The Electric Comet theory

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Reality Check said:
More news from the real universe:
Rosetta’s Comet Springs Spectacular Leaks As It Gets Closer To The Sun
Look at the big sharp peak absolutely not discharging electrically, Sol88 :p!
Look at all of those jets coming from the "lowest" part of the comet (the neck) rather than the high points, Sol88.
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What's that you say? The comet is doing something the Thunderbolts guys didn't predict? Wouldn't that make them wrong? Oh, silly me - they'll just spew out another Gish gallop of junk science and crow if they manage to magically guess one thing in their "theory" that coincides with the mainstream theory.
 
Something else I just cannot fathom from the electric comet theorie (well several somethings).

Electrical discharges are always between something, and get stronger as the objects get closer. Since the comet's tail appears as it get closer to the sun, clearly the sun is the object interacting with the comet. So why is the comet's tail AWAY from the sun in a single cone, rather than many 'fingers' extending to the sun's magnetic fields?

Electrical discharges happen as charge gets built up and eventually overcomes the resistance of the isolator between the two objects, after which the charge needs to be built up again. The further the objects are apart and the stronger the resistance, the more spectacular the discharge. Yet a comet's tail is clearly a continuous phenomenon, that gets STRONGER as the objects get closer, which is the exact opposite of how electricity would behave.

We see a lighting bolt because the electricity superheats the surrounding air, which then causes electron excitation in the molecules surrounding the discharge, which causes a photoelectric effect. Space is a vacuum. What is it that the electric comet theory claims causes the visual effect?

Given that space is a near vacuum of which the resistance is probably known somewhere and the distance between a comet and the sun, the exact resistance to be overcome for a discharge to happen can be calculated. Now I've not done this, but my guess is that the energy required for that to happen from the first moments the comet's tail starts appearing would exceed the energy output of the sun itself. Where does this energy come from? Especially since in a vacuum friction is virtually non-exsitent?

Please, no links to colourful websites alone. If at all possible a quick summary for each of the anwsers with a link to the scientific data supporting these answers would be much appreciated.
 
Matthew Cline said:
Yeah, but that method of water generation is going to create water fast enough to match the rate at which water is being ejected by the comet.
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"Unfortunately" no.

A quick back-of-the-envelop calculation shows:

solar wind: density 1 per cc, velocitiy 400 km/s that gives an influx of 4E11 protonen/m^2s
4 km diameter comet has 50E6 m^2
per second 200E17 protons impact
each creates a H2O
2 glasses of water or 0.5 liters have 0.5 kg
1 water molecule weighs 30E-27 kg
thus about 2E25 water molecules are emitted
there is a discrepancy of at least one million
 
Haig said:
Sure there is ... lots of it ...
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Which is a lie, Haig. That is a YouTube video from a couple of rather deluded cranks who have been wrong before: The lies, failures and successes of Thunderbolts Deep Impact predictions.

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.
 
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Reality Check said:
Which is a lie, Haig. That is a YouTube video from a couple of rather deluded cranks who have been wrong before ... SNIP usual RC stuff ....
[*] Ends with vague statements, no actual electric comet predictions for the Rosetta mission.
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Face it RC the Dirty Snowball myth of comets is finished, try turning your ad hom bile on that!

Here are some of the predictions that follow from the Electric Comet model ...

Rosetta Mission Predictions
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2014/08/16/rosetta-mission-predictions/
 
Too bad the EC guys will handwave the actual evidence away when the craft finally lands on the object in question. 1), 2) and 5) will be immediately debunked once Rosetta lands. It actually looks like the Thunderbolts guys expect Rosetta to explode from an electric discharge upon landing. They don't come out and say that, but that seems to be their hope.
 
Haig said:
Sure there is ... lots of it ...

Wal Thornhill and David Talbott on Rosetta | Space News

Today, the chief principals of the Thunderbolts Project, Wal Thornhill and David Talbott, take a closer look at the latest information from the Rosetta mission to Comet 67P.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Ew7NKf7Bg
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Um,
which is why you don't present any of it, of course.
 
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Vermonter said:
Too bad the EC guys will handwave the actual evidence away when the craft finally lands on the object in question. 1), 2) and 5) will be immediately debunked once Rosetta lands. It actually looks like the Thunderbolts guys expect Rosetta to explode from an electric discharge upon landing. They don't come out and say that, but that seems to be their hope.
Click to expand...

although for the sake of keeping things in the real world, it was discussed for the lander mission that there could be a charge on the comet, just like there is a charge on the moon's surface. the question was whether there could be a discharge between the surface and philae that might damage the electronics on the spacecraft. i think in the end they decided that thevcrisk was negligible and that there was little that they could do anyway.

what also is interesting is that itvis always handwaving from the thunder guys, never even a yota of math, like e.g. a proof that my water production calculation was wrong.
 
Haig said:
Face it RC the Dirty Snowball myth of comets is finished, try turning your ad hom bile on that!

Here are some of the predictions that follow from the Electric Comet model ...

Rosetta Mission Predictions
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2014/08/16/rosetta-mission-predictions/
Click to expand...

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?
 
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