think that the hydrogen wall will have a shape, but will be irratic depedning on the local conditions (current density, ionization %, pinches) and not form a visible wall or shock at all.


Technically there are three important regions. The termination shock, the heliopause, and the bow shock. In the termination shock the solar wind becomes sub-sonic. At the heliopause the pressure from the solar wind and the ISM are balanced. At the bow shock the ISM goes sub-sonic. I believe both voyagers have recently encountered the termination shock and neither have encountered the bow shock. The pioneers are going much more slowly and aren't really communicating so we'll probably never know if they do. I think Voyager 1 encountered the termination shock at around 90 AU and Voyager 2 at a distance significantly less. This is an interesting discovery as they should have been at pretty much the same distance. Although there is significant variability in solar wind speed over time...so it still needs to be investigated more to be sure what to make of it.

The distance of the bow shock will vary depending on the characteristics of the ISM. Depending on the speed and direction of the ISM, it may be more than 200 AU away, it may not exist at all. For example, Ganymede doesn't exhibit magnetospheric shocks because the plasma around Jupiter travels at subsonic speeds relative to Ganymede. Still, I think many people expect that they will see it. The termination shock, on the other hand, is very well defined and exists for the same reason we have sonic booms.


We observe plasma (mainly hydrogen and helium) being ionized and dragged into the solar wind as pickup ions. Now, are all the ions that are picked up all from our own sun? or do we share the pickup ions with the particles also ejected into the ISM from other stars too? (They surely must be shared, unless the ISM is nearly perfectly static, which we know it isn't.)


I'm sure we do pick a few ions from the ISM, but I think its never been proven. Also, we don't know if there is any sort of reconnection going on out there so that ions can flow from one field line to another. So it may be that we don't pick up a significant number, they may just be deflected. In the absence of any reconnection, its going to be more that the ISM is going to be picking up particles from the solar wind and not vice-versa.

Around the earth we can actually do really neat stuff, where we can determine that certain populations of particles are from the solar wind by their energy and the way that they gyrate around field lines. I don't think anyone has the instrumentation to do that for the ISM and the heliosphere, yet.


And another thing, I'm mainly asking Zozima, how far can you take the analogy of the heliosphere being like the relationship between the Earths magnetosphere and the solar wind? Essentially a magnetopause being created at the end of the heliosphere. The currents of ions in the ISM and surrounding hot molecular clouds would interact with the magnetopause in a similar way to the Earths interaction with the solar wind.

I guess it goes as far as it goes...A lot of the theoretical reasoning about magnetospheres follows from basic physics, though, not analogy, and generally theoretical predictions are much smoother and more regular than reality. I'm sure there will be plenty of differences, in the same way that each of the magnetospheres of each planet and moon, even comets, in our solar system are unique in their own way.

As to molecular clouds interacting with the heliosphere, I don't think anyone knows if they're any nearby 'cause they are very hard to see. We're have a hard time figuring out what big rocks are floating around out there at the moment. I imagine given enough time, the sun might pass near a nebula or another star and then things might get very interesting.

[zosima]

I just realized that a point in my previous post may have been unclear. Ionized particles(plasma) are largely deflected by the heliosphere. Neutral material can and does flow into the area bounded by the heliosphere, a large majority of the gas in our solar system is actually from the ISM.

[Zeuzzz]

At the heliopause the pressure from the solar wind and the ISM are balanced


This is what I'm not so sure of personally. In theory there should be this definitive region, but from where I see it the solar wind is a plasma and should not diffuse out into a definitive spherical morphology, as it should retain its filamentary structure as the currents in the wind interact with the the surrounding plasma currents in the ISM. From what I've seen there are many theories about the heliopause, but no sort of proof, and no detection of a definitive shock wave. Wiki says; The heliopause is the theoretical boundary where the Sun's solar wind is stopped by the interstellar medium; where the solar wind's strength is no longer great enough to push back the stellar winds of the surrounding stars.

And one of the hypothesis that it lists is; "An alternative definition is that the heliopause is the magnetopause between the solar system's magnetosphere and the galaxy's plasma currents." Which implies to me that the boundary is not as set in stone as the theory implies, local EM forces and interactions between the filaments should pervade this region, with the direction and pressure of the wind varying drastically depending on the local pressure, ionization, composition of the dust particles, EM forces, and plasma instabilities in question.



Although there is significant variability in solar wind speed over time...so it still needs to be investigated more to be sure what to make of it.



Do you have any idea why this is? What drives this solar wind acceleration? I have an idea based on some certain theories, but there may be a more tenable explanation that i've overlooked.....


I'm sure we do pick a few ions from the ISM, but I think its never been proven. Also, we don't know if there is any sort of reconnection going on out there so that ions can flow from one field line to another.




Ummm, what wavelength are the field lines are you using? I presume that your talking about magnetic reconnection? I'm not a fan of this theory, and prefer Alfvens current disruption method, partly because the reconnection rate is always arbitrarily set, positive ions are likely to be unmagnetized in the central part of the plasma sheet (indicating that the frozen-in-field concept is not valid there), the Bu approach does not include all current driven process's as Amperes law is associated with a non zero curl, and other reasons, mainly that I find the interaction of two lines that are arbitrarily put in by us somewhat meaningless. This has been discussed here before, probably best not to bring it up again, or this threads heading for a derail :) back to topic...



I thought that pickup ions at the edges of the solar system were a fairly well established effect? Its essentially a similar process to the CIV effect, but does not require as high a charge flow to be involved between the two objects in question.

Interstellar Pick-Up Ions (http://www.agu.org/revgeophys/ogilvi00/node4.html)

One of the most striking and interesting developments in the last few years has been the detection of extra-solar ions picked up by the solar wind and entrained in its flow. These ions result from the ionization in the interplanetary medium of atoms and molecules, whose source is overwhelmingly the local interstellar medium (LISM). Their presence not only allows us to study many aspects of the LISM from the solar system, but it appears that these pickup ions produce the dominant part of the particle pressure in the outer heliosphere.[....]



Physical origin of pickup currents (http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EPSC2006/00150/EPSC2006-A-00150.pdf?PHPSESSID=771a00fe2c51bb2b0adf0c2dc3e276 5a)

Voyager observations of the magnetic field, interstellar pickup ions and solar wind in the distant heliosphere (http://www.springerlink.com/content/h3701107q7722052/)

And a very similar pickup ion process on spacecraft has shown evidence of a cross current instability prodcued by the pickup ion process; http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/19507/00902235.pdf?temp=x which is another EM force that may shape the structure of the solar wind to something other than a clear defined spherical shock.


I guess my main problem is that current theories only include the possibility of outward going particles, and exclude the possibility of incoming particles to the solar system, which would effect the overall structure. We know that Solar inflow events are now a well documented phenomenon (ref (http://www.onr.navy.mil/Focus/spacesciences/research/sun.htm)), of superhot "gas" (ie, plasma) flowing into the sun, against the predominant direction of the solar wind, and these events are in an area where the ram pressure and density of the solar of the wind is very considerable, if these events can flow against this outward flow right next to the sun, it seems much more likely to be occuring on a larger scale at larger radii where the pressure is less (as density and ram pressure drop off with r as r-2). Its also known that the electrons in the solar wind tend to mill around with no preffered direction, their average velocity will be outwards with the ions in the solar wind, as they will couple with the vast majority of the protons in the solar wind due to electrostatic attraction, making any set area of the solar 'wind' overall largely neutral. However, recent discoveries of electron depletion (http://www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE/ACENews/ACENews56.html) in the solar wind due to “backstreaming electrons” flowing into the Sun from the surrounding medium were not expected, which have been found to be roughly symmetric about a 90° pitch angle relative to the heliospheric magnetic field. And SOHO has found ""jet streams" or "rivers" of hot, electrically charged gas called plasma flowing beneath the surface of the Sun." (ref (http://soi.stanford.edu/press/ssu8-97/)), much faster than would be expected from standard convection, implying electrcial activity could be shaping these fast inflows.

Backstreaming Electrons Associated With Solar Electron Bursts (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMSH44C..02S)
Solar electron bursts are frequently observed in the ACE/SWEPAM suprathermal electron measurements at energies below 1.4 keV. A significant fraction of such events show backscattered electrons, beginning after the burst onset and traveling back towards the Sun along the magnetic field direction. Such backscattered particles imply a scattering mechanism beyond the spacecraft location. Some bursts also show backstreaming conic distributions, implying mirroring at magnetic field enhancements beyond the spacecraft. Here we present a study of these backstreaming particles during solar electron events. We examine the occurrence of backstreaming electrons and their relationship to other burst characteristics such as pitch angle width, duration, and energy range.




Although you dont get much mention of particles in the solar wind travelling the opposite direction than usual, there are many separate occurences of this happening which have been attributed to various theories, which does lend credence to Alfvens heliospheric current circuit model for stars. Especially since electron depletion and backstreaming has been observed to be related to the heliospheric current sheet, and the heliospheric current sheet has been known to generate dark currents (filaments) for a good few years now "we study the typical structure, configuration, and dynamics of the interplanetary dis- turbance generated by the interaction of disappearing solar filaments with the heliospheric current sheet (HCS) and a flare using the most geoefficient (Ap = 56 nT, Dst = –166 nT) solar-activity event in 1997 as an example." (K. G. Ivanov and E. P. Romashets, 1998 (http://www.maik.ru/abstract/geomag/99/geomag2_99p135abs.htm))


how far can you take the analogy of the heliosphere being like the relationship between the Earths magnetosphere and the solar wind? Essentially a magnetopause being created at the end of the heliosphere. The currents of ions in the ISM and surrounding hot molecular clouds would interact with the magnetopause in a similar way to the Earths interaction with the solar wind.I guess it goes as far as it goes...A lot of the theoretical reasoning about magnetospheres follows from basic physics, though, not analogy, and generally theoretical predictions are much smoother and more regular than reality. I'm sure there will be plenty of differences, in the same way that each of the magnetospheres of each planet and moon, even comets, in our solar system are unique in their own way.



Thanks for the responce. My line of thinking is that if the magnetosphere of the solar system is anything like the magnetosphere of planets we now know that a vital component of magnetospheres are the Birkeland current systems that they support. All planets have very high current inputs at their poles, essentially what causes the auroras, and these currents have very recently been found to directly connect the poles of Earth to the sun, transferring over 650,000 Amps. In 2007, the Themis satellite "found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the sun [in which] a burst of electrical current within the solar wind will hit the bow shock and—Bang! We get an explosion" (ref (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights.html), ref (http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/16987) A few interesting models that try to build a full Birkeland current circuit for planets magnetospheres based on the charge transfer and EM forces between them have been proposed previously, but I dont think that any conclusive models have been put forward as of yet (though, I may be wrong on this)


http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1998/97JA02880.shtml
Inclusion of shielded Birkeland currents in a model magnetosphere

We have developed a technique for including large-scale magnetospheric current systems in magnetic field models. In this paper, we incorporate the Region I and Region II Birkeland current systems into the Source Surface Model (SSM) of the terrestrial magnetosphere. The original SSM was a prescribed-magnetopause model that used a spherical harmonic expansion and a variational principle to obtain the magnetic field in the near-Earth region. The magnetic field produced by these currents is calculated from the Biot-Savart law and its normal component on the surface of the magnetopause is shielded (minimized) by image currents carried on wires placed outside the magnetosphere. [...]



Heres a few more publications which consider this circuit based approach (Alfvens type of approach) to Birkeland current formations in magnetospheres;

Mercury's Birkeland current system (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AdSpR..33.2172I)

Birkeland current system key parameters derived from Iridium observations (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002JGRA..107.1079A)

Auroral structures at Jupiter and Earth (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AdSpR..33.2021H)

Alfvén wave coupling in the auroral current circuit (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002SGeo...23..335V)

What Supports Parallel Electric Fields in Birkeland Current Regions? (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMSM51D..05J)

Transition current systems in the Earth’s and Saturn’s magnetospheres (http://www.springerlink.com/content/24645349340tu14w/)


I believe that the full birkeland current circuit of magnetospheres is still an open question, but the incoming current input into the poles of planets seems to be consistant with all local magnetospheres, and so should imply that a similar effect occurs on the sun. Radio waves, ultra violet radiation and polar jets are all known to emanate from the suns poles, and what causes coronal holes is also considered a bit of a mystery. And the observation of bright points on the suns poles and the consequent activity certainly implies this.

http://www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/~db2/Culhane_PASJ07.pdf
A number of coronal bright points and associated plasma jet features were seen in an observation of the South polar coronal hole during 2007 January. The 4000 wide slot was used at the focus of the Hinode EUV Imaging
Spectrometer to provide spectral images for two of these events. [...]



Which is nearly exactly what has been observed on Jupiter, this same type of bright spot directly on the pole;

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/animation/PIA03452
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/browse/PIA03452.gif

http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/9418/0001xrayoptuvmedfo1.jpg



So could the sun contain similar Birkeland current formations thoughout the solar system in its magnetosphere? Just like the currents we know enter the planets from their various magnetospheric current systems. I think its likely, we only just discovered the currents right here on Earth, its going to be a lot harder to assertain the current system of the sun where the background radiation makes it harder to see whats going on than on planets. And the currents seemingly only become energetic enough to become visible in the corona, right next to the sun, they are more diffuse further out and so are very hard to detect, often reffered to as 'dark currents' as they emit no known detectable radiation [like the ones connecting the Earth to the sun which are very hard to see]. If this does turn out correct, it has implications for the nuclear fusion model of stars and their lifetimes, as the source of the suns energy may be from an external source, from particles in the local galactic environment, not burning up exclusively internal energy it already possesses. This is probably why the idea was dismissed initially, and due to Alfvens other controversial ideas too...

The question that remains is what is the definitive solar circuit? Is the current reversable in this system, does it work both ways? Can properties of this varying current input explain the suns 22 year cycle? (see this: Does the solar wind affect the solar cycle? (http://butch.engin.umich.edu/CSEM/Publications/Israelevich-AA-2000.pdf)) Or the reversal of polarity? I think that many of the outstanding questions of solar physics could be answered by applying the effects of the heliospheric current circuit to current models.


As to molecular clouds interacting with the heliosphere, I don't think anyone knows if they're any nearby 'cause they are very hard to see. We're have a hard time figuring out what big rocks are floating around out there at the moment. I imagine given enough time, the sun might pass near a nebula or another star and then things might get very interesting.



Hopefully. Lack of data from distant regions, especially in areas like space boundary plasma physics, are where many of the unsolved issues in astrophysics remain. These areas emit so little of anything its very hard to build up a definitive picture of whats occuring there, all we have are various theories. Just some theories are more favorable than others in my opinion.

[robinson]

It seems to me, and this is just me of course, that we have this huge difficulty in observing what is actually there, as well as what interactions are occurring, because the two main forces responsible for stuff, gravity and EM, are both invisible. We can only know stuff if there is something there reacting, or something there radiating EM that can reach us, or if we can get a probe to the area, to measure stuff.

Which is obvious of course. But with something like the solar wind and the IM, as well as the boundaries of the magnetic fields, we can't see or measure what is there, much less the interactions.

And what is the deal with plasmas? Some are invisible, some are opaque, some emit UV, some emit X-rays, some emit visible light, some absorb and emit EM, and some are complete unknowns.

There could be vast amounts of plasmas right in front of us, and we don't know it. In fact, there are vast amounts, as well as EM fields, all over the damn Universe, and we can't see it.

I think. Does anyone have a reference source that tells what the characteristics of plasmas are? Like Hydrogen for starters.

Is there a chart or graph that shows what the emissions, and absorption spectrum's are, for all the different states of Hydrogen?

Is that even a valid question?

I am wondering what a "cloud" of Hydrogen gas "looks" like at different temperatures. Of course above a certain temperature it becomes plasma, but still, isn't that the kind of information that is actually known?

But then we have the issue of it being way out in space, possibly contained by magnetic fields, moving, very thin, low pressure, high temperature.

Then add in oxygen and other gases. Or worse, just a bunch of protons and electrons, not even a gas really. (Yeah I know, a single proton or a single electron is considered an ionized hydrogen atom, but you know what I mean)

What does a cloud of protons and electrons look like? At different temperatures? Different pressures? Or really cold?

Who would know the answer to these questions? Is this plasma physics? Does anyone study this sort of thing?

[Zeuzzz]

It seems to me, and this is just me of course, that we have this huge difficulty in observing what is actually there, as well as what interactions are occurring, because the two main forces responsible for stuff, gravity and EM, are both invisible. We can only know stuff if there is something there reacting, or something there radiating EM that can reach us, or if we can get a probe to the area, to measure stuff.



Yep, thats what makes astonomy different to most other areas of science. There is no direct control experiment that can be performed, so you have to base your theory on various assumptions that could, or could not, be true.


And what is the deal with plasmas? Some are invisible, some are opaque, some emit UV, some emit X-rays, some emit visible light, some absorb and emit EM, and some are complete unknowns.

There could be vast amounts of plasmas right in front of us, and we don't know it. In fact, there are vast amounts, as well as EM fields, all over the damn Universe, and we can't see it.


Thats why plasmas are so fascinating, as many of their properties are very strange in comparison to any process's that occur in the other states of matter, very complex, and hard to model. See this off the wiki page;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)
Complex plasma phenomena

Although the underlying equations governing plasmas are relatively simple, plasma behaviour is extraordinarily varied and subtle: the emergence of unexpected behaviour from a simple model is a typical feature of a complex system. Such systems lie in some sense on the boundary between ordered and disordered behaviour, and cannot typically be described either by simple, smooth, mathematical functions, or by pure randomness. The spontaneous formation of interesting spatial features on a wide range of length scales is one manifestation of plasma complexity. The features are interesting, for example, because they are very sharp, spatially intermittent (the distance between features is much larger than the features themselves), or have a fractal form. Many of these features were first studied in the laboratory, and have subsequently been recognised throughout the universe. Examples of complexity and complex structures in plasmas include: [....]



And what determines if a plasma is visible is mainly the current density, and the surrounding interference from other sources. All plasma tends to emit radiation, but most of it is way beyond what we can currently detect, we only find it easy to analyse areas where the plasma density is very dense, like stars, or very large nebulae. And plasma has three main modes of operation, this quote may clarify this a bit better than me;


Plasma (http://www.electric-cosmos.org/electricplasma.htm)
Basic Properties: Modes of Operation

There are three distinctly different steady state modes in which a plasma can operate:

1. Dark Current Mode - The strength of the electrical current (flow of charged particles) within the plasma is very low. The plasma does not glow. It is essentially invisible. We would not know a plasma was there at all unless we measured its electrical activity with sensitive instruments. The present day magnetospheres of the planets are examples of plasmas operating in the dark current mode.

2. Normal Glow Mode - The strength of the electrical current (flow of charged particles) is significant. The entire plasma glows. The brightness of the glow depends on the intensity of the current in the plasma. Examples: Any neon sign. Emission nebulae. The Sun's corona.

3. Arc Mode - The strength of the electrical current in the plasma is very high. The plasma radiates brilliantly over a wide spectrum. Current tends to form twisting filaments. Examples of this mode of operation are: An electric arc welding machine. Lightning. The Sun's photosphere.

In all three modes of operation, plasmas emit measurable electromagnetic radiation (radio frequency noise). At any given time, the current density (Amps per square meter) existing in the plasma, determines which particular mode a plasma is operating in. The atomic structure of the gas that became ionized to form the plasma in the first place also is a factor in this.


And the plasma's electron frequency plays a role in the color produced from what I can remember, which is to do with changing the photon transitions around the nucleus. But some plasma's are opaque and see through, so it gets more complex than simple modes of operation after that, with many other factors likely at work.

I think. Does anyone have a reference source that tells what the characteristics of plasmas are? Like Hydrogen for starters.

Is there a chart or graph that shows what the emissions, and absorption spectrum's are, for all the different states of Hydrogen?

Is that even a valid question?

I am wondering what a "cloud" of Hydrogen gas "looks" like at different temperatures. Of course above a certain temperature it becomes plasma, but still, isn't that the kind of information that is actually known?

But then we have the issue of it being way out in space, possibly contained by magnetic fields, moving, very thin, low pressure, high temperature.

Then add in oxygen and other gases. Or worse, just a bunch of protons and electrons, not even a gas really. (Yeah I know, a single proton or a single electron is considered an ionized hydrogen atom, but you know what I mean)

What does a cloud of protons and electrons look like? At different temperatures? Different pressures? Or really cold?

Who would know the answer to these questions? Is this plasma physics? Does anyone study this sort of thing?



Valid questions, I'm sure, but there will be no straight forward answer I wouldn't think, plasmas are very erratic, which makes it a whole lot more complex than single reason answers to most things. Theres probably numerous reasons why certain plasmas are visible, why they take the shapes they do, the colors, pressures, temparatures, etc. Yes. That would be plasma physics. :)


http://plasmascience.net/tpu/fund_state.html
On our planet, we inhabit a calm little oasis of ordinary solids, liquids and gases that is immersed in a perpetually blowing, roiling, flaring erupting substance of a very different kind, called plasma. Sometimes called the fundamental state of matter to distinguish it from its tamer cousins, plasma makes up more than 99 percent of the visible universe. The plasma side of the cosmic ledger includes the seething atmospheres and interiors of stars, the wind of particles that our sun flings outward into space, Earth’s cocoon-like magnetosphere, the tenuous wasteland between stars and galaxies, and fantastically energetic displays such as quasars, supernovas and parts of the compact spinning stars that spray out beams of x-rays like some kind of hellish fire hose.

When they are artificially produced and bottled up here on Earth, plasmas turn out to be extremely useful. We create plasmas each time we flip on a fluorescent light or a neon sign. Plasmas etch the tiniest circuit features on the microprocessor chips that are at the heart of our desktop computers. Carefully controlled clouds of plasma can "rain", or deposit, thin layers of materials onto surfaces as a crucial step in manufacturing industrial diamonds and superconducting films. Particle accelerators much more compact and powerful than any now in existence could emerge from experiments that are using intense plasma waves to push electrons up to relativistic speeds. Jets of plasma spin and maneuver orbiting satellites. Even without leaving Earth’s surface, however, laboratory experiments can shed light on the wider universe of plasma phenomena, as when the shock waves produced by laser beams striking a small spec of plasma help unravel the dynamics of an exploding star.

But no matter how cleverly we try to harness them, plasma sometimes revert to their unruly nature: Only after decades of research have physicists learned, by fits and starts, how to confine a plasma that is hotter than the sun’s core, with the goal of producing large power plants using the same processes that causes the sun and stars to shine a phenomena called thermonuclear fusion. The long struggle to make a practical fusion devices partly reflects the challenge inherent in understanding plasma theoretically. Plasmas are so complex, equally rich in physics and frustration, that they often beggar all description, even by the most sophisticated theories and the most powerful supercomputers. (Adapted from James Glanz, The Pervasive State of Matter)

[DeiRenDopa]

It seems to me, and this is just me of course, that we have this huge difficulty in observing what is actually there, as well as what interactions are occurring, because the two main forces responsible for stuff, gravity and EM, are both invisible. We can only know stuff if there is something there reacting, or something there radiating EM that can reach us, or if we can get a probe to the area, to measure stuff.

Which is obvious of course. But with something like the solar wind and the IM, as well as the boundaries of the magnetic fields, we can't see or measure what is there, much less the interactions.

And what is the deal with plasmas? Some are invisible, some are opaque, some emit UV, some emit X-rays, some emit visible light, some absorb and emit EM, and some are complete unknowns.

There could be vast amounts of plasmas right in front of us, and we don't know it. In fact, there are vast amounts, as well as EM fields, all over the damn Universe, and we can't see it.

I think. Does anyone have a reference source that tells what the characteristics of plasmas are? Like Hydrogen for starters.

Is there a chart or graph that shows what the emissions, and absorption spectrum's are, for all the different states of Hydrogen?

Is that even a valid question?

I am wondering what a "cloud" of Hydrogen gas "looks" like at different temperatures. Of course above a certain temperature it becomes plasma, but still, isn't that the kind of information that is actually known?

But then we have the issue of it being way out in space, possibly contained by magnetic fields, moving, very thin, low pressure, high temperature.

Then add in oxygen and other gases. Or worse, just a bunch of protons and electrons, not even a gas really. (Yeah I know, a single proton or a single electron is considered an ionized hydrogen atom, but you know what I mean)

What does a cloud of protons and electrons look like? At different temperatures? Different pressures? Or really cold?

Who would know the answer to these questions? Is this plasma physics? Does anyone study this sort of thing?robinson,

For you, the central question must surely be "how do I, robinson, make decisions about reality, based on what I read?"?

Unless you can give me a clear, unambiguous answer to that question (or something similar), then I feel answering your post (which contains many very good questions, by the way) is pointless.

-------------------------------------------------------
For others who may be reading this ...

The composition of baryonic matter beyond the solar system can be inferred from analysis of photons (or electromagnetic radiation) detected by instruments here on Earth or in space. For much of the solar system, composition can be determined by analysis of signals sent back by space probes which contain in situ instruments (both the coded content of those signals and the signals themselves, as photons) and, in a few cases, by analyses in labs of matter from space (e.g. Genesis, Stardust, meteorites).

The principal tool for inferring the baryonic composition of matter beyond the solar system is spectroscopy.

Spectroscopy is built on the most accurately tested theory of modern physics, Quantum Electrodynamics (QED for short), which itself incorporates quantum theory and special relativity.

If any reader would like some details of this technique, please just ask.

Note that there are other techniques used to infer the composition of baryonic matter, but they all, of necessity, involve the detection of photons (or electromagnetic radiation, EMR). Note that EMR has properties called 'wavelength' (or 'frequency'), 'intensity', and 'polarisation'.

Spectroscopy can also be used to estimate physical characteristics (of baryonic matter beyond the solar system) such as pressure, temperature, magnetic field strength, and even whether that matter is in something called 'thermodynamic equilibrium'.

[zosima]

A quick note at the top, I appreciate all your well considered feedback and I try to cover it as well as possible, although I might miss some stuff as there is a lot of material.

This is what I'm not so sure of personally. In theory there should be this definitive region, but from where I see it the solar wind is a plasma and should not diffuse out into a definitive spherical morphology, as it should retain its filamentary structure as the currents in the wind interact with the the surrounding plasma currents in the ISM. From what I've seen there are many theories about the heliopause, but no sort of proof, and no detection of a definitive shock wave. Wiki says; The heliopause is the theoretical boundary where the Sun's solar wind is stopped by the interstellar medium; where the solar wind's strength is no longer great enough to push back the stellar winds of the surrounding stars.

And one of the hypothesis that it lists is; "An alternative definition is that the heliopause is the magnetopause between the solar system's magnetosphere and the galaxy's plasma currents." Which implies to me that the boundary is not as set in stone as the theory implies, local EM forces and interactions between the filaments should pervade this region, with the direction and pressure of the wind varying drastically depending on the local pressure, ionization, composition of the dust particles, EM forces, and plasma instabilities in question.

There shouldn't be an shock at the heliopause. The shocks occur at the termination shock and bow shock if it exists. The bow shock only exists if the ISM is effectively supersonic. The biggest variable we're not sure of is what the strength of the Interstellar Magnetic Field is. If large enough it will allow the shock of the bow shock to be propagated away along the magnetic field lines faster than it can build up. Meaning no shock. I believe I read it would need to be ~5 nT for this to occur.

I suppose you could define it three ways, you could look at the balance of magnetic pressure(PB), the balance of thermal or particle pressure (Pp), or the balance of total pressure (Pt = Pp + PB). Generally when we talk about balanced pressure at the magnetopause of earth we're talking about the balance between dynamic solar wind pressure and the magnetic pressure(Pdyn = PB), it would be the same at the heliopause.

I don't think you should take this as evidence that the region isn't dynamic, most plasma regions are. As I think I already mentioned there is at least a static distortion in the shape of the termination shock(it was measured at two different distances) but that may very well be a dynamic effect. The definitions I gave above are how any 'pause' is defined for the heliosphere or the earth or any other magnetosphere. I'm not sure if we'll see any 'filamentary infiltration' but who knows.

A major dynamic effect we see in the sunward side of the earth's magnetosphere is reconnection and the formation of flux ropes and tubes.


Do you have any idea why this is? What drives this solar wind acceleration? I have an idea based on some certain theories, but there may be a more tenable explanation that i've overlooked.....


Well the sun has very dynamic behavior, I think as the sun forms sunspots and cycles through its normal variation the speed of solar wind changes. The solar wind is accelerated via thermal and magnetic effects in the corona.

We just look at the average solar wind speed. I think there also tends to be two different populations of solar wind. A slow solar wind that travels at ~300 km/s and a fast one that travels at ~800 km/s. Depending on how these streams interact you can get variability in the wind as well.


Ummm, what wavelength are the field lines are you using? I presume that your talking about magnetic reconnection? I'm not a fan of this theory, and prefer Alfvens current disruption method, partly because the reconnection rate is always arbitrarily set, positive ions are likely to be unmagnetized in the central part of the plasma sheet (indicating that the frozen-in-field concept is not valid there), the Bu approach does not include all current driven process's as Amperes law is associated with a non zero curl, and other reasons, mainly that I find the interaction of two lines that are arbitrarily put in by us somewhat meaningless. This has been discussed here before, probably best not to bring it up again, or this threads heading for a derail :) back to topic...

I realized that my previous statement could have been unclear which is why I added the second post. Neutral particles flow in, they can later be ionized inside the heliosphere generally by photoionization and then they enter the heliosphere proper.

What I was talking about was whether ionized particles enter from the ISM. Like the earth ionized particles should be deflected unless field lines reconnect(yes, magnetic reconnection) then particles from the ISM(or IPM at earth) can flow into the magnetosphere by threading along the field line.

On the issue of current disruption v. magnetic reconnection. They are being studied in the earth's magnetosphere intensely using the THEMIS satellite constellation, right now. So it is an open question. Either way studying plasmas is very tricky, so if we don't use approximations like frozen in flux we're not going to be able to get anywhere and strong evidence suggests that it is generally correct. (For example the Parker model of solar wind in the Heliosphere) The issue with the two around earth is whether we get current disruption before or after magnetic reconnection, both effects exist. What is being studied is which drives which.

If you suggest that reconnection is driven by current disruption in the outer heliosphere, though, then it seems unlikely that there will ever be much reconnection there, as the heliopause seems to be much more symmetrical than the magnetopause(shorter tail) giving less opportunity for disruption. (In the magnetopause current disruption starts in the tail. If current disruption is true the wavefront of propagates forward to the reconnection site. If not reconnection happens spontaneously close in and propagates out until it disrupts current in the magnetotail.


I thought that pickup ions at the edges of the solar system were a fairly well established effect? Its essentially a similar process to the CIV effect, but does not require as high a charge flow to be involved between the two objects in question.

Interstellar Pick-Up Ions (http://www.agu.org/revgeophys/ogilvi00/node4.html)



As mentioned above, I understand this to be as a result of ionization of neutral LISM that has already traveled within the bounds of heliosphere. As the majority of neutral material is from the LISM, the majority of ionized material will be from the LISM. This is different than ions crossing the heliopause.


I guess my main problem is that current theories only include the possibility of outward going particles, and exclude the possibility of incoming particles to the solar system, which would effect the overall structure. We know that Solar inflow events are now a well documented phenomenon (ref (http://www.onr.navy.mil/Focus/spacesciences/research/sun.htm)), of superhot "gas" (ie, plasma) flowing into the sun, against the predominant direction of the solar wind, and these events are in an area where the ram pressure and density of the solar of the wind is very considerable, if these events can flow against this outward flow right next to the sun, it seems much more likely to be occuring on a larger scale at larger radii where the pressure is less (as density and ram pressure drop off with r as r-2). Its also known that the electrons in the solar wind tend to mill around with no preffered direction, their average velocity will be outwards with the ions in the solar wind, as they will couple with the vast majority of the protons in the solar wind due to electrostatic attraction, making any set area of the solar 'wind' overall largely neutral. However, recent discoveries of electron depletion (http://www.srl.caltech.edu/ACE/ACENews/ACENews56.html) in the solar wind due to “backstreaming electrons” flowing into the Sun from the surrounding medium were not expected, which have been found to be roughly symmetric about a 90° pitch angle relative to the heliospheric magnetic field. And SOHO has found ""jet streams" or "rivers" of hot, electrically charged gas called plasma flowing beneath the surface of the Sun." (ref (http://soi.stanford.edu/press/ssu8-97/)), much faster than would be expected from standard convection, implying electrcial activity could be shaping these fast inflows.


As your evidence indicates, it is entirely possible to have inward flows, but insofar as the sun is concerned those need to be relatively close. (10s of solar radii or less).

Close to the sun the externally imposed magnetic field(sun stellar dynamo) is strong enough that it can drive the flow of the plasma. As you move further away from the sun, though, the externally imposed magnetic field drops off at 1/r3. What this means is that quickly the magnetic field generated by the motion of the plasma itself begins to dominate over the externally imposed field. The Sun's field lines become frozen in flux to the solar wind and the IPM becomes a mix of field generated externally by the sun and field generated internally by the solar wind itself. At that point the dynamics are not really such that strong inflows are likely to occur. We know that this is true because the IPM does not drop off at 1/r3. This means that the majority of the field must be coming from the plasma.


Although you dont get much mention of particles in the solar wind travelling the opposite direction than usual, there are many separate occurences of this happening which have been attributed to various theories, which does lend credence to Alfvens heliospheric current circuit model for stars. Especially since electron depletion and backstreaming has been observed to be related to the heliospheric current sheet, and the heliospheric current sheet has been known to generate dark currents (filaments) for a good few years now "we study the typical structure, configuration, and dynamics of the interplanetary dis- turbance generated by the interaction of disappearing solar filaments with the heliospheric current sheet (HCS) and a flare using the most geoefficient (Ap = 56 nT, Dst = –166 nT) solar-activity event in 1997 as an example." (K. G. Ivanov and E. P. Romashets, 1998 (http://www.maik.ru/abstract/geomag/99/geomag2_99p135abs.htm))


As I've mentioned before, the heliosphere is a very dynamic place, but intermittent electron beams are very different than a steady current.


Thanks for the responce. My line of thinking is that if the magnetosphere of the solar system is anything like the magnetosphere of planets we now know that a vital component of magnetospheres are the Birkeland current systems that they support. All planets have very high current inputs at their poles, essentially what causes the auroras, and these currents have very recently been found to directly connect the poles of Earth to the sun, transferring over 650,000 Amps. In 2007, the Themis satellite "found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the sun [in which] a burst of electrical current within the solar wind will hit the bow shock and—Bang! We get an explosion" (ref (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights.html), ref (http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/16987) A few interesting models that try to build a full Birkeland current circuit for planets magnetospheres based on the charge transfer and EM forces between them have been proposed previously, but I dont think that any conclusive models have been put forward as of yet (though, I may be wrong on this)

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1998/97JA02880.shtml


It warms the innermost cockles of my heart to see you quoting THEMIS data. I've spent a lot of time looking at the 2007-03-23 event data. Certainly the plasma environment is very interesting and we're always learning more new and interesting things. You should make sure to note though, that this is not a persistent happening this was a single event.


The question that remains is what is the definitive solar circuit? Is the current reversable in this system, does it work both ways? Can properties of this varying current input explain the suns 22 year cycle? (see this: Does the solar wind affect the solar cycle? (http://butch.engin.umich.edu/CSEM/Publications/Israelevich-AA-2000.pdf)) Or the reversal of polarity? I think that many of the outstanding questions of solar physics could be answered by applying the effects of the heliospheric current circuit to current models.


I'm sure there are Birkeland currents, you get one whenever you've got plasma moving through magnetic field lines. I'm sure you get closed currents as well. Like I mentioned in the other thread, there is almost certainly a Heliospheric analog to the ring current(that creates the Van Allen Belts on earth). The variations in the solar cycle and change in polarity necessarily have something to do with dynamic electromagnetic effects.

What I'm confused about it why you're so behind this rather ancient idea of the heliospheric current circuit that Alfven came up with? The idea that there are strong inflows on the ecliptic. It doesn't seem like the evidence supports this as much as other models. Even if it does exists it is not nearly strong enough to power anything like the 'electric star' model the current density in this circuit would be 9 or 10 orders of magnitude lower than that within the actual sun proper.

I should end with a small note. I don't think there is any sort of intentional bias against current models in space physics. The biggest reason you don't see people talking about them is that they are hard to detect. magnetometers and electric field instruments are much more reliable and easier to analyze. The particle instruments on satellites(which measure proton and electron velocity distributions, ie currents), are much more complex, much more subject to contamination, and much harder to analyze. Even if you've got the data well controlled it can be difficult to verify a large scale current without multiple simultaneous measurements. So people talk less about them, and infer them from other measurements(most often bulk plasma movements and magnetic field measurements) rather than observe them directly.

[robinson]

Your question is too simplistic. There isn't any one "rule" that can be used to make decisions about reality, especially when it comes to astronomy, the most nebulous of "sciences", which relies almost completely on theory and observations of very distant objects and events.

Our view of what is, what is happening, and how did it come about, changes with new data, better instruments, and more time spent observing, as well as new discoveries, which often are surprising to some.

The questions about "what is there", is one of the most important ones, in regards to what is there waaaay out there in spacetime from us.

Absorption lines and re-emission of energy don't allow for surety of knowledge about how much plasma there is, between us and a distant object. Even more so for magnetic fields and currents.

The recent discovery of "huge, twisted magnetic ropes", connecting the earth's magnetic field to the sun, is a good example of how something can be vast, powerful, yet invisible. This is something right there in front of us. Yet it is "surprising" when we finally get hard evidence to show us what is going on.

So when somebody acts like they know what is going on in a distant Galaxy, a million light years away, it is pretty funny.

Same thing applies to our own Galaxy. We know very little about it, in regards to the EM fields, currents, plasmas and other invisible events.

The good things is, as we advance our sensors, we do learn more stuff. Some very cool stuff. The discovery of plasmas flowing between young stars will change the entire theory about star formation.

What holds us back, is when somebody thinks they know it all, and won't even look for the invisible.

[Zeuzzz]

Your question is too simplistic. There isn't any one "rule" that can be used to make decisions about reality, especially when it comes to astronomy, the most nebulous of "sciences", which relies almost completely on theory and observations of very distant objects and events.

Our view of what is, what is happening, and how did it come about, changes with new data, better instruments, and more time spent observing, as well as new discoveries, which often are surprising to some.

The questions about "what is there", is one of the most important ones, in regards to what is there waaaay out there in spacetime from us.

Absorption lines and re-emission of energy don't allow for surety of knowledge about how much plasma there is, between us and a distant object. Even more so for magnetic fields and currents.

The recent discovery of "huge, twisted magnetic ropes", connecting the earth's magnetic field to the sun, is a good example of how something can be vast, powerful, yet invisible. This is something right there in front of us. Yet it is "surprising" when we finally get hard evidence to show us what is going on.

So when somebody acts like they know what is going on in a distant Galaxy, a million light years away, it is pretty funny.

Same thing applies to our own Galaxy. We know very little about it, in regards to the EM fields, currents, plasmas and other invisible events.

The good things is, as we advance our sensors, we do learn more stuff. Some very cool stuff. The discovery of plasmas flowing between young stars will change the entire theory about star formation.

What holds us back, is when somebody thinks they know it all, and won't even look for the invisible.



Spot on :thumbsup: couldn't have put it better myself.


....And thanks for the above lengthy responce Zosima, I'll try to reply as soon as possible....

[Tubbythin]

So when somebody acts like they know what is going on in a distant Galaxy, a million light years away, it is pretty funny.


In galactic terms a million light years is pretty close. In fact its nearer than our closest spiral cousin, Andromeda.


You also need to be careful your arguments don't turn in to the old "we don't know everything therefore we don't know anything" type.

[Reality Check]

Your question is too simplistic. There isn't any one "rule" that can be used to make decisions about reality, especially when it comes to astronomy, the most nebulous of "sciences", which relies almost completely on theory and observations of very distant objects and events.

Our view of what is, what is happening, and how did it come about, changes with new data, better instruments, and more time spent observing, as well as new discoveries, which often are surprising to some.

The questions about "what is there", is one of the most important ones, in regards to what is there waaaay out there in spacetime from us.

Absorption lines and re-emission of energy don't allow for surety of knowledge about how much plasma there is, between us and a distant object. Even more so for magnetic fields and currents.

The recent discovery of "huge, twisted magnetic ropes", connecting the earth's magnetic field to the sun, is a good example of how something can be vast, powerful, yet invisible. This is something right there in front of us. Yet it is "surprising" when we finally get hard evidence to show us what is going on.

So when somebody acts like they know what is going on in a distant Galaxy, a million light years away, it is pretty funny.

Same thing applies to our own Galaxy. We know very little about it, in regards to the EM fields, currents, plasmas and other invisible events.

The good things is, as we advance our sensors, we do learn more stuff. Some very cool stuff. The discovery of plasmas flowing between young stars will change the entire theory about star formation.

What holds us back, is when somebody thinks they know it all, and won't even look for the invisible.
Luckily scientists and especially astronomers know that the universe is a big, complex place with all sorts of interesting phenomena. So they go looking for them and we get the benefit of some awe-inspiring discoveries.

One small point: The plasma flows that you mention (Million-Degree Plasma May Flow throughout the Galaxy (http://www.physorg.com/news121602545.html)) are not really between the individual stars. The plasma flow in the article is between the Orion Nebula and the adjacent interstellar medium (toward the nearby Eridanus superbubble).

[DeiRenDopa]

Your question is too simplistic.If you say so.

But the question still remains: what criteria do you, robinson, use to evaluate what you read about things beyond the solar system ...

... and even those within it, that are not 'tasted' by an in situ instrument

... and even for those, where the instrument is not returned to Earth.

There isn't any one "rule" that can be used to make decisions about reality, especially when it comes to astronomy, the most nebulous of "sciences", which relies almost completely on theory and observations of very distant objects and events.Indeed.

However, given your posting record, which anyone can examine, the questions start much, much closer to home.

Take HIPPARCOS (http://www.rssd.esa.int/index.php?project=HIPPARCOS), for example.

What could possibly be simpler than observing parallax and 'proper motion'?

Yet to derive each star's parallax and proper motion, a very great deal of processing of data is (was) required.

And how should that 'data' be processed?

Leaving aside the long, long, long chains of boring old communications technology (and the underlying physics) that enables a robinson to receive signals from HIPPARCOS and decode them, estimating a star's parallax and proper motion requires acceptance of just about every chapter of the modern physics textbook! Including General Relativity!!

So before anyone with anything like robinson's* amply documented scepticism can accept anything from almost any modern astronomical facility/telescope/instrument/etc, there is an unavoidable requirement to accept all the great amount of physics that went into the actual observations themselves! :eye-poppi

And the cruel irony (or not, YMMV) is that robinson is, apparently, blissfully unaware that almost everything he writes about astronomy (etc) presupposes the accuracy of almost all of modern physics.

Kinda funny, in a sad way, isn't it?

Our view of what is, what is happening, and how did it come about, changes with new data, better instruments, and more time spent observing, as well as new discoveries, which often are surprising to some.In other words, just like any other branch of science ...


The questions about "what is there", is one of the most important ones, in regards to what is there waaaay out there in spacetime from us.As I have just explained, only if you buy into the whole of the modern physics textbook ... there is no half-way house; either you accept (almost) all of modern physics, and what is waaaay out there follows logically, or you don't, and it doesn't.

At a very fundamental level, this is all about consistency and a simple cosmological principle: physics rules the same way, everywhere and everywhen in the universe, period.

You reject the consistency (or, like PC proponents, regard it as essentially optional), then you are also declaring that the internet works by magic (to take just one example; assuming that logical consistency is essential).


Absorption lines and re-emission of energy don't allow for surety of knowledge about how much plasma there is, between us and a distant object. Even more so for magnetic fields and currents.Is ignorance truly bliss, robinson?


The recent discovery of "huge, twisted magnetic ropes", connecting the earth's magnetic field to the sun, is a good example of how something can be vast, powerful, yet invisible. This is something right there in front of us. Yet it is "surprising" when we finally get hard evidence to show us what is going on.No doubt you were even more astonished when you learned that your DNA contains hundreds (thousands?) of inactive viruses, or that there are more species of bacteria (and archaea?) in a cc of soil from your garden than multi-cellular organisms in the whole of the garden?


So when somebody acts like they know what is going on in a distant Galaxy, a million light years away, it is pretty funny.

... snip ...Perhaps.

It is even funnier when someone acts like they believe certain images somehow represent something called 'a distant Galaxy, a million light years away' without even acknowledging that this belief requires acceptance of just about the whole of the modern physics textbook (and that consistency matters, big time).

(to be continued ... maybe)

*much the same applies to both Zeuzzz and BeAChooser too

[robinson]

In galactic terms a million light years is pretty close. In fact its nearer than our closest spiral cousin, Andromeda.


Yeah, I was going to edit that post, because I didn't include who I was responding to, and life intruded, so I didn't get a chance to clean it up. My bad. I meant to write "A hundred million light years", which makes more sense. I also was going to add some more stuff, but oh well, life is so intrusive at times. It interrupts the important stuff, which is writing stuff on a message board.

[nitpick]You also need to be careful your arguments don't turn in to the old "we don't know everything therefore we don't know anything" type.

Ha! These days it is more like "There is so much new stuff, I don't know half of what is known, nor do I have time to keep up."

Now I have to go wade through a long DDR post, to see if he answered any of the questions. Based on experience, there will be little chance of that. But hope springs eternal.

[robinson]

Nope, nothing of any use.

Does anybody have any idea where to find our what the characteristics of plasmas are? In regards to absorption, emission, and how it changes with temperature?

I would be happy with just Hydrogen, but that isn't the only thing out there.

As a practical example, what is the absorption spectra of the solar wind? Does it have one? How can you tell if you are looking through a cloud of plasma like what the sun puts out? And does it change with density?

Near the sun, where it is thick and highly energetic, can we see an abosrption spectrum of light passing through it? How about out near the orbit of Neptune? Where it is obviously thinner. Is it also less energetic? Does the solar wind lose energy, temperature wise. as it gets farthr away from the sun?

How is that even measured? Can we measure it?

I know we had to put a satellite out there to capture a mass ejection, to see what it was made of. Without actually having a sensor in the path of a plasma, or ejection mass, is there any way to measure it? To even see it?

One small point: The plasma flows that you mention (Million-Degree Plasma May Flow throughout the Galaxy (http://www.physorg.com/news121602545.html)) are not really between the individual stars. The plasma flow in the article is between the Orion Nebula and the adjacent interstellar medium (toward the nearby Eridanus superbubble).

Is that more, or less amazing? I'm not quite sure. It is a lot of plasma, right? And it is moving a huge distance, right? How fast is it moving? How much is there? Where did it come from? Where is it going and what will happen at the other end?

I don't expect you to know all those questions, I just wonder about stuff like that. I tend to accept what the authors say, not being an expert, or even a very good amateur in such matters. If they say it changes how we look at star formation, I tend to just nod my head, and go, uh huh", but I really don't know what they mean.

[Reality Check]

The title of the article may be misleading. The title of the actual paper is Million-Degree Plasma Pervading the Extended Orion Nebula (http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.0476v1) and its abstract is:
Most stars form as members of large associations within dense, very cold (10-100 K) molecular clouds. The nearby giant molecular cloud in Orion hosts several thousand stars of ages less than a few million years, many of which are located in or around the famous Orion Nebula, a prominent gas structure illuminated and ionized by a small group of massive stars (the Trapezium). We present X-ray observations obtained with the X-ray Multi-Mirror satellite XMM-Newton revealing that a hot plasma with a temperature of 1.7-2.1 million K pervades the southwest extension of the nebula. The plasma, originating in the strong stellar winds from the Trapezium, flows into the adjacent interstellar medium. This X-ray outflow phenomenon must be widespread throughout our Galaxy.

Reading the paper reveals "a total mass in the hot gas of of 0.07" solar masses quoted in the body of the paper but an "observed plasma mass" of 0.007 solar masses in a later table.
There is "a plasma bulk velocity of a few 10 km s-1".
The observed hot plasma is within a sphere with a diameter of ~3.5 parasecs. The source of the plasma is the Trapezium.
No one knows where it is going but "The most likely outlet for the X-ray flow is the nearby Eridanus superbubble discovered by the Röntgen satellite (ROSAT)". The plasma will just cool down and become part of the normal interstellar meduim.

[zosima]

Nope, nothing of any use.

Does anybody have any idea where to find our what the characteristics of plasmas are? In regards to absorption, emission, and how it changes with temperature?

I would be happy with just Hydrogen, but that isn't the only thing out there.

As a practical example, what is the absorption spectra of the solar wind? Does it have one? How can you tell if you are looking through a cloud of plasma like what the sun puts out? And does it change with density?

Near the sun, where it is thick and highly energetic, can we see an abosrption spectrum of light passing through it? How about out near the orbit of Neptune? Where it is obviously thinner. Is it also less energetic? Does the solar wind lose energy, temperature wise. as it gets farthr away from the sun?

How is that even measured? Can we measure it?

I know we had to put a satellite out there to capture a mass ejection, to see what it was made of. Without actually having a sensor in the path of a plasma, or ejection mass, is there any way to measure it? To even see it?



Is that more, or less amazing? I'm not quite sure. It is a lot of plasma, right? And it is moving a huge distance, right? How fast is it moving? How much is there? Where did it come from? Where is it going and what will happen at the other end?

I don't expect you to know all those questions, I just wonder about stuff like that. I tend to accept what the authors say, not being an expert, or even a very good amateur in such matters. If they say it changes how we look at star formation, I tend to just nod my head, and go, uh huh", but I really don't know what they mean.

The link below is to a paper by Chris Russell about solar wind. He one of the most prolific and most cited authors in magnetospheric space plasma physics. He may actually be the most cited author. So if you have any confusion about how you can evaluate his claims, let me assure you that you should take his word as gospel.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=19&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww-spc.igpp.ucla.edu%2Fssc%2Ftutorial%2Fsolwind_magsp here_tutorial.pdf&ei=Gmk_SIbDJ4b6pgTajZxE&usg=AFQjCNEIUtOPezi0K3ZLQO9JCzUoJQftxA&sig2=Pe18obft46RPFrCfvVh

[DeiRenDopa]

Nope, nothing of any use.

Does anybody have any idea where to find our what the characteristics of plasmas are? In regards to absorption, emission, and how it changes with temperature?

I would be happy with just Hydrogen, but that isn't the only thing out there.

As a practical example, what is the absorption spectra of the solar wind? Does it have one? How can you tell if you are looking through a cloud of plasma like what the sun puts out? And does it change with density?

Near the sun, where it is thick and highly energetic, can we see an abosrption spectrum of light passing through it? How about out near the orbit of Neptune? Where it is obviously thinner. Is it also less energetic? Does the solar wind lose energy, temperature wise. as it gets farthr away from the sun?

How is that even measured? Can we measure it?

I know we had to put a satellite out there to capture a mass ejection, to see what it was made of. Without actually having a sensor in the path of a plasma, or ejection mass, is there any way to measure it? To even see it?



Is that more, or less amazing? I'm not quite sure. It is a lot of plasma, right? And it is moving a huge distance, right? How fast is it moving? How much is there? Where did it come from? Where is it going and what will happen at the other end?

I don't expect you to know all those questions, I just wonder about stuff like that. I tend to accept what the authors say, not being an expert, or even a very good amateur in such matters. If they say it changes how we look at star formation, I tend to just nod my head, and go, uh huh", but I really don't know what they mean.I'm sure Zeuzzz and BeAChooser will be absolutely delighted to tell you all about the remote (astronomical) detection of plasmas and how their (elemental) composition, densities, temperatures, pressures, magnetic and electric field strengths, and much more, can (and are) estimated.

They will, of course, also explain - in as much detail as you wish to know - how the degree of ionisation of a gas is estimated, remotely, and how the behaviour of a (partially) ionised gas can be distinguished from that of a plasma.

Perhaps they will also describe a very interesting feature of plasmas, called the plasma frequency, and give some examples of its importance in Earth science, space science, and astrophysics.

[robinson]

The link below is to a paper by Chris Russell about solar wind. He one of the most prolific and most cited authors in magnetospheric space plasma physics. He may actually be the most cited author. So if you have any confusion about how you can evaluate his claims, let me assure you that you should take his word as gospel.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=19&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww-spc.igpp.ucla.edu%2Fssc%2Ftutorial%2Fsolwind_magsp here_tutorial.pdf&ei=Gmk_SIbDJ4b6pgTajZxE&usg=AFQjCNEIUtOPezi0K3ZLQO9JCzUoJQftxA&sig2=Pe18obft46RPFrCfvVh


I get a 403 error when I follow that link. Anybody else try it?

[tsig]

Nope, nothing of any use.

Does anybody have any idea where to find our what the characteristics of plasmas are? In regards to absorption, emission, and how it changes with temperature?

I would be happy with just Hydrogen, but that isn't the only thing out there.

As a practical example, what is the absorption spectra of the solar wind? Does it have one? How can you tell if you are looking through a cloud of plasma like what the sun puts out? And does it change with density?

Near the sun, where it is thick and highly energetic, can we see an abosrption spectrum of light passing through it? How about out near the orbit of Neptune? Where it is obviously thinner. Is it also less energetic? Does the solar wind lose energy, temperature wise. as it gets farthr away from the sun?

How is that even measured? Can we measure it?

I know we had to put a satellite out there to capture a mass ejection, to see what it was made of. Without actually having a sensor in the path of a plasma, or ejection mass, is there any way to measure it? To even see it?



Is that more, or less amazing? I'm not quite sure. It is a lot of plasma, right? And it is moving a huge distance, right? How fast is it moving? How much is there? Where did it come from? Where is it going and what will happen at the other end?

I don't expect you to know all those questions, I just wonder about stuff like that. I tend to accept what the authors say, not being an expert, or even a very good amateur in such matters. If they say it changes how we look at star formation, I tend to just nod my head, and go, uh huh", but I really don't know what they mean.

So you're not really dumb you just play one on the internet.

Go to school. Get your own answers!

[zosima]

I get a 403 error when I follow that link. Anybody else try it?

Its probably all the google junk that I left it the url, I cleaned it up. This should work.

http://www-spc.igpp.ucla.edu/ssc/tutorial/solwind_magsphere_tutorial.pdf

ETA:

Here's another great paper on the magnetosphere and its interaction with the solar wind. Also by Chris Russell.

http://www-spc.igpp.ucla.edu/ssc/tutorial/solwind_interact_magsphere_tutorial.pdf

[robinson]

Its probably all the google junk that I left it the url, I cleaned it up. This should work.

http://www-spc.igpp.ucla.edu/ssc/tutorial/solwind_magsphere_tutorial.pdf


I still get the same error page.

Access forbidden!

You don't have permission to access the requested object. It is either read-protected or not readable by the server.

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster

Error 403
http://www-spc.igpp.ucla.edu/ssc/tutorial/solwind_magsphere_tutorial.pdf

How strange.

[BeAChooser]

I still get the same error page.


I'm getting the same error page.

[Dancing David]

Look plasma in the headline!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080530154103.htm

[sol invictus]

Russell's page (http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/personnel/russell.html) (at the same site) is currently unavailable. Looks like someone messed up a permission.

[Dancing David]

here is a whole list of plasma from the SOHO consortium, some revolution!
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=015483570504228984326%3Aph-dpt_lwpy&q=plasma&sa=search&cof=FORID%3A0

[zosima]

Thats a bummer about the paper. I don't have any trouble accessing it.

I'd attach the pdf to this post but the file size limit is too small.