The Electric Comet theory

[Sol88]

My guess:
Electrostatic noise = heavy ion pickup (standard electromagnetism)
Whistler waves = plasma interactions (standard plasma physics).

ETA
If someone knew how to use Google they would find:
Whistler wave cascades in solar wind plasma
A Wave-Wave Interaction in Whistler Frequency Range in Space Plasma

Great guess RC, but how does that fit with your melting dirtyiceball?

The electric comet theory can easily accommodate and in fact expects this STANDARD plasma physics, unfortunately a dirtysnowball melting in the Sun can't.

and this pearler from Reality check

So you are deduced to a common logical fallacy (false dichotomy), i.e. invalidating the standard comet model will validate the electric comet idea.

Guess what Sol88:
Invalidating the standard comet model will ... invalidate the standard comet model!

The standard model has been falsified and made invalid, what are your options RC?

 

[Reality Check]

Can't find it, Reality Check! It's been ad hoc'd and changed so many times I can't keep up with it, so I'm asking you, what do you think the standard model is?

Start with reading the textbook that Tim Tompson has quoted to you and learn something.

What I think the standard model is does not matter. This thread is about the electric comet idea and its failures to match the actual universe.

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Electron beam? along with the whistler waves the electrostatic noise the charged and couple dust associated with bright surface patches that can be collimated into thin long beams and sheets ...et cetera!

Now cite the papers about the electron beam rather than a blog entry.
Now cite the papers that state that Halley's comet is made of rock.

Jim is wrong in any case.

The nucleus was not a loosely packed dirty snow ball but was a pitted burnt carbonaceous chondrite (rock).

He obviously cannot tell the difference between the dusty surface of the nucleus and the actual measured density of Halley's comet.

Halley's Comet

The Giotto mission gave planetary scientists their first view of Halley's surface and structure. Although its coma may extend about 100 million kilometres into space,[26] Halley's nucleus is relatively small (barely 15 kilometres long, 8 kilometres wide and perhaps 8 kilometres thick; JPL lists its average diameter as only 11 km)[1][3] and roughly peanut-shaped. Its mass is extremely low; roughly 2.2×1014 kg.[4] Its average density is about 0.6 g/cm³, indicating that it is very loosely constructed.[6] Its albedo is about 4 percent, meaning that only 4 percent of the sunlight hitting it is reflected; about what one would expect for coal.[27] Thus, despite appearing brilliant white to observers on Earth, Halley's comet is in fact pitch black. As it approaches the inner Solar System, the Sun warms it, causing its surface to sublimate (change directly from a solid to a gas), and jets of volatile material to burst from its black surface. The nucleus rotates every 52 hours,[8] and its day side is far more active than its night side. The gases ejected from the nucleus are 80 percent water vapour, 17 percent carbon monoxide and 3–4 percent carbon dioxide[28] with traces of hydrocarbons.[29]
The nucleus is covered with a layer of dust, which retains heat. Each large dust grain is thought to consist of many tiny particles with spaces in between. Some of these spaces are filled with ice, and others are empty. When Halley's comet is closest to the Sun, temperatures can rise to about 77 °C. Near the Sun, several tons of gas and dust are emitted each second in the jets. Halley has several shallow craters which are about 1 km in diameter.

Note that the citation above is to a paper published after the Giotto mission.

RZ Sagdeev; PE Elyasberg; VI Moroz. (1988). "Is the nucleus of Comet Halley a low density body?". http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1988Natur.331..240S.

 

[Sol88]

My guess:
Electrostatic noise = heavy ion pickup (standard electromagnetism)
Whistler waves = plasma interactions (standard plasma physics).

ETA
If someone knew how to use Google they would find:
Whistler wave cascades in solar wind plasma
A Wave-Wave Interaction in Whistler Frequency Range in Space Plasma

Wow there are electrical, who'd thunk it RC!!!

A Whistler is a very low frequency electromagnetic (radio) wave which can be generated, for example, by lightning. Frequencies of whistlers are 1 to 30 kHz, with maximum usually at 3 to 5 kHz. Although they are electromagnetic waves, they occur at audio frequencies, and can be converted to audio using a suitable receiver. They are produced by lightning strikes (mostly intracloud and return-path) where the impulse travels away from the earth and returns to the earth traveling along magnetic field lines. They undergo dispersion of several thousand kHz due to the slower velocity of the lower frequencies through the plasma environments of the ionosphere and magnetosphere. Thus they are perceived as a descending tone which can last for a few seconds. The study of whistlers allows categorization into Pure Note Whistlers, Diffuse, 2-hop, and Echo Train types.

In addition, they have been received from Jupiter showing the presence of lightning there.

WIKI

And from comets!!! which of course we all know to be melting icydirtballs, no wait they are dirtyiceballs or was that a fluffysnowbank or was it...,who care they all incorrect!

 

[Reality Check]

Great guess RC, but how does that fit with your melting dirtyiceball?

The sorce of the coma and tail is the melting dirtyiceball so it fits really well.

The electric comet theory can easily accommodate and in fact expects this STANDARD plasma physics, unfortunately a dirtysnowball melting in the Sun can't.

Wrong. The standard comet theory can easily accommodate and in fact expects this STANDARD plasma physics.

and this pearler from Reality check

The standard model has been falsified and made invalid, what are your options RC?

The options are to ignore your delusion.

You have not falsified or made invalid the standard model. The best that you have done is point out the observations that astronomers know about and are using to update the standard model. That is how science works.

 

[Reality Check]

Wow there are electrical, who'd thunk it RC!!!

Yes there are electrical things in plasma. who'd thunk it Sol88!!!

WIKI

And from comets!!! which of course we all know to be melting icydirtballs, no wait they are dirtyiceballs or was that a fluffysnowbank or was it...,who care they all incorrect!

Not from comet nuclei.
You need to learn the basics about comets. They are more than their nuclei. They also have coma and tails. Coma and tails are ionized gas and charged dust particles that are interacting with the solar wind. The interaction causes electrostatic noise and whistler waves (and other intersting stuff).

ETA
Whistlers

A Whistler is a very low frequency electromagnetic (radio) wave which can be generated, for example, by lightning. Frequencies of whistlers are 1 to 30 kHz, with maximum usually at 3 to 5 kHz. Although they are electromagnetic waves, they occur at audio frequencies, and can be converted to audio using a suitable receiver. They are produced by lightning strikes (mostly intracloud and return-path) where the impulse travels away from the earth and returns to the earth traveling along magnetic field lines. They undergo dispersion of several thousand kHz due to the slower velocity of the lower frequencies through the plasma environments of the ionosphere and magnetosphere. Thus they are perceived as a descending tone which can last for a few seconds. The study of whistlers allows categorization into Pure Note Whistlers, Diffuse, 2-hop, and Echo Train types.

You do know that "for example" does not mean exclusively?

Can you give a reference to the paper on the electric comet idea that shows that whistler waves will be detected in the coma and tails of comets?

 

[Sol88]

Yes there are electrical things in plasma. who'd thunk it Sol88!!!


Not from comet nuclei.
You need to learn the basics about comets. They are more than their nuclei. They also have coma and tails. Coma and tails are ionized gas and charged dust particles that are interacting with the solar wind. The interaction causes electrostatic noise and whistler waves (and other intersting stuff).

ETA
Whistlers


You do know that "for example" does not mean exclusively?

Can you give a reference to the paper on the electric comet idea that shows that whistler waves will be detected in the coma and tails of comets?

Coma and tails and nucleus!

Plasma clouds associated with Comet P/Borrelly dust impacts : DS1/Comet Borrelly

Résumé / Abstract
The NASA DS1 spacecraft encountered Comet P/Borrelly on September 22, 2001 at a distance of ∼ 2171 km on the sunward side of the comet. The flyby speed was ∼ 16.5 km s-1. Using high temporal resolution (50 μs) absolute electric field amplitude measurements from a ∼ 1 m dipole antenna, new features of plasma clouds created by cometary dust impacts have been detected. The pulses have 1/e exponential decays of ∼ 650 Its duration, exponentially shaped overshoots with rise times of ∼ 2 ms, and exponential-shaped overshoot decay times of ∼ 10 ms. Assuming a plasma temperature of 104 K, these pulse features have been explained as plasma cloud space charge effects from the electron, proton and heavy ion portions of the clouds passing the antenna. Complex pulse shapes were also detected. These are believed to be due to either plasma cloud scattering off of the spacecraft, or to secondary impacts. Small electric pulses of duration 10-15 ms of cometary origin were detected but are presently unexplained. The electric component of the plasma wave spectra at closest approach had an f-2.4 power law shape from 10 Hz to 1 kHz. The electron cyclotron frequency was approximately 1 kHz. One possible explanation of the wave spectrum is that whistler mode waves associated with phase steepened cometary plasma waves are dispersed, leading to the broad spectrum. Finally, based on the present results, a new type of low-cost, large-area dust detector is proposed.

Presently unexplained by a snowball melting in the Sun's heat!

Therefore comets are not melting snowballs but rock electrical discharging!

simple really!

The ONLY thing I've heard from the standard model wrt the solar "wind" is it "pushes" the dust away from the the comet forming the tail, but then they discovered the anti tail and well they made things hard for the meltingsnowball model no matter how high the dust to ice ratio is!

Comet Lulin is a good example

While imaging N3 Lulin for UT Readers, Dr. Joe Brimacombe used a negative luminance frame to take a closer look at what's going on and discovered something quite out of the ordinary. First off, you'll notice an anti-tail – quite rare in itself – but if you take a look about halfway down the ion/dust tail, you'll see a very definite twist in the structure. It it rotating? Exactly what's causing it? Torsional stress? Is it possible that the kink in the tail is an instability resulting from currents flowing along the tail axis? Right now there's absolutely no information available about what's going on in the tail – because what you're seeing is perhaps one of the most current pictures of the comet that can be found!

Your turn RC!

 

[Reality Check]

Coma and tails and nucleus!

Plasma clouds associated with Comet P/Borrelly dust impacts : DS1/Comet Borrelly

Presently unexplained by a snowball melting in the Sun's heat!

Small electric pulses of duration 10-15 ms of cometary origin were detected but are presently unexplained.

Unexplaned by the plasma physics of comet coma and tails.

Now where in the many published papers on the electric comet idea is the prediction that the electrical discharges are of duration 10-15 ms?

Therefore comets are not melting snowballs but rock electrical discharging!

simple really!

Comet densities are ~0.6 g/cc.
Asteroid densities are ~3.0 g/cc.
0.6 is less than 3.0.
No electrical discharges are observed on cometary nuclei in any wavelength (X-rays or visible).
Therefore comets are not rock electrical discharging but melting snowballs!

simple really!

The ONLY thing I've heard from the standard model wrt the solar "wind" is it "pushes" the dust away from the the comet forming the tail, but then they discovered the anti tail and well they made things hard for the meltingsnowball model no matter how high the dust to ice ratio is!

Comet Lulin is a good example
Your turn RC!

Actually antitails are interesting. They do not make anything hard for the standard comet model.

Can the electric comet idea explain both tails that are visible when an antitail is present?
Can the electric comet idea explain why the tail is made of gas (plasma) while the antitail is made of dust?
(I think that it actually can using its non-existent electrical discharges but then you would have to admit that the standard model explains the tail and antitail just as well and includes numbers!)

ETA
Another example from 1957: Comet Arend-Roland

 

[Sol88]

Now where in the many published papers on the electric comet idea is the prediction that the electrical discharges are of duration 10-15 ms?

Where in the standard model does it say anything about electric discharges???

Booya!

 

[Sol88]

Can the electric comet idea explain both tails that are visible when an antitail is present?
Can the electric comet idea explain why the tail is made of gas (plasma) while the antitail is made of dust?
(I think that it actually can using its non-existent electrical discharges but then you would have to admit that the standard model explains the tail and antitail just as well and includes numbers!)

What a hypocrite, you tell me how does the standard model explain the antitail?

 

[Sol88]

Lets talk about your X-rays RC, the last leg you have to stand on in your EPIC fail series of comet density and x ray production.

Jets, are not your little rockets, they are plasma discharges, so any density calculations that use your little rockets is bound to be wrong (which it is).

And your lack of Xray argument, you really mean lack of X-ray resolution on the comet nucleus don't you?

Have we had an X Ray camera on board any of the probes that have imaged the nucleus directly? Stardust? Giotto? any?

And you still did not answer why Whipples model did not include X ray production after all it should be standard plasma physics.

This is the best resolution I can find, no where near enough to see whats going on at the nucleus!

Scientists Measure How Deep "Deep Impact" Was, With X-rays

 

[Sol88]

Is this true Tim Thompson?

how can the comet continue to form a tail from "solar radiation - sublimating ices off the comet nucleus" when the sunlight is so completely blocked by the dense comet coma?

How does your sunlight penetrate deep into the nucleus, where the ice is obviously, thru and optical thick cloud 25 AU from Sol and the pressurize and sustain a supersonic "jet?

Majik or what?

 

[Reality Check]

Where in the standard model does it say anything about electric discharges???

Booya!

Nowhere - that is an idocy of the electric comet idea.

You stated that "electric pulses of duration 10-15 ms of cometary origin were detected but are presently unexplained." are evidence for the electric comet idea . This means that you heva a paper or textbook that predicted that the NASA DS1 spacecraft on encountering Comet P/Borrelly would see these pulses.

Now where in the many published papers on the electric comet idea is the prediction that the electrical discharges are of duration 10-15 ms?

Booya!

 

[Reality Check]

What a hypocrite, you tell me how does the standard model explain the antitail?

What a hypocrite, you cannot even click on a link or do your own research?
Since you are so lazy here is the link again: Antitail.

And once you have seen that astronomy has an explanation for the antitail, maybe you can answer the questions:

• Can the electric comet idea explain both tails that are visible when an antitail is present?
• Can the electric comet idea explain why the tail is made of gas (plasma) while the antitail is made of dust?

I think that it actually can using its non-existent electrical discharges but then you would have to admit that the standard model explains the tail and antitail just as well and includes actual numbers!
The reason is that all it needs for the tail and antitail to form is that gas and dust be propelled from the comet nucleus by any means.

 

[Reality Check]

Lets talk about your X-rays RC, the last leg you have to stand on in your EPIC fail series of comet density and x ray production.

Jets, are not your little rockets, they are plasma discharges, so any density calculations that use your little rockets is bound to be wrong (which it is).

If you knew how the density of comets and asteroids were calculated then you would not ask such a simple question.

It does not matter what causes the material to leave the comet. A jet is a "little rocket" whether caused by "plasma discharges" or electrical discharges or by sublimation. Newtons laws means that the orbit of the comet will be changed by this in the same way.

You are ignoring the fact that using non-gravitational forces to calculate the density is used to get a accurate values than the standard method of calculating the density of both comets and asteroids.

And your lack of Xray argument, you really mean lack of X-ray resolution on the comet nucleus don't you?

The problem with the electrical discharges is that they will produce a bursts of X-rays that will be detectable by any X-ray observatory that is looking at a comet.
For example: Comet C/1999 S4: Chandra Solves Mystery Of Cometary X-Rays.

Have we had an X Ray camera on board any of the probes that have imaged the nucleus directly? Stardust? Giotto? any?

What do you mean "directly".
Comet nuclei have been imaged directly from Earth for decades.

If you mean closely then you are wrong. Radiation radiates. All you need is a sensitive enough detector, e.g. Chandra can detect X-rays from billions of light years away. Astronomers have been looking at stars for a few years now. They do not have to be close to them to detect their radiation.

And you still did not answer why Whipples model did not include X ray production after all it should be standard plasma physics.

It was thought that there were no high energy events around comets. You need high energy events to produce X-rays. Thus Whimple and other astronomers did not go looking for them.
It turns out that the coma and tail are quite energetic in their interaction with the solar wind and that X-rays were detected for the first observation of X-rays was in 1996 for Comet Hyakutake.

 

[Reality Check]

Scientists Measure How Deep "Deep Impact" Was, With X-rays

Actually this link is a bit of a death knell for the electric comet idea.
The EC idea has electrical discharges. These should produce X-ray bursts. Let's ignore the fact that these X-ray bursts have never been detected. You have yet to actually produce a paper that states the rate of the electrical discharges or how they vary.
It is a reasonable assumption that the rate will be constant or only vary with the distance from the Sun (i.e. not on timescales of days). If this is not reasonable then please point out the EC paper that states otherwise.

For Tempel 1, astronomers see a comet that was dim in X-rays until the impact. After the impact the X-ray emission increases very day for several days. This is interpreted as material reaching the coma and producing more X-rays.

But EC states that the X-rays are produced by elecrical discharges! So according to EC somehow the impact produced more electrical discharges.

Where did these extra electrical discharges extending over days come from, Sol88?

 

[Reality Check]

Is this true Tim Thompson?
How does your sunlight penetrate deep into the nucleus, where the ice is obviously, thru and optical thick cloud 25 AU from Sol and the pressurize and sustain a supersonic "jet?

Majik or what?

You need to cite this quote.

However:
"Sunlight" does not "penetrate deep into the nucleus". Sunlight heats the surface of the nucleus and the heat penetrates deep into the nucleus. This heat then creates the jets. FYI: Comets have very weak gravitational fields (low mass) and so it is easy for gas to be get to high (supersonic) speeds). You are probably unaware that when astronomers refer to cometary ice they mean all kinds of ice (not only water), e.g CO, CO2, CH4, NH3 and other frozen gases.

Give us a number for how "optical thick" the coma is and why you think that this will block all sunlight.

I suspect that you got this from your new favourite crackpot Jim (James McCanney).

 

[Sol88]

Nowhere - that is an idocy of the electric comet idea.

You stated that "electric pulses of duration 10-15 ms of cometary origin were detected but are presently unexplained." are evidence for the electric comet idea . This means that you heva a paper or textbook that predicted that the NASA DS1 spacecraft on encountering Comet P/Borrelly would see these pulses.

Now where in the many published papers on the electric comet idea is the prediction that the electrical discharges are of duration 10-15 ms?

Booya!

Ummm.. cart before the horse 'ol mate.

Electric discharges on a snowball? How RC?

Does not matter how long they last, but there they are non the less

And X rays?? There they are!

 

[Sol88]

You need to cite this quote.

However:
"Sunlight" does not "penetrate deep into the nucleus". Sunlight heats the surface of the nucleus and the heat penetrates deep into the nucleus. This heat then creates the jets. FYI: Comets have very weak gravitational fields (low mass) and so it is easy for gas to be get to high (supersonic) speeds). You are probably unaware that when astronomers refer to cometary ice they mean all kinds of ice (not only water), e.g CO, CO2, CH4, NH3 and other frozen gases.

Give us a number for how "optical thick" the coma is and why you think that this will block all sunlight.

I suspect that you got this from your new favourite crackpot Jim (James McCanney).

Why then can we not point our telescopes at a comet nucleus and take a few happy snaps? why cant we usually see the nucleus?

How does it sustain the jet for any length of time? instead of just a pressure build up and explosive release?

Sunlight bounces off the particles in the coma and in a comet's tail, giving the objects their popular bright appearance that on occasion grace the night sky. But inside those bright halos, the story is altogether different.

So wouldn't the dust shade the surface of the comet? but still retains enough oomph to cause the bright patches from where the jets originate!

 

[Sol88]

Actually this link is a bit of a death knell for the electric comet idea.
The EC idea has electrical discharges. These should produce X-ray bursts. Let's ignore the fact that these X-ray bursts have never been detected. You have yet to actually produce a paper that states the rate of the electrical discharges or how they vary.
It is a reasonable assumption that the rate will be constant or only vary with the distance from the Sun (i.e. not on timescales of days). If this is not reasonable then please point out the EC paper that states otherwise.

For Tempel 1, astronomers see a comet that was dim in X-rays until the impact. After the impact the X-ray emission increases very day for several days. This is interpreted as material reaching the coma and producing more X-rays.

But EC states that the X-rays are produced by elecrical discharges! So according to EC somehow the impact produced more electrical discharges.

Where did these extra electrical discharges extending over days come from, Sol88?

If there where electric discharges that were not powerful enough to emit x rays then they should still be observable in the radio spectrum like white noise with crackles and pops and if they got powerful enough radiate into the x ray end of the spectrum.

Have we observed and electrostatic noise? Whistlers? any electric discharge of any duration?

 

[Reality Check]

Comets are not rocks

Sol88 is fond of stating that comets are rocks.
He has been presented many times with the evidence that the density of comets. For some reason he cannot grasp that the measured density of comet nuclei is ~0.6 g/cc, the measured density of asteroids is ~3.0 g/cc and that 0.6 is less than 3.0. The best that he has done is state that he does not trust the methods used to calculate the density.

So here is one method that is used for both comets and asteriods or any planetary body:
Firstly calculate the mass of the body:

1. Measure the orbit of the body around the Sun to determine its semimajor axis (a) and period (P).
2. Plug this into Kepler's third law to get the mass (usually as a ratio to a known mass).

Next calculate the volume of the body. For closer bodies you can just look in a telescope. For further bodies you can meaure radii as the body occludes stars.
Divide the mass by the volume to get the density.

A method for comets:
Jets issued by comets alter their orbits. This can be used to calculate their masses, e.g. Cometary masses derived from non-gravitational forces

We compute masses and densities for 10 periodic comets with known sizes: 1P/Halley, 2P/Encke, 6P/d'Arrest, 9P/Tempel 1, 10P/Tempel 2, 19P/Borrelly, 22P/Kopff, 46P/Wirtanen, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and 81P/Wild 2. ...

For the Tempel 1 comet:
The Deep Impact mission crashed an impactor into the nuecleus of Tempel 1. The ejecta from this impact was used to calculate the mass of Tempel 1.