The Electric Comet theory

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Comets - an introduction
From this wealth of new information, it is becoming apparent that there is no clear boundary between asteroids and comets. Indeed, the outermost asteroids show similarities with the cometary nuclei observed far from the Sun.
http://www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/Rosetta/SEMMXZ374OD_0.html

Except your theory fails to explain why an asteroid/comet with a circular orbit shows a coma, why don't all the asteroids show comas? Even the one with elliptical orbits?

You are wrong, or at least your theory is inconsistent. If rocks suddenly develop comas, why don't all the asteroids shows them, why don't the asteroids with elliptical orbits show them, if there are about five cometary bodies that show comas in the asteroid belt, why don't the other asteroids show comas?
 
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Not sure if what I’ve posted below is new to you or not but it is new to me. Maybe mainsteam theory on comets will come back to what is was over a hundred years ago – Comets are electrical phenomena.

NASA are now saying CO2 (carbon dioxide) power the jets on comets. No water ice has been found on any other comets surface. See comet Borrelly and comet Wild 2

The nucleus of a comet is a ball of ice and rocky dust particles that resembles a dirty snowball. The ice consists mainly of frozen water but may include other frozen substances, such as ammonia, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane
http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/comet_worldbook.html

"Previously it was thought that water vapor from water ice was the propulsive force behind jets of material coming off of the body, or nucleus, of the comet," said University of Maryland Astronomy Professor Jessica Sunshine, who is deputy principal investigator for the EPOXI mission. "We now have unambiguous evidence that solar heating of subsurface frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice), directly to a gas, a process known as sublimation,
http://epoxi.umd.edu/7press/news/20101110.shtml

Comets: The Loose Thread
Comets are giving accepted comet theory a hard time. Close-up images of comet nuclei from spacecraft have contradicted about every expectation of theory. (“Expectation” is a euphemism for “prediction”; a disappointed expectation is practically the same thing as a failed prediction, except with the former you don’t expect you’ll have to discard the theory.) “If astronomy were a science,” as one astronomer put it, theoreticians would admit that the theory had been falsified, and they would start over with an eye to the evidence. Instead, they hang on to the theory with ever more stubbornness and hope a little tinkering and adjusting will bring the facts into line.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050923comets.htm

From English Mechanic & World of Science, 11 Aug 1882, pp. 516-7.

COMET'S TAILS"...There seems to be a rapidly growing feeling amongst physicists that both the self-light of comets and the phenomena of their tails belong to the order of electrical phenomena."

From Nature, No. 1370, Vol. 53, Jan 30, 1896, p. 306.

Theory of Comet's Tails "It has long been imagined that the phenomenon of comet's tails are in some way due to a solar electrical repulsion, and additional light is thrown on this subject by recent physical researches.
... Prof. Fessenden suggests that negatively charged particles are emitted from that side of a comet which is turned towards the sun..." (Astrophysical Journal, vol. iii. No. 1)

Science at the end of the 19th century was closer to the truth about comets than we are now!
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=uf4ty065

Movies taken by Deep Impact's flyby spacecraft shows the flash that occurred when comet Tempel 1 ran over the spacecraft's probe
http://www.nasa.gov/mov/121520main_HRI-Movie.mov
http://www.nasa.gov/mov/121527main_MRI_impact.mov

http://deepimpact.umd.edu/gallery/animation.html#pre-enc

Comets - Remember, debating facts is a thought crime.

Comets are not made out of water and ice; they are made out of rock.

They discharge a plasma coma due to the rapidly changing electrical field they are moving through.

Since they spend most of their time in the outer solar system, they acquire a charge relative to that environment. As it approaches the Sun’s electrical field, it has to equalize its charge rapidly which causes the discharging we see as comet tails.

(my video covering the facts presented on this page)

The deep impact mission, which sent a probe out to impact comet Tempel 1, found the following:

1. The copper impactor generated such an energetic explosion that the primary mission sensors were swamped and the primary mission of photographing the crater was unable to be carried out. (Such a flash would be expected with a metal object approaching a highly charged object)
"We didn't expect the success of one part of the mission (bright dust cloud) to affect a second part (seeing the resultant crater). But that is part of the fun of science, to meet with the unexpected. "

Physicist Wal Thornhill commenting:
"It is now well documented that every scientist associated with the project was stunned by the scale of the energetic outburst. These scientists understood the kinetics of impact, and they all agreed that the explosion would be equivalent to 4.8 tons of TNT. That’s a good-sized bomb, but not even close to what occurred."
http://sites.google.com/site/cosmologyquest/the-editor-s-musings/comets
Haig, may I suggest that you read the posts earlier in this thread, particularly those by Reality Check, tusenfem, and Tim Thompson?

You see, as far as I can tell, all you've done - in this post of yours I'm quoting - is repeat claims about comets, and missions to comets, that have been discussed (at length) already, and a great deal of evidence presented to show that:

a) material sourced from TB or HS is largely wrong in terms of the observational facts and the physics, and

b) the actual papers (published in relevant, peer-reviewed journals) often do not support what's in popsci internet stories.

It would be truly wonderful if a new, viable theory (or set of hypotheses) concerning comets were to be presented, whether here, in published papers, or anywhere! :) However, I'm sure you'd be among the first to agree that the criteria for success of any such theory or hypotheses must begin with quantitative agreement with all the relevant objective observations. Can you honestly say that any of the material you have read on any TB or HS website meets this criterion?
 
Haig: Do you really think that ~0.6 g/cc is ~3.0 g/cc

Not sure if what I’ve posted below is new to you or not but it is new to me. Maybe mainsteam theory on comets will come back to what is was over a hundred years ago – Comets are electrical phenomena.
That is ignorant of you Haig: see The totally stupid electric comet idea that has been debunked!

NASA are now saying CO2 (carbon dioxide) power the jets on comets. No water ice has been found on any other comets surface. See comet Borrelly and comet Wild 2
A bit right. Scientists are now saying CO2 (carbon dioxide) power the jets on comets.
And totally wrong: Deep Impact Team Reports First Evidence of Cometary Ice

Movies taken by Deep Impact's flyby spacecraft shows the flash that occurred when comet Tempel 1 ran over the spacecraft's probe
http://www.nasa.gov/mov/121520main_HRI-Movie.mov
http://www.nasa.gov/mov/121527main_MRI_impact.mov
I guess that you are talking about ThunderBolts Deep Impact predictions: Lying about flashes
So your post should have been something like:
Analysis of the images taken by Deep Impact's flyby spacecraft shows the flash that occurred when the spacecraft's probe impacted comet Tempel 1 and another 0.124 seconds later.

Haig: Try readin the Deep Impact post from Tim Thompson
No, there was no emission of any kind prior to the actual impact. There was an initial relatively faint flash, followed by a second bright flash 0.124 seconds later. The initial faint flash was in fact the actual impact, and not a flash prior to actual impact. That faint initial flash is consistent with pre-mission laboratory experiments and indicates impact at a grazing angle of about 30 degrees onto a low density target with a relatively dark surface. Here are 3 relevant papers from the Lunar and Planetary Science bulletin:

Comets - Remember, debating facts is a thought crime.
Comets are not made out of water and ice; they are made out of rock.
...snipped lies from Wal Thornhill (a ThunderBolts Deep Impact predictions: Lying about energy post is in the works)...
Oh dear :(: You do seem ignorant, gullible or deluded enough to ignore the facts about comets just like Sol88.

Haig: Do you really think that ~0.6 g/cc is ~3.0 g/cc:
The electric comet idea states that comets are rocky bodies like asteroids.
For some reason EC proponents 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 :).
 
Comets - an introduction
From this wealth of new information, it is becoming apparent that there is no clear boundary between asteroids and comets. Indeed, the outermost asteroids show similarities with the cometary nuclei observed far from the Sun.
http://www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/Rosetta/SEMMXZ374OD_0.html
Read the article Haig.
What the scientists are saying is the comets can evolve into asteroids by losing their volatile materials. They give the example of Chiron which is designated as both a comet and an asteroid. Thus there will be bodies that cross the boundary and bodies that will not.
  • Asteroids that never collect volatile materials and will never be comets.
  • Asteroids that have collected volatile materials and show comet behaviour sometimes.
  • Asteroids that have formed from collisions that have exposed volatile materials and show comet behaviour sometimes.
  • Comets that have lost so much volatile materials that they no longer outgas and so are now asteroids.
  • Comets that have lost so much volatile materials that they only outgas sometimes.
  • Comets that have plenty of volatile materials and outgas on every orbit.
So we have observed 1000's of comets, 100,000s of asterioids (or more) and a few dozen bodies that are both.
 
What the scientists are saying is the comets can evolve into asteroids by losing their volatile materials. They give the example of which is designated as both a comet and an asteroid. Thus there will be bodies that cross the boundary and bodies that will not.
So your saying a comet ice snowball can turn into an asteroid rock :eye-poppi

Stardust comet dust resembles asteroid materials

“The material is a lot less primitive and more altered than materials we have gathered through high altitude capture in our own stratosphere from a variety of comets,” said LLNL’s Hope Ishii, lead author of the research that appears in the Jan. 25 edition of the journal, Science. “As a whole, the samples look more asteroidal than cometary.”

Because of its tail formed by vaporizing ices, Wild 2 is, by definition, a comet. “It’s a reminder that we can’t make black and white distinctions between asteroids and comets,” Ishii said. “There is a continuum between them.”
 
So your saying a comet ice snowball can turn into an asteroid rock :eye-poppi
That is right :jaw-dropp !

The basic physics that ices such as water, CO2, methane, etc. sublimate and escape from comets means that without replenishment comets eventually lose all of their volatile materials. That leaves behind dust and other stony material, i.e. a loosely packed pile of rubble that astronomers call an asteroid. This is in addition to the rocks that astronomers call asteroids :eek:.

Wow - the dust in at least 1 comet (Wild 2) resembles asteroid material :eek:.
Of course it is idiotic to quote this in support of the EC idea so I hope that you are not doing that, Haig.

P.S.
Haig: Do you really think that ~0.6 g/cc is ~3.0 g/cc?
 
Haig.
I will second DeiRenDopa's post:
Haig, may I suggest that you read the posts earlier in this thread, particularly those by Reality Check, tusenfem, and Tim Thompson?

You see, as far as I can tell, all you've done - in this post of yours I'm quoting - is repeat claims about comets, and missions to comets, that have been discussed (at length) already...

Your last post about Stardust comet dust resembles asteroid materials has not in itself been discussed but the earlier announcement in 2007 (Stardust's Big Surprise) which is similiar has been discussed.
The evidence is that the dust in this comet (Wild 2) was formed in the inner solar system and was transported out beyond Pluto's orbit. So it is probable that all comets contain dust that was formed (along with asteroids) in the early history of the solar system. Before Stardust the expectation was that the dust was interstellar, i.e. a mixture of dust from many stellar systems.

This is not evidence for The totally stupid electric comet idea that has been debunked!
 
A clarification: Scientists are now saying CO2 (carbon dioxide) powers the jets on Hartley 2.
From the EPOXI mission: Primordial Dry Ice Fuels Comet Jets
So there exists in the universe, at least 1 comet that during the span of the observations powered its jets using CO2.

Just a short comment about water. Odin, observed water at Hartley 2, and about the amount of water that is measured (a quote):

The water signature (line) was easily detected. Its extension and space distribution is shown on a map (Fig. 1). The production of water derived from the observations ranges from 180 to 300 kg (400 to 660 lb) per second.
 
So your saying a comet ice snowball can turn into an asteroid rock :eye-poppi

Stardust comet dust resembles asteroid materials

“The material is a lot less primitive and more altered than materials we have gathered through high altitude capture in our own stratosphere from a variety of comets,” said LLNL’s Hope Ishii, lead author of the research that appears in the Jan. 25 edition of the journal, Science. “As a whole, the samples look more asteroidal than cometary.”

Because of its tail formed by vaporizing ices, Wild 2 is, by definition, a comet. “It’s a reminder that we can’t make black and white distinctions between asteroids and comets,” Ishii said. “There is a continuum between them.”

Yeah, so there is a variety of composition in materials?

So why don't all the asteroids show comas Haig?


How many asteroids show comas Haig? Really how many elliptical orbit asteroids do we need to see without comas before you begin to wonder?

Do you just avoid that glaring deficit in the EC model?
 
Yeah, so there is a variety of composition in materials?

So why don't all the asteroids show comas Haig?


How many asteroids show comas Haig? Really how many elliptical orbit asteroids do we need to see without comas before you begin to wonder?

Do you just avoid that glaring deficit in the EC model?


I'd say it would depend on a number of factors, mainly how much of a charge imbalance does it have with respect to its orbit.

How conductive is the comet as a whole i.e how fast can it balance those internal charge, rock would be a good insulator and when bathed in a solar "wind" would have some very non linear effects, much like an acyclic block exposed to MeV solar "wind"! LINK

And it would seem whatever the local "space weather" conditions were at the asteroid/comets position!

Venus still sports a cometary tail, though not in the visible range now, it seems in the past it did.
 
How conductive is the comet as a whole i.e how fast can it balance those internal charge, rock would be a good insulator and when bathed in a solar "wind" would have some very non linear effects, much like an acyclic block exposed to MeV solar "wind"! LINK
An interesting link.
But it betrays
  • the usual inability to understand what you link to
    • the solar system is not a block of acrylic.
    • There is no "solar wind" in this process. There is an electron beam.
  • the fundamental ignorance that you have of the physics involved: These are discharges through a dielectric medium ("PMMA is an excellent electrical insulator").
    This is not the physically impossible discharges through a conductive plasma that you fantasize about.
The totally stupid electric comet idea that has been debunked!
 
An interesting link.
But it betrays
  • the usual inability to understand what you link to
    • the solar system is not a block of acrylic.
    • There is no "solar wind" in this process. There is an electron beam.
  • the fundamental ignorance that you have of the physics involved: These are discharges through a dielectric medium ("PMMA is an excellent electrical insulator").
    This is not the physically impossible discharges through a conductive plasma that you fantasize about.
The totally stupid electric comet idea that has been debunked!

What is the PMMA discharging to RC??
 
What is the PMMA discharging to RC??
How totally dumb of you Sol88:
Read the caption: the metal electrode that they touch to the cube!

But then you are so deluded that you think that 0.6 g/cc is 3.0 g/cc so you will not be able to do that.
So:
This shows how we make our "Captured Lightning" sculptures. The video was captured over several years during a number of production runs. In order to make these sculptures, we rent "beam time" on a 5 million electron volt (MeV) particle accelerator. The accelerator injects huge numbers of electrons that penetrate specimens of clear plastic (polymethylmethacrylate, or PMMA). The injected electrons come to a stop 1/4" - 1/2" inside the specimens, forming a cloud-like layer of intense negative charge. The charge layer becomes temporarily trapped (similar to charged clouds in a thunderstorm), since PMMA is an excellent electrical insulator. The charged specimens are then carefully discharged by tapping with a metal point. This allows the trapped electrons to suddenly escape, and they surge out in a river-like branched network of lightning-like discharges. The hot discharges create countless branching chains of microscopic fractures and tubes within the PMMA, leaving behind a permanent "fossil" record of the paths originally taken by the discharges. The result is a Captured Lightning sculpture. The scientific name for these patterns is Lichtenberg Figures, and they're sometimes called "Beam Trees".
 
ThunderBolts Deep Impact predictions: Lying about the energetic effects

All Thunderbolt quotes are from their Predictions Confirmed page.

Lying about the energetic effects
Thunderbolt prediction:
Thornhill: The energetic effects of the encounter should exceed that of a simple physical impact, in the same way that was seen with comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 at Jupiter.
Thornhill is obviously ignorant of the fact that Jupiter is a very big planet with a gaseous atmosphere and that Tempel 1 is a comet (tiny in comparison) that is relatively solid. Comparing the 2 impacts is ridiculous.

This is not a prediction since it does not define what the "energetic effects" will be: the volume of the ejected material? the width of the plume?, something else?

ThunderBolts "confirmed" result:
It is now well documented that every scientist associated with the project was stunned by the energetic outburst.
see [ 2005 July 07]
Well "documented" .. except at ThunderBolts :(!
The link is broken. The date is 3 days after the impact so there was no analysis of the energy release available.

Press releases show that the brightness of the flash was reported by the reporter as a surprise to be addressed by the team, e.g. Deep Impact Mission Successfully Hits Comet Tempel 1
The flash created by the impact was just one of the visual surprises that confronted the Deep Impact team


Note that the reporter did not
  • poll "every scientist associated with the project"
  • does not quote even one scientist as "stunned".
That "surprise" lasted until the laboratory experiments were reviewed and compared to the impact:
Photometric Evolution of the Deep Impact Flash (03/2006)
The faint flash followed by the delayed saturated flash farther downrange can be explained by an oblique impact into a low-density (0.3 g/cc) target as documented in laboratory experiments [2-4].
...
[2] Schultz, P. H. et al. (2005) SSR, 117, 207-239.
[3] Ernst, C. M. and P. H. Schultz (2003) LPS XXXIV, #2020.
[4] Schultz, P. H. and J. L. B. Anderson (2005) LPS XXXVI, #1926
Note that the experiments were done before the impact.

P. H. Schultz is associated with the Deep Impact team. He would not have been "stunned by the energetic outburst".
 
Uncle Wal predicted the two flashes regardless of the mechanisim and that the impact would be more energetic than the boffins 4.5t of TNT.
I just found out that you are even ignorant of Uncle Wal's predictions than I thought, Sol88!
You have always been deluded about the fact that Wallace Thornhill predicted a flash shortly before impact: ThunderBolts Deep Impact predictions: Lying about flashes

Now you assert that Wallace Thornhill predicted that the total energy of the impact would be greater than the 19 GJ (4.8 tons of TNT) generally predicted.
He did not. His prediction is about vague "energetic effects".
ThunderBolts Deep Impact predictions: Lying about the energetic effects
 
Venus still sports a cometary tail, though not in the visible range now, it seems in the past it did.

Uh sure, whatever loose defintion of cometary you are using is wrong.

I am sure there is some vague allusion in the Russell paper:
http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/personnel/russell/papers/Venus_structure.pdf

Maybe this one: which isn't a paper
http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/personnel/russell/papers/venus_mag/

"In this sense, Venus can be likened to a comet, which has an induced magnetotail of similar origin. "

So you will notice that they are not saying venus is a comet any more than most people would say a dog is a horse because it had four legs.

You do know venus, unlike most asteroids has a substantial atmosphere, so your point is more irrelevant than usual.

"In the past it did", sure just like Joshua stopped the sun and moon in the sky and Zeus turned into a swan to rape Leda.
 
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No, the interaction of Venus with the solar wind magnetotail is more comet like than Earth like, because Venus does not have a internal magnetic field. The solar wind gets "hung up" in the ionosphere of Venus and thus a so called induced magnetosphere is created.

No, Venus's tail was NEVER in the visible range, as there is basically nothing there to reflect light, like in a cometary tail. Measurements by Venus Express have shown that basically hydrogen and oxygen is escaping along Venus's tail.

You could just as easily say than that the Earth's tail of Jupiter's tail should be visible. The idea is preposterous.
 
How totally dumb of you Sol88:
Read the caption: the metal electrode that they touch to the cube!

But then you are so deluded that you think that 0.6 g/cc is 3.0 g/cc so you will not be able to do that.
So:

Tap RC, Tap, you do notice t is still discharging after it has been tapped with a metal object, but my guess is that is dosen't even have to be metal. It just needs a disturbance to initiate. You did see some of the blocks self discharge under the influence of the electron beam?

My point is the rock (comet) acquires the space charge that surrounds it much like the block of acrylic acquires the charge of the space charge it was in (the beam), after it was removed from the region of high space charge it was ready, willing and able to discharge back to the surrounding "air" all it needed was a tap to disrupt the internal structure and whamo!! An electron avalanche!

What about if we stick a Meteorite in a linac and the immerse it in a plasma stream, like a Hall effect thruster just to see what happens!!

Would the Rock discharge you think?
 
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