Continuation The Electric Comet Theory Boogaloo (Part 2)

[Matthew Cline]

Obviously EC theory predicts that the rocket-exhaust is going to carry away most of Rosetta's electric charge

1) For non-physicists like me, could you explain why this would happen?

2) Does the percentage of the charge carried away vary with how high Rosetta's charge is, or does the percentage not vary based on the charge?

3) About what percentage of the charge would be bled off by in the exhaust?

 

[ben m]

Sure. A burning hydrazine jet will produce a mostly neutral gas exhaust, but a small fraction of it will consist of electrons and ions. If the spacecraft is charged (let's say positively) it'll attract the negative ions (or electrons) back to itself and repel the positive ions. That's a current, whose sign is opposite to the sign of the spacecraft charge, so it reduces the charge. Since the initial charge on the spacecraft is tiny (even in the EC let's-pretend-random-gigavolt-potentials-are-undetectable hypothesis, doubly so in actual Rosetta instrumentation which seems to think the craft is at 10V or so) it doesn't take much to discharge it to nearly zero.

A more relevant question, often asked and always ignored, is why every other free-charge source (like the Solar Wind) doesn't do the same thing. If "Rosetta is charge up to a gigavolt" to be a viable theory rather than an internet-troll joke, we'd expect to see, I dunno, a physics-based description the craft's charging and discharging behavior in the solar wind environment, especially given that spacecraft charge management has been an satellite-engineering-101 topic since the 1970s.

 

[Mader Levap]

I am but a humble layman. I don't know much about electricity. But I think I can contribute something on Electric Comet idea level, as this level is quite low.

I am talking, of course, about "it looks like bunny" methodology. Various detractors of EC ideas claims that EC is nothing more than finding bunnies in clouds and claiming they are actual bunnies. In other words, they diss "looks like rock = rock" logic. I claim it is worse than that. Is it even possible, you ask.

In this context I am talking about evidence of electric (according to Electric Comet idea) activity on comet 67P. As far I know, electric discharges looks like this... or this... or this.

Problem is that nothing looking like that is visible in any picture of comet. I see jets. Jets do not look like discharges at all. This is how comet jets look.

Worse still, jets of 67P are most prolific in lowest part of comet (neck). Discharges like very opposite parts - highest points. Jets can't get more different from discharges.

These clouds does not even look like bunnies! If this is not epic fail, I don't know what it is.

I will not even go in other obvious problems, like Rosetta and Philiae - built according to mainstream understanding of electricity and mainstream understanding of comets - that should be busted, shocked, fried and zapped to death by any actual "electric comet", if anything like that actually existed. Very fact that Rosetta and Philiae survived being so close and personal to 67P is evidence that Electric Comet idea is completely wrong.

 

[Matthew Cline]

Problem is that nothing looking like that is visible in any picture of comet. I see jets. Jets do not look like discharges at all. This is how comet jets look.

...

These clouds does not even look like bunnies! If this is not epic fail, I don't know what it is.

I think that this is at least in part due to the fact that the photos are highly overexposed, making parts of the photos very bright. The EC proponents look at the photos and think "it's very bright, even though the comet is very far away from the Sun, so something at the comment must be generating that light". I remember Sol88 implicitly making an argument like that previously.

 

[Reality Check]

I remember Sol88 implicitly making an argument like that previously.

What I remember is

Okay, so now we finally know what the EDM is:

EDM = the concave-convex illusion

Thanks for clearing that up for us, Sol88!
It would have been so much easier for all of us if you had told us so in the OP six years ago.

As I also commented: 20th February 2015 Sol88 shows his inability to understand a comet image!

Then 21st February 2015 Sol88: The delusion that the electric comet predicted layered terrain on 67P.

And then as you remember: 21st February 2015 Sol88: The idiocy of thinking that white areas on a Tempel 1 image is glow discharge.

 

[Sol88]

I am but a humble layman. I don't know much about electricity. But I think I can contribute something on Electric Comet idea level, as this level is quite low.

I am talking, of course, about "it looks like bunny" methodology. Various detractors of EC ideas claims that EC is nothing more than finding bunnies in clouds and claiming they are actual bunnies. In other words, they diss "looks like rock = rock" logic. I claim it is worse than that. Is it even possible, you ask.

In this context I am talking about evidence of electric (according to Electric Comet idea) activity on comet 67P. As far I know, electric discharges looks like this... or this... or this.

Problem is that nothing looking like that is visible in any picture of comet. I see jets. Jets do not look like discharges at all. This is how comet jets look.

Worse still, jets of 67P are most prolific in lowest part of comet (neck). Discharges like very opposite parts - highest points. Jets can't get more different from discharges.

These clouds does not even look like bunnies! If this is not epic fail, I don't know what it is.

I will not even go in other obvious problems, like Rosetta and Philiae - built according to mainstream understanding of electricity and mainstream understanding of comets - that should be busted, shocked, fried and zapped to death by any actual "electric comet", if anything like that actually existed. Very fact that Rosetta and Philiae survived being so close and personal to 67P is evidence that Electric Comet idea is completely wrong.

Mmmmmm.......I think we are talking more like LUNAR DUST LEVITATION than arcs on this very weakly discharging comet.

Read up

 

[Matthew Cline]

Mmmmmm.......I think we are talking more like LUNAR DUST LEVITATION than arcs on this very weakly discharging comet.

Read up

From Wikipedia:

On the daylit side of the Moon, solar ultraviolet and X-ray radiation is energetic enough to knock electrons out of atoms and molecules in the lunar soil. Positive charges build up until the tiniest particles of lunar dust (measuring 1 micrometre and smaller) are repelled from the surface and lofted anywhere from metres to kilometres high, with the smallest particles reaching the highest altitudes. Eventually they fall back toward the surface where the process is repeated over and over again. On the night side, the dust is negatively charged by electrons in the solar wind. Indeed, the fountain model suggests that the night side would charge up to higher voltages than the day side, possibly launching dust particles to higher velocities and altitudes.

I thought the Electric Comet idea was that comets had a large net charge, which led to Electrostatic Discharge Machining, which released oxygen from the comet's rocky body, which combined with the solar wind to form water. But now it's that comet's have a mostly neutral net charge, and the small charge difference between the lit and unlit faces of the comet... do what? That it's still somehow large enough to drive enough EDM to release enough oxygen? Something else?

Or is the Electric Comet idea merely that electricity must be involved somehow?

 

[Sol88]

Snip

Or is the Electric Comet idea merely that electricity must be involved somehow?

Basically. That's the overall idea, not sublimation of non existence "ice/s"

 

[Sol88]

I thought the Electric Comet idea was that comets had a large net charge,

In this very low power comet, dust is levitated electrostaticaly, charged by various plasma effects and accelerated away from the nucleus.

At some distance (not far according to MIRO and ALICE) the dust at lower energies and sputted ROCK at higher energies is dissociated and recombined into the measured OH and CO along with a fruit salad of other molecules, element and compounds and accelerated along the magnetic field lines!

Simple really.

 

[Sol88]

@ Tusenfem

Has the comet song changed in the last couple months?

 

[Matthew Cline]

In this very low power comet, dust is levitated electrostaticaly, charged by various plasma effects and accelerated away from the nucleus.

So according to EC, comets aren't just asteroids, but are asteroids covered in a layer of loose dust?

At some distance (not far according to MIRO and ALICE) the dust at lower energies ... is dissociated and recombined into the measured OH and CO

What mechanism is causing oxygen to be released from the dust?

ETA: Also:

1) How many EC proponents have moved from EC being about EDM to it being about electrostatically levitated dust?

2) What caused this shift away from EDM?

3) Is it a shift, or is it merely a broadening of options? "Maybe it's EDM, maybe it's levitated dust"

 

[Ziggurat]

At some distance (not far according to MIRO and ALICE) the dust at lower energies and sputted ROCK at higher energies is dissociated and recombined into the measured OH and CO along with a fruit salad of other molecules, element and compounds and accelerated along the magnetic field lines!

Simple really.

Except that there's far too much water for your "theory" to account for.

But you're right, it is simple. Just totally wrong.

 

[jonesdave116]

In this very low power comet, dust is levitated electrostaticaly, charged by various plasma effects and accelerated away from the nucleus.

At some distance (not far according to MIRO and ALICE) the dust at lower energies and sputted ROCK at higher energies is dissociated and recombined into the measured OH and CO along with a fruit salad of other molecules, element and compounds and accelerated along the magnetic field lines!

Simple really.

Err, they aren't measuring OH, they are measuring H2O, as we keep telling you. They have been directly observing H20 from comets for almost 30 years, going back to Halley. I've got papers on 13 of those comets, and there are more that I don't have.
Once again, this is H20, and there aren't enough ions in the solar wind to even remotely account for all the water here, or at other comets. Hale-Bopp was producing 300 000 litres per second, at one stage. Do the maths on that. You'll need about 3 x 10^10 ions cm^3.

ETA:
That's 30 billion if every single ion releases one O atom. Which it won't. Best case scenario, from what I've read on lab experiments, is 1%. So now you're up to 3 trillion per cc.

 

[Reality Check]

Mmmmmm.......I think we are talking ...

Mmmmmm.......we know that you are talking irrelevant nonsense, Sol88 - what a surprise !

 

[Andy_Ross]

So all the talk of EDM was a waste of time?

 

[Reality Check]

That's the overall idea, not sublimation of non existence "ice/s"

Lying about ices that have been found on comets yet again, Sol88?
16th April 2015, Sol88: Do not repeat a lie about no ice being found (ice found on Tempel 1 and 67P - including surface ice!)
and
13th February 2015 Sol88: Quote mining of a MUPUS presentation to hide the fact that even snow at low temperatures can be as hard as the layer of ice MUPUS detected!

P.S.

• 12 June 2015 Sol88: Is Velikovsky's Venus explaining Joshua 10:13 a delusion or mainstream physics?
• 12 June 2015 Sol88: Do you agree with another Velikovskian delusion that Venus was a comet because of Egyptian crowns?
• 12 June 2015 Sol88: Was it you, Sol88, or Haig who was deluded enough that they thought that a body heated by the Sun would not heat up all over (including bits that are in shadow)?

 

[Reality Check]

Sol88: A delusion that MIRO maps water in comet’s coma = rock

...Simple really.

Simple delusion really, Sol88, since comets are not ROCK !

The first delusion is of your own making about MIRO maps water in comet’s coma
No ROCK there !
23 June 2015 Sol88: Your own personal delusion that MIRO maps water in comet’s coma = rock

The second delusion is a mindless repeating of Haig's delusion :
4 June 2015 Haig: This paper is the scientific discovery that electrons a kilometer from the surface of the nucleus are breaking up water and CO molecules that have sublimated from the nucleus ices !
No ROCK there !

 

[jonesdave116]

These may or may not dispel the strange, scientifically unsupported beliefs the EU fantasists have about the Deep Impact mission;

The distribution of water ice in the interior of Comet Tempel 1
http://www.planetary.brown.edu/pdfs/3546.pdf

Exposed Water Ice Deposits on the Surface of Comet 9P/Tempel 1
http://planetary.brown.edu/pdfs/3779.pdf

Note that in both these cases the ice and ejected ice (vapour) were observed from their spectral lines in IR. They were not inferred from the observation of dissociation products. They were direct observations.

Furthermore, the follow up observation by Stardust/NExT determined the resulting crater to be 150m in diameter. No way in hell would you get a crater of that diameter in silicate rock with a ~1m impactor, with a mass of ~360kg, at ~10km/s. Try any online crater impact calculator you like.

 

[Reality Check]

These may or may not dispel the strange, scientifically unsupported beliefs the EU fantasists have about the Deep Impact mission;

Sol88, Haig, etc. should known about this science since it was published (e.g. 5 May 2007 - 8 years ago). They have also been cited these papers during this thread which started on 6th July 2009. Thus the strange, scientifically unsupported beliefs the EU fantasists have about the Deep Impact mission will not be dispelled with real world science .

 

[Matthew Cline]

So all the talk of EDM was a waste of time?

Not necessarily. It could be a broadening of EC, rather than a change. That is, EC is "highly charged body causes EDM which releases oxygen, or dust is electrostatically levitated from the comet, or really, anyting that involves the comet being a rocky body + electromagnetism".