The Electric Comet theory

[Siggy_G]

In other words the interstellar medium will have no effect upon the motion of teh comet and is not going to cause it to orbit as though it has less mass, now is it Siggy_G?

Not due to mechanical drag at least (as calculated for 1 AU at normal solar wind output), as I first suspected. It was worth the calculation I guess, because considering the speed of the comet and the interplanetary medium (solar wind), one could suspect it to have some effect, and then reduce the comet's motion (and hence it's calculated mass).

For other kinds of matter/objects (solar sail, dust, plasma) it has an effect, but apparently not for larger bodies.

 

[Dancing David]

Thanks!

 

[Siggy_G]

Opposing kinetic energy (i.e. medium) per second:
E(k) = ½ * m * v^2 = ½ * (2.8 * 10^-5) * (4.3 * 10⁵)^2 = 2.6 * 10⁶ J

Comet's kinetic energy = ½ * (8.7 * 10¹¹) * (4.3 * 10⁵)^2 = 8.0 * 10²⁷ J
.

The comet's velocity is 30 km/s, not (solarwind+comet velocity) and an there's an error in the exponent. Correction:

Comet's total kinetic energy = ½ * (8.7 * 10¹¹) * (3.0 * 10⁴)^2 = 3.9 * 10¹⁹ J

One need to calculate how much kinetic energy the comet gains per second due to gravity. E(p) = mgh (uncertain application). It's kind of a energy potential and "free fall" towards the Sun, and the "height" is the distance traversed in a second. The same second and distance relative to the Sun as the opposing medium is calculated for (but the medium had velocity as well).

Comet's gained kinetic energy in one second (at 1AU): (8.7 * 10¹¹) * ( 6,5 * 10^-2) * (3.0 * 10⁴) = 1.7 * 10¹⁵ J

In terms of kinetic energy, the energy gained from gravity would only be reduced with a 10^-9 factor by the medium, which almost coincides with the drag force calculation.

 

[tusenfem]

Thanks for your take on it, DD. Cool. I think there may have been a minor error among the conversion calculation, so I'll stick to SI units in my calculation (meters, seconds etc.) to be sure. I'll also try to use values for an average comet, and eventually see the effects in light of asteroidal densities. I did a few approaches, but here is the main one:

Take a comet of 10 km diameter and (3,14 * (5 km)²) 7.85 * 10⁴ m² surface area.

The interplanetary medium having an average density of 5 particles per cm³ at 1 AU, means 5,0 * 10⁶ per m³.

Onto the cometary surface there will be:
(7.85 * 10⁴) * (5,0 * 10⁶) = 3,9 * 10¹¹ colliding particles per meter traversed.

Take travelling speed of 30 km/s for an average comet. (3,9 * 10¹¹) * (3.0 * 10⁴) = 1,2 * 10¹⁶ colliding particles per second.

However, the medium is not static. At average it moves radially at 400 km/s, towards the apporaching comet. This gives:
(1,2 * 10¹⁶ ) * (4.0 * 10⁵) = 4.8 * 10²¹ colliding particles per second.

Nope, here you go wrong, you just add the SW velocity to the C velocity, so you would get:

3,9 * 10¹¹) * (43.0 * 10⁴) ~ 1.7 * 10¹⁷ colliding particles per second.

you have now multiplied twice with velocity, so you are now a factor 10⁴ too high.

proton mass = 1g / 6.022 * 108sup]23[/suo] = 1.6605 * 10^-20 kg

And another error, the proton mass is 1.67 10^-27 kg.
So that makes your drag a factor 10^-7 smaller.

 

[tusenfem]

Including this one as well:
ENERGY APPROACH (of the drag force question)

Solar wind density (p): 5,0 * 10⁶ (particles per m³ solar wind).

proton mass = 1g / 6.022 * 10²³ = 1.6605 * 10^-20 kg

once more, the proton mass is 1,67 10^-27 kg

so onece more you are a factor 10⁷ too high here with the rest of your calculation.

The mass of the proton is just something you can look up and check! just google "proton mass" and you get the value.

 

[Siggy_G]

Thanks for the corrections tusenfem. This is what happens when doing math during late evening hours I guess. Not sure why the proton value was wrong - I thought I had checked it initially. Then the error followed.

 

[Ziggurat]

Thanks for the corrections tusenfem. This is what happens when doing math during late evening hours I guess. Not sure why the proton value was wrong - I thought I had checked it initially. Then the error followed.

I suspect you converted from g to kg the wrong way, which produces a factor of 10^6 difference, plus a shifted decimal place from using 1/6.022 = 1.66 instead of 1/6.022 = 0.166.

 

[Haig]

Snowballs in Hell

As Thornhill writes: "The EU model predicts that all active comets will exhibit frequent, short outbursts in different spots on their surface. The outbursts happen because they are electrical discharge phenomena, known technically as (cold) cathode jets. Their onset will be as sudden as an electric spark (described in one report as 'nearly instantaneous') and their duration extended only because space plasma has a limited current carrying capacity. The jets will focus on an extremely small bright area generally situated on a raised point or edge of the comet surface."

The cathode sparks erode minerals from the surface of comets (such as carbon) and, as Thornhill elucidates, they can dissociate comet minerals containing oxygen atoms so that the ionized O- atom combines with H+ ions, or protons, from the Sun's solar wind, forming the OH hydroxyl molecule. "It is an assumption," Thornhill insists, "that it is formed by the breakdown of H2O 'vapor' by solar UV radiation." The carbon from comet minerals may similarly combine with ionized oxygen to form carbon monoxide in his electric comet model.

http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm

 

[Haig]

Cometary Filaments

Outbursts like those on Holmes 17P are how Electric Universe theorists expect comet tails to be produced. Because electric discharges are capable of removing solid material from surfaces, no volatile gases exploding out of "trapped pockets," then pushed away by radiation pressure, are necessary. A comet will produce a tail when electrical stress reaches a critical point and its plasma sheath starts to glow. Irrespective of its composition, a comet will obey the fundamental behavior of charged objects interacting with one another.

A comet's tail is created when its electric charge is struck by solar discharge plasma, conventionally called the "solar wind." As a comet approaches the Sun, its nucleus moves through envelopes of increased charge density. Its surface charge and internal polarization, developed in deep space, respond to the Sun's charged environment, changing its electrical potential.

As it moves away from the Sun, a comet's electrical balance with respect to the outer solar system will be different than when it was on its inward trajectory. If it meets another electrified plasma field of some kind it could begin to discharge again. What more electrically dynamic region than the one that exists around the gas giant planets?

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2009/arch09/090505filaments.htm

 

[Haig]

This paper is in support of Electric Comet theory. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000SPIE.4137....1S

Formation of ordered structures of charged microparticles in near-surface cometary gas-dusty atmosphere

Abstract

The properties near-surface cometary atmosphere is considered, as mediums, in which the formation of ordered structures from charged microparticles is possible. Based on dates on cometary atmospheres and guesses of mechanisms of charging of sublimating microparticles the calculations of an electric field near to a surface of a comet are executed. The electric field strength is determined by a charge of large particles (20 ... 50 micrometer) also reaches values 500 V/m. In such conditions in a near-surface atmosphere of a comet, the discharges similar to the discharges in high layers of an Earth's atmosphere are possible.

 

[tusenfem]

Cometary Filaments
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2009/arch09/090505filaments.htm

And yet again a thunderdolts page with possibly enormous consequences if it could be proven correct. But do they even try to get something quantitavely out of it? No, of course not!

At least Siggy_G put some real effort in trying to show that his idea had merit, which we cannot say about all the peeps in thunderdolts.

 

[tusenfem]

This paper is in support of Electric Comet theory. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000SPIE.4137....1S

Formation of ordered structures of charged microparticles in near-surface cometary gas-dusty atmosphere

Abstract

But then only in the sense that comets can have a surface charge (which is mainstream, look up the Rosetta mission, where they take that into account for the lander Philae)

Too bad Yuri G. Serezhkin only posted in SPIE conference proceedings, which I have no access to.

 

[Dancing David]

Snowballs in Hell

http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm

Cometary Filaments
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2009/arch09/090505filaments.htm

Are these more blogs posts with no citations or data Haig?

One bad link and a second with no data, citations or evidence.

I think that your snowballs one is this:
http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2010/arch10/101227snowballs.htm

Still just as bad, strawmen evident and no real data or citations.

No evidence for the sparks supposedly making the ejecta?

Why is that Haig, why do they post no evidence for the sparks being present? And I mean the sparks that should be present at Hartly II , where are they?

As to the filamants, why do they trail behing the nucleus? Why are they 'pointing' at the nucleus, not the sun? Why does Thunderbolts make such wonderful mis-representations Haig?

 

[Reality Check]

Aren't main-belt comets a thorn in the butt for any cometary model?

main belt comets are easily within the mainstream models
They are not the dirty snowballs of standard comets. They are asteroids with enough volatile material to produce cometary effects.

The eccentric orbit would have an effect on an electric comet, as it moves in and out through the electric field of the Sun (more eccentric = more contrast / charge).

From the many reasons that the EC idea is so idiotic:

1. 100,000's of asteroids will have to be comets because they have orbits as eccentric as any comet.
2. EC comets will turn off at perihelion.

See The totally stupid electric comet idea has been debunked:

EC universe: Rocky bodies that have an orbit with an eccentricity above a minimum value will be comets.N.B. Solar activity may cut tails in two but there have been no observations of comets turning off during low solar activity.(Sol88: I may be wrong - if so please provide the citations to these marvelous events.)


However this assertion has the fatal flaw of EC predictions - no mathematics or numbers.
But we can do their work for them can't we Sol88 and Haig?

There are 4 observed main-belt comets with a minimum eccentricity of 0.1644 (133P/Elst-Pizarro). So the EC minimim must be this (or lower!).

Real universe: There are at least 173,583 asteroids (rocky bodies) that have an orbit with an eccentricity above a minimum value that are not comets. This includes asteroids that have been observed for decades.
There are 459,893 asteroids with eccentricities greater than the minimum observed eccentricity of comets (0.0279).
EC predicts that 100,000's of asteroids should be comets

EC comets switch off at perihelion
EC universe: An EC prediction is that comets will switch off (or to be charitable to the EC idea they will be less bright) at perihelion.
Real universe: We observe that comets are brightest at perihelion .

 

[Reality Check]

Snowballs in Hell

http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm

Still being fooled by a web site that lies to its readers, Haig?

The lies, failures and successes of Thunderbolts Deep Impact predictions.
Wallace Thornhill is obviously ignorant of the actual results of the mission and in a couple of cases actually lies about the results.
​

(see The totally stupid electric comet idea has been debunked)

 

[Siggy_G]

Reality Check, when there are estimated to be trillions of comets within the solar system, thousands reported by now, you seriously mean that the 6-7 mainbelt comets are representative for the rest? And you refute that astrophysicists humbly find those mainbelt comets a little odd in their behaviour?

 

[Dancing David]

Who says that they find them a little odd and why do they say so, Thunderbolts is a blog that is unsourced and lacks any rigor. So who said what where Siggy_G?

We must examine the basis of that belief.

And trillions of comets? You mean way out there in the Kupier Belt and Ooort cloud, I have pointed out the errors in the EC model regards the main belt bodies that show comas, please address them.

1. The orbits are standard main belt orbits and in fact they are less eccentric than many bodies that do not show comas.

2. There is no special place in the main belt where these bodies reside, there are hundreds of other main belt bodies that reside and go through the exact same spaces and areas.

Therefore the issue is not that they suddenly acquire and electrical charge and begin to discharge, they would not do so unless the other bodies did so as well. So it is not likely to be any effect that relates to charge and discharge, unless you can explain why these four bodies and not the others. It is not there orbits or where they orbit.

So it is their composition, the mainstream theory would say that they contain volatiles of frozen gases and some water that sublimate or evaporate and therefore create the coma.

So the unanswered question in the EC remains and applies to these four bodies, what makes them have a coma?

 

[Ziggurat]

Reality Check, when there are estimated to be trillions of comets within the solar system

Let's examine this claim in a little more detail:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Rosetta/SEMSCM474OD_0.html

"A comet probably has enough surplus ice for a few hundred passes of the Sun.
...
The fact that comets die in what, astronomically speaking, is a short period of time (around 10 000 years), suggests that there must be a great reservoir of extra comets to restock them."

So the estimate of a trillion potential comets appears to be based in no small part of the very property of comets that you are disputing, namely that they are icy bodies which are evaporating when they get close to the sun. Do you not see any logic problem in accepting a conclusion based on a property of comets in order to disprove that property?

 

[Reality Check]

Siggy_G: Comets have densities that are much less than that of rocks (asteroids)

Reality Check, when there are estimated to be trillions of comets within the solar system, thousands reported by now, you seriously mean that the 6-7 mainbelt comets are representative for the rest?

I never state that. The 6-7 main belt comets are obviously not representative in standard astrophysics because their cometary behavior is not typical. Basically what is thought to happen is that ice is exposed on their surface by impacts and then that ice sublimates to make them comets. This is a short-term phenomena. As soon as the ice is gone the main belt comet is not a comet amy more until more ice is exposed.

But as far as I can see, The totally stupid electric comet idea (which has been debunked) must deny that such processes exist for any comet. Otherwise all comets can be explained by sublimation of ices and the EC idea in not only physically impossible but also redundant.

You might try reading what I posted:

EC universe: Rocky bodies that have an orbit with an eccentricity above a minimum value will be comets.N.B. Solar activity may cut tails in two but there have been no observations of comets turning off during low solar activity.(Sol88: I may be wrong - if so please provide the citations to these marvelous events.)

However this assertion has the fatal flaw of EC predictions - no mathematics or numbers.
But we can do their work for them can't we Sol88 and Haig?

There are 4 observed main-belt comets with a minimum eccentricity of 0.1644 (133P/Elst-Pizarro). So the EC minimum must be this (or lower!).

Real universe: There are at least 173,583 asteroids (rocky bodies) that have an orbit with an eccentricity above a minimum value that are not comets. This includes asteroids that have been observed for decades.
There are 459,893 asteroids with eccentricities greater than the minimum observed eccentricity of comets (0.0279).
EC predicts that 100,000's of asteroids should be comets

The important bits are emphasized in bold red.

And you refute that astrophysicists humbly find those mainbelt comets a little odd in their behaviour?

And once again I never say that.

Siggy_G: Are you still ignorant of the fact that Comets have measured densities that are much less than that of rocks (asteroids).

See

• Kepler's third law and
• "A ballistics analysis of the Deep Impact ejecta plume: Determining Comet Tempel 1's gravity, mass, and density" by Richardson, et al., 2007.
• "Size Distribution, Structure and Density of Cometary Nuclei" by Weissman & Lowry, 2006.
• or an astrophysics textbook.

That is all that is needed to debunk the idea. However the EC proponents posting in this thread have provided plenty of other reasons why the idea is so fanciful.

 

[Haig]

Superhot Planet Likely Possesses Comet-like Tail

Observations taken with Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) suggest powerful stellar winds are sweeping the cast-off atmospheric material behind the scorched planet and shaping it into a comet-like tail.

Exocomets

In an Electric Universe, comet tails are produced when electric discharges reach a critical point and the plasma sheath surrounding the nucleus starts to glow. Irrespective of composition, comets obey the fundamental behavior of charged objects interacting with one another.

A comet's tail is created when its electrically charged substance is struck by solar discharge plasma, conventionally called the "solar wind," similar to what has been observed around a star 153 light-years from Earth. The faster a comet's electrical environment changes, the more likely that flaring will occur.

http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm