The Electric Comet theory

Status
Not open for further replies.
Haig said:
Face it RC
Click to expand...
Face it, Haig: The electric comet model is only believed in by deluded people who are so ignorant that they cannot tell the difference between 0.6 and 3.0 :jaw-dropp!
Electric comets still do not exist!
The mainstream model works no matter what these deluded people say or the people who have fooled by them think.

Then these cranks put their delusions into a video and on a web page.

Which reminds me Haig:
Reality Check said:
Wrong Haig - you have not answered any of my questions that I can recall. If you have then just supply the links to them:
* Haig (7th July 2014), is 3.0 different from 0.6?
* Haig (30th June 2014): Why do EU supporters continue to claim that astronomers ignore E fields, etc.?
* Plus any scientific answers to the science stated in Electric comets still do not exist!
...
A new question for you:
Haig: How can you believe in the competence of the EU proponents when the speakers at their 2014 conference was a collection of cranks, actual deluded people and some electrical engineers?
(the deluded people were the Velikovsky belivers: David Talbott, Daniel Jencka, Dwardu Cardona)
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Lukraak_Sisser said:
So, would you be the one to answer the small series of questions I posed a few posts up?

Maybe start with the one calculating the energy needed to create a lightning bolt several AU long and a radius measured in hundreds of meters overcoming vacuum resistance?
Click to expand...

Maybe you or RC could answer this:-

"During a close encounter with Hyperion on 26 September 2005, unexpected measurements from several instruments on board the Cassini spacecraft indicated that something strange was taking place in the particle – plasma environment."

... snip ...

"The large difference in potential between the surface and the spacecraft resulted in a flow of electrons being accelerated from Hyperion toward Cassini," said Tom Nordheim. "It was rather like Cassini receiving a 200 volt electric shock from Hyperion, even though they were over 2000 km apart at the time."
http://sci.esa.int/cassini-huygens/54777-cassini-caught-in-hyperions-electron-beam/


So can you, RC or anyone here explain why we (the tax paying public) wait 9 years to hear about this? and how about calculating the energy needed for this event to happen? That's 200 V of charge across 2,000 km !!

This comment from a thread on Thunderbolts says a lot ..
Most Undeniable Evidence of the Electric Universe to Date
Postby Maustin » Sat Oct 18, 2014 5:04 am

I don't actually expect a discharge between Philae and 67P, since the lander's approach has been slow so far, and I expect there has been enough time for charge equalization already. High-speed approaches between differing charge potentials seems to trigger discharge. I fully expect something extraordinary today or tomorrow between Siding Spring and Mars.
Philae, if I were a betting man, will not experience a lightning bolt, but simply smash into a brick wall. 67P is solid rock and no part of the lander was designed for a hard surface. The only saving grace may be that the comet's gravitational field is so relatively tiny it won't contribute much to the lander's death.

I'm stunned the press release about a 200 volt electrical exchange comes NINE YEARS after the event occurred.
Click to expand...
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15345
 
Last edited:
Haig said:
Maybe you or RC could answer this:-
Click to expand...
No Haig - there is no point in answering a question from someone who is incapable of telling the difference between 0.6 and 3.0!
It is a waste of our time because you will go on believing in the delusion that is electric comets no matter what the answer is.
It is a waste of our time because a bunch of ignorant cranks at Thunderbolts not knowing about the many observations of electrical fields in astronomy is evidence that you are obsessing about a bunch of ignorant cranks :p!
It is a waste of our time because you quote a fantasy from the Thunderbolts forum ("67P is solid rock ") as an example of the inability to see a fantasy when you see it. Forget about unable to tell the difference between 0.6 and 3.0, Haig - you and that poster are even ignorant of the density of 67P!
It is a waste of our time because you will not be able to understand that Cassini caught in Hyperion's electron beam (written 16 October 2014) is evidence against the electric comet delusion. There is a rocky icy body charging up as in the electric comet delusion by travelling through a magnetosphere and it is not a comet!
It is a waste of our time because you will not be able to understand that this is a team analyzing data from 9 years ago - the tax paying public is hearing about that analysis about a month after the paper was published:
Detection of a strongly negative surface potential at Saturn's moon Hyperion, by T. Nordheim et al., is published in Geophysical Research Letters, 2014; DOI: 10.1002/2014GL061127. Publication date: 11 September 2014
 
Last edited:
Reality Check said:
No Haig - there is no point in answering a question from someone who is incapable of telling the difference between 0.6 and 3.0!
It is a waste of our time because you will go on believing in the delusion that is electric comets no matter what the answer is. ... snip usual RC stuff...
Click to expand...

Yes RC - there is every point in answering this issue on a thread about Electric Comets !!!

This is what the mainstream said in that article ... my bold ...
The first confirmed detection of surface charging on an object in the outer Solar System has wide-ranging implications. This fundamental process is predicted to occur on many different bodies, including asteroids, moons and the surface of comets.
Click to expand...
http://sci.esa.int/cassini-huygens/54777-cassini-caught-in-hyperions-electron-beam/

Charged bodies interacting in a plasma are what Electric Comets are all about. So answer the questions, if you can ;)
 
Cassini caught in Hyperion's electron beam (written 16 October 2014) is evidence against the electric comet delusion. But it does give a clue IMO about some of the surface features of 69P.
Scientists have previously suggested that surface features observed on the asteroid Eros and several Saturnian moons are due to the motion of charged dust across their surfaces. On small objects with low gravity, dust grains might even be able to overcome the force of gravity and escape into space.
Click to expand...
The movement of charged dust looks like the equivalent of a wind. And we see dune-like structures on 69P.
 
Haig said:
Yes RC - there is every point in answering this issue on a thread about Electric Comets !!!

This is what the mainstream said in that article ... my bold ...
http://sci.esa.int/cassini-huygens/54777-cassini-caught-in-hyperions-electron-beam/

Charged bodies interacting in a plasma are what Electric Comets are all about. So answer the questions, if you can ;)
Click to expand...

Surface charging is a well-understood phenomenon; this is the first time it's been observed in the outer solar system primarily because it's a relatively small effect (it can still be exciting for a spacecraft) and thus difficult to detect.

As for 200V over 2000 km . . . back when I did my own estimate of the voltage needed to get sufficient sputtering to make a rock act like a comet, I was getting on the order of 2000V/M. Your new "most undeniable evidence" is 0.1v/km, or less than one ten-millionth of the voltage needed.

With undeniable evidence like that, who needs counter-arguments?
 
Last edited:
dasmiller said:
Surface charging is a well-understood phenomenon; this is the first time it's been observed in the outer solar system primarily because it's a relatively small effect (it can still be exciting for a spacecraft) and thus difficult to detect.

As for 200V over 2000 km . . . back when I did my own estimate of the voltage needed to get sufficient sputtering to make a rock act like a comet, I was getting on the order of 2000V/M. Your new "most undeniable evidence" is 0.1v/km, or less than one ten-millionth of the voltage needed.

With undeniable evidence like that, who needs counter-arguments?
Click to expand...

So you say surface charging is a well-understood phenomenon but Geraint Jones of MSSL says it's not in this environment ... my bold

"Surface charging as a fundamental phenomenon affecting planetary objects is currently not well understood and while it has been observed on Earth's Moon, the Saturn system presents us with an opportunity to study this effect in an environment where many parameters are completely different," said Geraint Jones of MSSL, who co-supervised Tom Nordheim's research.
"Our observations show that this is also an important effect at outer planet moons and that we need to take this into account when studying how these moons interact with their environment."
"After 10 years in orbit around Saturn, Cassini continues to demonstrate its importance in probing the physics of the highly complex, interconnected system made up of the giant ringed planet, its moons and their immediate space environment," said Nicolas Altobelli, ESA's Cassini-Huygens Project Scientist.
"We see once again that the knowledge gained by this remarkable explorer can be applied to other places in the Solar System and beyond."
Click to expand...
http://sci.esa.int/cassini-huygens/54777-cassini-caught-in-hyperions-electron-beam/

You need to sound a lot more convincing if you hope to defend the "dirty snowball" myth of comets against the reality of 67P findings and it's agreement with Electric Comet theory
 
19 items of ignorance and delusion in 11 minutes of a Thunderbolt video

Haig said:
You need to sound a lot more convincing if you hope to defend the "dirty snowball" myth of comets against the reality of 67P findings and it's agreement with Electric Comet theory
Click to expand...
You need to stop lying about the 67P findings agreeing with the delusions and ignorance stated in yet another Thunderbolts crank YouTube video, Haig.
This is the ignorance an delusions in the other 67P crank video you cited
Reality Check said:
ETA: Had a look at the video which is full of ignorance and delusions from Wal Thornhill and David Talbott
  1. Mainstream did not expect a "smooth icy body" (0:28).
  2. The idiocy of an analogy to electric arc in hematite (0:40).
  3. The idiocy of "it is a mystery to scientists so we can explain it".
  4. The idiocy of comparing to rocky formations n Earth, sand dunes on Mars, (1:43).
  5. Fantasies about electrical discharge machining shaping the surface from 1:19.7. Thinking that infilling of crater on the Moon means that they will infill on a comet (2:58)
  6. The sharp walls of the Comet 67P craters = electric arcs (3:50)!
  7. The Victoria crater on Mars (3:55) is more electrical arcs!
  8. Delusions about an ""electrical birthing process from a planetary surface" (4:14)
  9. Sand dunes in Victoria crater are "more easily explained" by electrical arcing (4:26)
  10. Imaginary "cathode edging" (4:35)- compared to Io image!
  11. "Mysterious" pixel saturation of Temple 1 images from Deep Impact = electrical arcs (5:24).
  12. Total delusion of prehistoric ancestors witnessing what looks like the creation of comets ("involving the thunderbolts of the planetary gods") (6:04) :eek:
  13. A partial lie about not finding "a trace of water" (6:27) - there is plenty of water detected, just not surface ice.
  14. A "under general theory the gases could not be released at this distance from the Sun" thus we are right delusion (6:39).
  15. Description of sublimation then an assertion that the current outgassing cannot be explained, specifically CH2O, H2S, HCN, SO2 and CS2. (7:35) ... thus electric comets :eye-poppi!
  16. The delusion that an electric comet model actually exists (8:35). What they have is a collection of fantasies that predict whatever they want. A model should give actual numbers.
  17. A fantasy of sputtering of surface materials by protons in the solar wind (8:44)
  18. Ends with vague statements, no actual electric comet predictions for the Rosetta mission.
Click to expand...

And here we have "Episode 3 Symbols of an Alien Sky: The Electric Comet (Full Documentary)" - an hour and a half of probably the same ignorance and delusions. So let us see where the first ignorance/delusion appears ...
  1. 1:28 The delusion that science should know everything correctly and fully! This is the usual crank idea that because science does no know everything that their ideas are right (fallacy of false dichotomy).
  2. 1:28 In this case they have a quote mine of a sentence without context or a citation:
    "Everytime we look, we find textbooks were wrong.” - Ed Weiler, NASA Science Mission.​
    Searching for the quote gives all types of crank web sites (some more delusional than Thunderbolts!)
    I will assign this to their ignorance abut how science works - by rewriting textbooks!
  3. 1:47 The next quote mine of a sentence without context or a citation:
    "It is a mystery to me how comets work at all" Donald Brownlee Principal Investigator The Stardust Mission​
    (more deluded web sites on searching)
  4. 1:56 A lie about the "long ignored electrical behavior of the Sun" and the delusion that this lie changes the pictures about comets!
  5. 2:20 Images of solar flares and what looks like CME implies ignorance about the source of the solar wind (not solar flares or CME!)
  6. 3:20 Fred Whipple "envisioned" the dirty snowball model is just wrong - the evidence showed that comets were made of water, etc. (their densities) and had dark surfaces - thus the evidence for a dirty snowball model.
  7. Up to 5:40 More about the standard theory full of "imagines" woo.
  8. 5:40 the electric comet delusion starts to be explained.
  9. 6:06 "Not billions of years ago but a much more recent episode of planetary instability and violence. One that reached even into early human times" states the truly deluded part the of Electric Comet model. This is basically Velikovsky's worlds in collision fantasy applied to comets.
  10. 6:33 The delusion that electrical arcs "blasted" comets, asteroids and meteors from the surfaces of planets and moons.
  11. 6:43 The idiocy of an analogy to electric arc in hematite (comparing to an image of Comet Hartley 2)
  12. 7:08 The fantasy about the Sun's electrical field magically creating electrical discharges, to form the coma and tail.
  13. 7:20 Fantasies about electrical discharge forming jets.
  14. 7:37 Fantasy about electrical arcs "burning" the surface of the nucleus to blacken it.
  15. 8:21 Ignorance about the "long twisty" structures of comet tails leads to the delusion that it is electrical.
  16. 8:40 A fantasy about the electric force holding the coma in place around a comet.
  17. Then onto "The "Laws" of Compositional Zoning" (their quotes around Laws) - the basic physics that materials that form far from the Sun are different from those that form close to the Sun.
  18. 10:00 Denial of basic physics of compositional zoning. Goes onto the Stardust mission which showed that some of the dust in a comet came from the inner system. This leads to the delusion that ell of a comet cmes from the inner system.
  19. 11:00ish Basically lying about the Stardust Mission. The discovery of inner system dust did not "challenge all prior theories of a comets origins". It was the new discovery that the origin of most the dust in comets forming in the outer system was the inner system.
 
Last edited:
Dear Haig, you can quote all random youtubes you want, but electricity is a well known, understood and measured concept.
We KNOW the resistance of a vacuum like local space.
We KNOW the composition of local space.
We KNOW the voltage required to create an electrical discharge in any medium you care to think of
We KNOW the relation between distance and energy.

So it is possible to exactly calculate the amount of energy needed to create the electrical phenomena you defend. And yet this is never done. With reason, as it gives values that are so extreme that nothing could create such energy slowly drifting trough a vacuum.

What is more, the electrical phenomena you propose behave in way exactly opposite to how observed electricty behaves (getting stronger when objects get closer rather than weaker and pointing away from the interacting objects rather than between them)

So not only is some unknown and unmeasurable energy source needed, you also need to prove that electricity in space works completely different from electricity on earth, without affecting electronics IN space.
 
For those interested in discussing the actual paper and not press releases you can go to the GRL homepage and download it. It has been published in "open access."

But not for me at the moment, I have a Rosetta Plasma Consortium meeting to host this week and will be very busy preparing for the landing event next week and I need to write a short paragraph for my Halley paper in order to satisfy the referee and have it published.

The fact that it "took 9 years" before it was reported is because there was only one flyby of Hyperion and there were probably more interesting objects (e.g. Enceladus) that took up most of the researcher's time. The scientific community is not that big, there is only so much one can do, this was a little gem that remained hidden, until Tom picked it up, sort of like Bilbo pocketing "my precioussssss".


I am very happy for Tom that he got this publication out, it is a pretty good read, after scanning through it.
 
Last edited:
Haig: Have you understood that Hyperion is an icy moon, not a rock

Reality Check said:
..Which is to be expected from someone who is incapable of telling the difference between 0.6 and 3.0 :p!
Click to expand...
Maybe something to be added to the list:
Haig (4 November 2014): Have you understood that Hyperion is an icy moon (mean density 0.544±0.050 g/cm3) and so is not part of the electric comet delusion about rocky bodies being comets?
In fact you have cited evidence against the electric comet delusion. This surface charging happens on a very big chunk of ice. It is possible that the same happens on a dirty ice ball (or a icy dirtball). Thus the electric comet fantasy that electrical discharges are the source of water on comets also applies to icy bodies having their ice vaporized :eek:!

In the real universe, comet nuclei should be shielded by their coma against the solar wind and thus any surface charging will be less than observed on Hyperion and millions of times too small for any electrical discharges.
 
In a few hours we will see if Happy Philae will land or if Poor Philae will be zapped to death.
 
Thumbs up! Well done ESA.

Let the science begin!!!

Bummer about the harpoons :(
 
Last edited:
I predict the failure of the harpoons and the bounce will be something to do with the comet being electric.
 
Hi, I am new here. I've been looking at the first science sequence infographic which states that the CONSERT instrument, whose purpose is to study the internal structure of the comet nucleus, was scheduled to have run by now.

Is there any information available on whether it has already returned data, and what it returned?

I am hearing that the lander rebound was an indication of higher strength material at the surface, which some mission engineers have described as a surprise.

I understand that this electric comet idea elicits a lot of emotion, as I've seen a lot of these debates online. I am mildly familiar with Wal Thornhill's classical hypothesis for gravity, and this question of whether or not 67P is a rock on the inside would appear to be critically important not just to the notion of electric comets, but also to physics, more generally.

I have to imagine that people would think twice about ridiculing the electric comet idea in light of any CONSERT data that indicates that 67P is a rock throughout. Does the ESA already have this information in hand?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom