The Electric Comet theory

The Electric Universe researchers are ready to turn the tide of comet theory back toward electrical phenomena. Electricity, not heat, is at work on the surface of Wild 2. If this is true, then a second problem is solved. We don't have to wait for the rare impact to form the cratered landscape. The craters we see are being carved by electric arcs. These arcs also cause the (surprising) dark color of every comet we've seen up close. They produce the (surprising) x- rays that the ROSAT x-ray observatory discovered. And they create the (surprising) streams of rocky particles that pummeled the spacecraft, Stardust.

Click to expand...

A method especially useful for cutting and breaking hard rock such as granite from the face of a tunnel is disclosed. A pattern of slots are cut into the rock face by directing a high velocity plasma jet on the rock face to melt a portion of the rock face and produce a molten film and applying electrical power to the plasma-jet and a cooperating electrode to flow electric current through the molten film to further heat the molten film and melt additional rock to form a slot. After the pattern of slots are formed, spaced plasma streams are introduced into the slots and electrical power of a frequency effective to produce dielectric heating in the rock is applied through the plasma streams to produce a heated region within the rock mass which thermally stresses and severs that rock mass portion into fragments.

Click to expand...

The unexpected breakup of comets, some at considerable distances from the Sun, has long baffled comet researchers. But there is no mystery if comets are solid bodies discharging electrically as they move into regions of different charge in the Sun’s electric field.

Click to expand...

Thus, according to Sagan and Druyan, “the problem is left unsolved”. But the authors appear to have found a clue without recognizing its significance. “Splitting and jetting may be connected … At the moment Comet West split, the individual fragments brightened noticeably, and propelled large quantities of dust into space in the first of some dozen bursts”. The same could be said for the more recent Comet Linear breakup.

Why would intense, high-velocity jets and explosions of dust, traveling at supersonic speeds, precede the fragmentation of a comet nucleus? In the electrical model of comets, the answer is obvious. The behavior of comets will never be understood in simple mechanical terms because they are electrified bodies orbiting within the plasma environment of an electrified Sun. The solar plasma behaves like a very good conductor in the Sun's electrical connection with the galaxy. And just like any good conductor, the electric field within the plasma is very low. But unlike good metal conductors, the solar plasma is of extremely low density and therefore its current-carrying ability is limited.

Click to expand...

But now, “the locales of comets and asteroids may not be such a key distinction”, states Dan Vergano, reporting on the work of two University of Hawaii astronomers, Henry Hsieh and David Jewitt. In a survey of 300 asteroids lurking in the asteroid belt, the astronomers detected three objects that “look a lot like comets … ejecting little comet tails at times from their surfaces”. The three red circles in the illustration above describe the orbits of these bodies

Of course, this is not the first instance of an 'asteroid' sporting a cometary tail. The asteroid Chiron, orbiting between Saturn and Uranus, was seen to develop a coma and tail between 1988 and 1989. It is now officially classified as both an asteroid and a comet. Chiron belongs to a class of objects called 'Centaurs' crossing the orbits of various gas giants. Though they move on minimally eccentric orbits through a relatively remote and weak region of the Sun’s electric field, Wallace Thornhill and other electrical theorists believe these bodies should all be watched carefully for telltale signs of minor cometary activity. And in fact the asteroid 60558 Echeclus, discovered in 2000, did display a cometary coma detected in 2005, and it too is now classified as both an asteroid and a comet.

In the electric view, there is no fundamental distinction between a comet and an asteroid, apart from their orbits. Comets are not primordial objects formed by impact accretion – an improbable and unfalsifiable model (“it happened long, long ago and far, far away”). Asteroids, comets and meteorites are all 'born' in interplanetary electrical events. Their distinctive orbital groupings and spectral features simply point to separate catastrophic events and to different planetary bodies involved in different phases of solar system history.

Click to expand...

A comet is simply an electrical display and was recognized as such by scientists in the 19th century. So an 'asteroid' on a sufficiently elliptical orbit will do precisely what a comet does—it will discharge electrically. What distinguishes the cometary 'asteroids', observed by the University of Hawaii astronomers, are the paths they follow, moving them through the radial electric field of the Sun to a greater extent than is typical of other bodies in the 'asteroid belt' (See chart above). Cometary effects may also be expected from an asteroid if it passes through the huge electric comet tail [called the magnetosphere] of a giant planet.

The astronomers’ recent investigation only reinforces the argument of the electrical theorists: The electric model is eminently testable, with highly specific and unique predictions; and it has so far met every test provided by the space age.

Click to expand...

ELECTRIC MODEL PREDICTIONS FOR DEEP IMPACT:

* An abundance of water on or below the surface of the nucleus (the underlying assumption of the “dirty snowball” hypothesis) is unlikely.
* Tempel 1 has a low-eccentricity orbit. Therefore its charge imbalance with respect to its environment at perihelion is low. (It is a “low-voltage” comet.) Electrical interactions with Deep Impact may be slight, but they should be measurable if NASA will look for them. They would likely be similar to those of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 prior to striking Jupiter’s atmosphere: The most obvious would be a flash (lightning-like discharge) shortly before impact.
* The impactor may form a sheath around it as it enters the coma, becoming a “comet within a comet”.
* Electrical stress may short out the electronics on board the impactor before impact.
* More energy will be released than expected because of the electrical contributions of the comet. (The discharge could be similar to the “megalightning” bolt that, evidence suggests, struck the shuttle Columbia).
* Copious X-rays will accompany discharges to the projectile, exceeding any reasonable model for X-ray production through the mechanics of impact. The intensity curve will be that of a lightning bolt (sudden onset, exponential decline) and may well include more than one peak.
* If the energy is distributed over several flashes, more than one crater on the comet nucleus could result—in addition to any impact crater.
* Any arcs generated will be hotter than can be explained by mechanical impact. If temperature measurements are made with sufficient resolution, they will be much higher than expected from impact heating.
* The discharge and/or impact may initiate a new jet on the nucleus (which will be collimated—filamentary—not sprayed out) and could even abruptly change the positions and intensities of other jets due to the sudden change in charge distribution on the comet nucleus.
* The impact/electrical discharge will not reveal “primordial dirty ice,” but the same composition as the surface.
* The impact/electrical discharge will be into rock, not loosely consolidated ice and dust. The impact crater will be smaller than expected.

Click to expand...

Tim Thompson said:

Easy. Since comets are not very dense (i.e., they are not "rocks"), they are easily pushed around by the jets that eventually form the coma & tail. The jets push the comet around like little rockets. Those are the non-gravitational forces that comet scientists have to deal with. The non-gravitational forces are enough to alter comet orbits from one apparition to the next. See figure 1.14 (page 38) in the book introduction to comets, Brandt & Chapman, Cambridge University Press, 2004 (2nd edition). Also see Sosa & Fernández, 2009 where comet masses are computed from non-gravitational forces. The densities derived are about or less than 0.8 gm/cm³ and average 0.4 gm/cm³.

Click to expand...

In a previous Picture of the Day article we noted that NASA scientists have determined that both of the Pioneer spacecraft are off course by more than a hundred thousand kilometers. At the time, investigative team members remarked that they had no explanation for the navigational deviation, so many speculations were offered about what “mysterious” forces could be acting on the most distant of artificial objects. Multidimensional space, dark energy, dark matter "friction," and other ironic theories such as “gravity affecting antimatter differently” were offered to the scientific press as "explanations" for the deceleration.

In September 1998 the same inexplicable "tug" seemed be acting on the now defunct Ulysses spacecraft as it swung through the Solar System in a high orbit over the Sun's poles. Ulysses exhibited an anomalous acceleration toward the Sun when radio signals from Earth were returned from an onboard transponder. A Doppler shift in the frequency of the return transmission indicated a variance greater than could be accounted for by known mechanisms—as of today, no one in the conventional science community can provide a solid explanation for it.

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

yup that "crackpot" nailed it, who'd thunk eh?

Depends on the potentials involved of course! simple really

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

No, I am saying i think the data on density and mass calculation is misleading causing them to underestimate a comets density.

I know what the papers say and I (along with a few other) say that a comets density is the same, more or less, than a asteroids!

We shall see who's correct!

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

So what where the PREDICTIONS and how'd they go!
Not bad for a "crackpot"

Click to expand...

• An "abundance" of water on or below the surface of the nucleus was found.
  The prediction failed.
• The flash was "very shortly" before impact not "shortly" before impact.
  The prediction failed.
• etc.

• It predicts that comets will have densities ~3 gm/cm³.
  The actual measured densities are < 1 3 gm/cm³.
  FAILURE.
• It predicts that comets will emit X-ray bursts from the electrical discharges.
  These are not seen.
  FAILURE.

Sol88 said:

well the probes masses MUST have changed right?

Those same non gravitational forces are also acting on the probes, but they do not know what is causing them!

and you use the same data to calculate the density of a charged object!

Well done, you've discovered natures version of Aerogel!!!

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

No, I am saying i think the data on density and mass calculation is misleading causing them to underestimate a comets density.

I know what the papers say and I (along with a few other) say that a comets density is the same, more or less, than a asteroids!

We shall see who's correct!

Click to expand...

Reality Check said:

Tim Thompson replied to a question on the non-gravitational forces on comets from jets that eventually form the coma & tail.
That has little to do with the tiny anomalies for the Pioneer or Ulysses spacecraft unless you think that they are caused by out gassing.
The Pioneer anomaly appears to cause a constant acceleration of (8.74 ± 1.33) × 10−10 m/s2 toward the Sun for both spacecraft with smiliar values for the Ulysses (and Galileo) spacecraft.
Perhaps Tim can look up what a typical acceleration of a comet from its jets is. My guess - a couple of OOM larger.

Click to expand...

Reality Check said:

Ooooooowww touchy touchy there Sol88!
Why are you trying to derail this thread about the electric comet non-science?


All you need to know is that the electric comet model fails totally on two fundamental predictions for all comets (not just Tempel 1).

• It predicts that comets will have densities ~3 gm/cm3.
  The actual measured densities are < 1 3 gm/cm3.
  FAILURE.
• It predicts that comets will emit X-ray bursts from the electrical discharges.
  These are not seen.
  FAILURE.

ETA: Since you are too lazy to even look at the NASA site for the Deep Impact mission, here is yet another failed prediction of the electric comet idea .
Prediction: Two flashes, the first before hitting the surface.
Mission Results: Excavating Comet Tempel 1


Electric comet FAILURE.

Click to expand...

Scientists think that X-rays are produced through a process called charge exchange, in which highly (and positively) charged particles from the sun that lack electrons steal electrons from chemicals in the comet. Typical comet material includes water, methane and carbon dioxide. Charge exchange is analogous to the tiny spark seen in static electricity, only at a far greater energy.

Click to expand...

Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is the brightest comet ever detected in the X-ray band. This NASA Swift image shows the comet in X-rays as it moves closer to the Earth on its orbit around the sun (at a safe distance millions of miles away). The white speck is the near the comet core; the yellow and bright red areas show the comet's halo and tail. Scientists hope to learn about the composition of the comet and of the solar wind, which interacts with the comet to make X-rays. This is a rare opportunity because certain key information about the comet and solar wind is seen only via spectral lines in X-ray energies. As the comet moves closer to the Earth and sun, other X-ray satellites will observe the comet in detail. Note that the X-rays are to the left of the nucleus (towards the sun) because they are produced by interactions with the solar wind.

Click to expand...

Swift is the first observatory to simultaneously observe the comet in both ultraviolet light and X-rays. This cross comparison is crucial for testing theories about comets.

Click to expand...

Energetic solar wind ions impact the coma, capturing electrons from neutral atoms. As the electrons become attached to their new parent nuclei (the solar wind ion), energy is released in the form of X-rays. As the coma can measure several thousand miles in diameter, the comet atmosphere has a huge cross section, allowing a vast number of these charge exchange events to occur. Comets suddenly become significant X-ray generators as they get blasted by solar wind ions. The total power output from the coma can top a billion Watts.

Charge exchange can occur in any system where a hot stream of ions interact with a cooler neutral gas. Using missions such as Swift to study the interaction of comets with the solar wind can provide a valuable laboratory for scientists to understand otherwise confusing X-ray emissions from other systems.

Click to expand...

It’s a bit funny: we usually associate X-rays with incredibly violent events like exploding stars, black holes gobbling down matter, and über-dense neutron stars with terrifyingly strong magnetic fields. Yet comets are frozen snowballs. You might not think they can emit such high-energy light.

But I guess that’s a failing of our language. When a subatomic particle from the solar wind hits the comet’s coma, the impact speeds are huge, and the event really is pretty extreme. It’s just really really tiny. It’s not enough to significantly heat up the comet, but it’s certainly enough to make it glow in X-rays.

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

Wow are you really that gullible RC?

You can't see the contradiction in statements here???

Your "snowbank" vaporized copper?

< .3 gm/cm3. vaporized the 8.94 g·cm−3 copper projectile? How hot does the "snowbank" have to get if copper vaporizes at 300.4 kJ·mol−1??

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

Your "snowbank" vaporized copper?

Click to expand...

Reality Check said:

Thornhill PREDICTED a flash before the impact. The flashes actually happened at and after the impact.

Can you tell the difference Sol88?


The electric comet model fails totally on two fundamental predictions for all comets (not just Tempel 1).

* It predicts that comets will have densities ~3 gm/cm3.
The actual measured densities are < 1 3 gm/cm3.
FAILURE.
* It predicts that comets will emit X-ray bursts from the electrical discharges.
These are not seen.
FAILURE.

Here is yet another failed prediction of the electric comet idea .

Prediction: Two flashes, the first before hitting the surface.
Mission Results: Excavating Comet Tempel 1
Result: Two flashes, the first as the impactor entered the nucleus, or shortly thereafter.

Electric comet FAILURE.

Click to expand...

The European Space Agency's Giotto probe met Halley's Comet on March 16, 1996. Among several discoveries, the comet was found to be covered with a black crust. Bright jets of ionized gas, or plasma, blasted out from its surface in three highly localized areas. Water was present in Halley's coma, but according to Horst Uwe Keller of the Max Planck Institut für Aeronomie: "We discovered that a comet is not really a 'dirty snowball' since dirt is dominant, not ice. Instead of being spherical like a warm snowball, a comet nucleus is elongated. The physical structure of a comet's interior is defined by its dust content rather than its ice content."

Click to expand...

On 14 March 2006, I wrote in Stardust Comet Fragments Solar System Theory, “NASA researchers announced on March 13 another in the long procession of surprises about comets. The grains from comet Wild 2, trapped in aerogel and returned to Earth, were much larger than expected and made from the same high-temperature minerals as found in the most abundant meteorites. This discovery was so unexpected that an early sample was thought to be contamination from the spacecraft.

Once again, rather than revisiting the assumptions about the origin of comets, NASA scientists introduced another ad hoc addition to comet theory. Now the Sun must somehow eject material from inside Mercury's orbit into the far reaches beyond Pluto's orbit where it somehow accretes to form comets. The word 'somehow' is overworked to death in comet theory.

Click to expand...

Where Has All the Stardust Gone?

Surprise has followed surprise for cosmochemists analyzing the dust sample that the Stardust spacecraft returned from comet Wild 2 in January 2006. First, they found tiny flecks of once molten minerals—material very different from the raw, primordial dust they expected to see. Such unaltered, so-called presolar material was the prime ingredient of the rocky planets and was thought to abound in icy comets. But researchers report that they have failed to find a single speck of it.
“For those of us who study presolar materials, it’s turned out to be a bit of a bust,” says cosmochemist Larry R. Nittler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, D.C. “Wild 2 seems more related to asteroids than comets,” because all asteroids were altered from the solar system’s primitive starting materials. Still, “the mission’s been a huge success,” says John Bradley of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, a co-author of the Science paper. “It’s changing the way we think about comets.”

All in all, “it’s looking as if Wild 2 is more like an asteroid than a primitive comet,” says Ishii. Brownlee agrees. Rather than preserving the original ingredients of planets, comets—or at least Wild 2—seem to be loaded with materials first altered by the great heat near the young sun, he says. Then those altered materials must have been carried outward to the outer reaches of the nebula, where comets incorporated them. “I would say a large fraction of the [outermost] nebular materials were probably transported there” from much nearer the sun, Brownlee says, “which is pretty amazing.” Now, no one is at all sure where the solar system’s lingering primitive materials might reside.

Click to expand...

Science Objectives
The primary goal of the Deep Impact mission is to explore the interior of Comet Tempel
1 by using an impactor to excavate a crater in the comet's surface, after which the
flyby spacecraft will take data on the newly exposed cometary interior and the comet
material ejected from the crater. Scientists believe in-depth analysis of this new view
of Tempel 1 will reveal a great deal not only about this comet but also the role of
comets in the earliest history of the solar system.

In particular, the mission's scientific objectives are to:
Dramatically improve the knowledge of key properties of a cometary nucleus
and, for the first time, directly assess the interior of a cometary nucleus by
means of a massive impactor hitting the surface of the nucleus at high velocity.
Determine properties of the comet's surface layers such as density, strength,
composition and how porous it is.

Study the relationship between the surface layers of the comet's nucleus and
the possibly pristine materials of the interior by comparing the interior of the
crater with the pre-impact surface.
Improve our understanding of the evolution of cometary nuclei by comparing
the interior and surface.

The main scientific investigation is to understand the differences between the interior of
a cometary nucleus and its surface. Some of the questions that will be addressed are:
If the crater depth reaches 20 meters (about 60 feet), do the ices suddenly
become carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide ice instead of water ice?

Or, is the ice still predominantly water (H2O)? If water ice, is its structure
crystalline or amorphous?

Is the mantle devoid of volatile materials? To what depth?

Is the comet's structure homogeneous from side to side on various scales?

How does the ratio of ice to refractory (non-melting) material change?
How old is the surface?

Does the mantle seal off vaporization from certain areas? Or are certain
areas just more devoid of volatile materials than others?

Where will future missions have to go to really sample primordial material?

Click to expand...

Predicted two flashes at specific points in the impact, saw the wrong two flashes!!!

Click to expand...

Initial results were surprising as the material excavated by the impact contained more dust and less ice than had been expected. The only models of cometary structure astronomers could positively rule out were the very porous models which had comets as loose aggregates of material. In addition, the material was finer than expected; scientists compared it to talcum powder rather than sand.[36] Other materials found while studying the impact included clays, carbonates, sodium, and crystalline silicates which were found by studying the spectroscopy of the impact.[11] Clays and carbonates usually require liquid water to form and sodium is rare in space.[37] Observations also revealed that the comet was about 75% empty space, and one astronomer compared the outer layers of the comet to the same makeup of a snow bank.[11] Astronomers have expressed interest in more missions to different comets to determine if they share similar compositions or if there are different materials found deeper within comets that were produced at the time of the solar system's formation.

Click to expand...

The compression stage of crater formation is over so fast for the Deep Impact collision that it is very unlikely that there will be any data gathered, although the brightness of the flash may provide information about surface materials on the comet nucleus.

Click to expand...

Since Tempel 1 is a relatively inactive comet, it provides a good opportunity to study this issue.

Click to expand...

The cratering process will help reveal what type of material makes up the nucleus (or at least the outer layer), and therefore how the comet formed and evolved. If the crater turns out to be gravity-dominated, this lends evidence to the theory that the comet's nucleus consists of porous, pristine, unprocessed material, and that the comet formed by accretion

Click to expand...

DIRTY SNOWBALL MODEL:

• Comets are composed of undifferentiated “protoplanetary debris”—dust and ices left over from the formation of the solar system billions of years ago.
• Radiant heat from the Sun sublimates the ices. The vapor expands around the nucleus to form the coma and is swept back by the solar wind to form the tail.
• Over repeated passages around the Sun, solar heat vaporizes surface ice and leaves a “rind” of dust.
• Where heat penetrates the surface of a blackened, shallow crust, pockets of gas form. Where the pressure breaks through the surface, energetic jets form.

Click to expand...

ELECTRIC COMET MODEL:

• Comets are debris produced during violent electrical interactions of planets and moons in an earlier phase of solar system history. Comets are similar to asteroids, and their composition varies. Most comets should be homogeneous—their interiors will have the same composition as their surfaces. They are simply “asteroids on eccentric orbits.”
• Comets follow their elongated paths within a weak electrical field centered on the Sun. In approaching the Sun, a charge imbalance develops between the nucleus and the higher voltage and charge density near the Sun. Growing electrical stresses initiate discharges and the formation of a glowing plasma sheath, appearing as the coma and tail.
• The observed jets of comets are electric arc discharges to the nucleus, producing “electrical discharge machining” (EDM) of the surface. The excavated material is accelerated into space along the jets’ observed filamentary arcs.
• Intermittent and wandering arcs erode the surface and burn it black, leaving the distinctive scarring patterns of electric discharges.
• The jets’ explode from cometary nuclei at supersonic speeds and retain their coherent structure for hundreds of thousands of miles. The collimation of such jets is a well-documented attribute of plasma discharge.
• The tails of comets reveal well-defined filaments extending up to tens of millions of miles without dissipating in the vacuum of space. This “violation” of neutral gas behavior in a vacuum is to be expected of a plasma discharge within the ambient electric field of the Sun.
• It is the electric force that holds the spherical cometary coma in place as the comet races around the Sun. The diameter of the visible coma will often reach millions of miles. And the visible coma is surrounded by an even larger and more “improbable” spherical envelope of fluorescing hydrogen visible in ultraviolet light.
• The primary distinction between comet and asteroid surfaces is that electrical arcing and “electrostatic cleaning” of the comet nucleus will leave little or no dust or debris on the surface during the active phase, even if a shallow layer of dust may be attracted back to the nucleus electrostatically as the comet becomes dormant in its retreat to more remote regions.

Click to expand...

• Considerably greater energies will be released than expected because of the electrical contributions of the comet.
• An electric discharge in advance of impact is likely. We also expect an interruption of impactor transmission before it reaches the surface.

• Scientists will find considerably less water ice and other volatiles than expected, both on the surface and beneath the surface of Tempel 1. A completely “dry” nucleus should not be surprising.
• The discharge and/or impact may initiate a new jet on the nucleus (which will be collimated—filamentary—not sprayed out) and could even abruptly change the positions and intensities of other jets due to the sudden change in charge distribution on the comet nucleus.
• The cameras will reveal sharply defined craters, valleys, mesas, and ridges—the opposite of the softened relief expected of a sublimating “dirty snowball”. (A chunk of ice melting in the Sun loses its sharp relief, just like a scoop of melting ice cream.)
• Electrostatic cleaning will have cleared the surface of dust and debris.

Click to expand...

The following is a partial summary of correct predictions for “Deep Impact” based on the electric comet model:

*

ENERGY OF EXPLOSION
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.

*

ADVANCED FLASH
Electrical theorist Wallace Thornhill predicted at least one flash from electric discharge prior to impact. From the standard viewpoint, that is an absurd prediction when considering an impactor being hit by a body at 23,000 miles per hour in “empty” space. But here is NASA investigator Peter Schultz’s description of the event:
o

“What you see is something really surprising. First, there is a small flash, then there’s a delay, then there’s a big flash and the whole thing breaks loose.”

*

MISSING WATER
o

“It’s pretty clear that this event did not produce a gusher,” said SWAS principal investigator Gary Melnick of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). “The more optimistic predictions for water output from the impact haven’t materialized…”

*

SHARP SURFACE RELIEF
We not only predicted the sharply defined relief, but the specific features.
o

“The model predicts a sculpted surface, distinguished by sharply defined craters, valleys, mesas, and ridges.”



All of the expected features are present, and astronomers cannot agree on the cause, though all agree that Tempel 1 does not look like a melting “snowball.”

*

SURFACE ARCING
The highest resolution photographs of Tempel 1, taken by the impactor, show numerous featureless patches of whiteout, most located where the electrical hypothesis would put them—on the rims of craters and on the wall of cliffs rising above flat valley floors. Electrical etching continually expands valley floors by eating away at the sharp edges of surrounding cliffs.

*

NEW JETS
Electrical theorist Wallace Thornhill was the only one to have anticipated a shift in the arrangement, number, and the intensities of the jets away from the impact site. The 2.5 meter NOT telescope of the El Roque de los Muchachos observatory at La Palma, Spain, released images just before impact and 15 hours after impact. The observatory report states, “New jets appeared after the impact.” No explanation has ever been given.

*

ELECTRICAL DISRUPTION
In the final seconds before impact, the video transmissions from the impactor showed considerable interference, then stopped moments before it struck the nucleus of Tempel 1. The interference pattern appeared to be electrical.

*

ELECTROSTATIC CLEANING
The surface of Tempel 1 contrasts with the surface of the asteroid Itokawa (right). The asteroid appears to have attracted considerable surface debris electrostatically. We suggested an active comet will do the reverse

Click to expand...

Cometary X-rays

A comet is claimed to be an icy body slowly wasting away in the heat of the Sun. But this ROSAT image from March 27, 1996 reveals a comet radiating x-rays as intense as those from the x-ray stars that are ROSAT’s usual target.

The Sun’s radial electric field is weak but constant with distance in interplanetary space. In a constant radial electric field, the voltage decreases linearly with distance. A comet on an elongated orbit spends most of its time far from the Sun and acquires a charge in balance with the voltage at that distance. But when a comet speeds inward for a quick spin around the Sun, the voltage of the comet becomes increasingly out of balance with that nearer the Sun—a situation leading to high-energy discharge.


Most of the voltage difference between the comet and the solar plasma is taken up in a double layer of charge, called a plasma sheath, that surrounds the comet. When the electrical stress is great enough, the sheath glows and appears as the typical cometary coma and tail. Diffuse electrical discharges occur in the sheath and at the nucleus, radiating a variety of frequencies, including x-rays.



The highest voltage differences occur at the comet nucleus and across the plasma sheath. So where the sheath is most compressed, in the sunward direction, the electric field is strong enough to accelerate charged particles to x-ray energies. That may explain recent crescent-shaped x-ray images in relation to the comet nucleus and the Sun. Flickering and occasional flare-ups are also expected, because plasma discharges behave in a non-linear manner.

Click to expand...

X-rays were never found from a comet before, and scientists had optimistically predicted an intensity that turned out to be about 100 times weaker than the radiation actually detected by ROSAT. Strong changes in the brightness of the X-rays were another surprise. There were pronounced increases and decreases in the X-ray brightness from one ROSAT observation to another, typically over a time difference of a few hours.

Click to expand...

The research on X-ray emission from comets and planets is a very young field. Until 1996, the only planets which were known to emit X-rays were the Earth and Jupiter. Comets were not even generally considered as candidates for X-ray sources.

Thus, the discovery of X-rays from comet Hyakutake with ROSAT in March 1996 came as a big surprise to many scientists. The surprise increased even more, when additional comets were detected in archival X-ray data obtained during the ROSAT all-sky survey, establishing comets as a new class of X-ray sources.
The process which causes the X-ray emission of comets is now understood as the result of charge exchange interactions between heavy, highly ionized atoms in the solar wind with cometary gas. This process reproduces the observed X-ray luminosity and X-ray morphology very well, explains the temporal variability of the X-ray flux, and predicts characteristic signatures in the X-ray spectrum, which can now be tested with the spectroscopic capabilities of Chandra and XMM-Newton. All the observed X-ray properties are consistent with the charge exchange process.
Comets can thus be used as natural spacecrafts to probe the heavy ion content of the solar wind at various heliographic latitudes and at different phases in the solar cycle, which is otherwise only accessible by in-situ measurements. Furthermore, X-ray observations of comets provide insights into the physics of the charge exchange process itself, complementing laboratory experiments and theoretical studies.

Click to expand...

Reality Check;4941183 ETA: Sol88: Quantify how far away Thornhill predicted the first flash to occur from the surface. Remember the impactor's moving at 10 said:

'bout two tenths of a second away

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

'bout two tenths of a second away

Click to expand...

Reality Check said:

You really cannot read Sol88 so I will make add the links to the posts that you are ignoring in your gullibility for the electric comet stupidity. You will of course ignore them for the dozenth time.




The electric comet model fails totally on two fundamental predictions for all comets (not just Tempel 1).

• It predicts that comets will have densities ~3 gm/cm3.
  The actual measured densities are < 1 3 gm/cm3.
  FAILURE.
• It predicts that comets will emit many X-ray bursts from the electrical discharges.
  These many X-ray bursts are not seen.
  FAILURE.

Electric Comets I, Electric Comets II: References and Electric Comets III: No EU X-rays.

Here is yet another failed prediction of the electric comet idea.

Prediction: Two flashes, the first before hitting the surface.
Mission Results: Excavating Comet Tempel 1
Result: Two flashes, the first as the impactor entered the nucleus, or shortly thereafter.

Electric comet FAILURE.


EPIC FAIL Sol88 as usual you have demonstrated your inability to read and understand simple science.

Click to expand...

FLASHES AND THE PLUME

As the impactor entered the nucleus, or shortly thereafter, a brilliant flash, lasting less than two tenths of a second, appeared probably as the impactor and part of Tempel 1 vaporized. The first flash was followed by a second presumably originating deeper within the comet. The second flash was brighter still and it momentarily saturated some pixels in the instruments on the flyby spacecraft.

Click to expand...

"Deep Space 1 plunged into the heart of Comet Borrelly and has lived to tell every detail of its spine-tingling adventure," said project manager Dr Marc Rayman. "The images are even better than the impressive images of Comet Halley taken by Europe's Giotto spacecraft in 1986." "Up to Saturday night, we had only one example of a comet's nucleus. Now, we have another one, and with it a much better understanding of comets," said Dr Don Yeomans, of the American space agency's (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, at a press conference to unveil the images. "It's mind-boggling and stupendous," said Dr Laurence Soderblom, the leader of DS1's imaging team. "These pictures have told us that comet nuclei are far more complex than we ever imagined. They have rugged terrain, smooth rolling plains, deep fractures and very, very dark material."

Click to expand...

In future: There is a plan for a comet mission called Deep Impact. Scheduled for July 2005, Deep Impact's spacecraft will arrive at comet Tempel 1 and become the first mission to impact the surface of a comet. A 350-kg (770-lb) copper mass impactor will create a spectacular football field-sized crater, seven stories deep on a comet 6-km (approximately 4 miles) in diameter. This is the first attempt to peer beneath the surface of a comet to its freshly exposed material for clues to the early formation of the solar system.

Given the erroneous standard model of comets it is an interesting exercise to imagine what surprises are in store for astronomers if the plan is successful. The electrical model suggests the likelihood of an electrical discharge between the comet nucleus and the copper projectile, particularly if the comet is actively flaring at the time. The projectile will approach too quickly for a slow electrical discharge to occur. So 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. Changes to the appearance of the jets may be seen before impact. The signature of an electrical discharge would be a high-energy burst of electrical noise across a wide spectrum, a "flash" from infra-red to ultraviolet and the enhanced emission of x-rays from the vicinity of the projectile. The energy of a mechanical impact is not sufficient to generate x-rays.

If the arc vaporizes the copper projectile before impact the comet will not form the crater expected. On the other hand, any copper metal reaching the surface of the comet will act as a focus for an arc. And copper can sustain a much higher current density than rock or ice. There would then be the likelihood of an intense arc, with possibly a single jet, until the copper is electrically "machined" from the comet's surface. Copper atoms ionized to a surprisingly high degree should be detectable from Earth-based telescopes. Electrical discharges through the body of a poor conductor can be disruptive and are probably responsible for the breakup of comets. It is not necessary for them to be poorly consolidated dust and ice and to simply fall apart. So there is some small chance that astronomers will be surprised to see the comet split apart, if the projectile reaches the surface of the comet and results in an intense arc.

The Deep Impact mission seems rather pointless when the cathode arcs are doing the job of exposing the comet's subsurface. However, if comets are an electrical phenomenon and have nothing to do with the formation of the solar system then astronomers are bound to be baffled once more. And that could be worth every dollar NASA spends on Deep Impact.

Click to expand...

The "dirty snowball model" (unlike the electric comet idea) is a scientific theory. The "dirty snowball model" fitted the existing data (e.g. the measured ~0.3 g/cm3 density of comets). What the missions to the various comets have shown is that this scientific theory will have to be updated to the "dirtier snowball model".

Click to expand...

It is presumed that the second case is right because the low density of the comet (less than that of water and ~10 times less than that of an asteroid) means that the solid impactor would penetrate into the nucleus (not lodge in the surface)

Click to expand...

Read what Thornhill actually said. He did not just predict two flashes. He assigned positions to those flashes.
Read what you quoted.
Thornhill predicted a flash before impact in addition to the expected flash on impact.
What was observed was a flash at impact followed by another flash later.

Click to expand...

To me rind implies a relatively tough outer layer. That looks like something to cause an initial flash as it is penetrated and the impactor loses some material. Then there is a bigger flash as the impactor vaporizes completely while it gets deeper into the nucleus.

Click to expand...

What was observed was a flash at impact followed by another flash later.

Click to expand...

Observations: The impact with Tempel 1 occurred at an angle of 20º-40º from the horizontal [1].

Click to expand...

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].

Click to expand...

Reality Check said:

A little tidbit for Sol88 to ignore:
Photometric Evolution Of The Deep Impact Flash analyses the first faint flash on impact and the bigger flash that happened about 124 milliseconds later. A couple of quotes from the paper:

(an oblique collision)

Click to expand...

Figure 2. The migration of the impact flash. The letters
correspond to the frame letters from Figure 1: A represents the
location of the first light, C the beginning of the delayed second
flash (100-200 m downrange), and D the center of brightness of the
first saturated image, likely due to the emergence of the hot
vapor/gas. The background image is a subset of the comet surface
observed before impact.

Click to expand...

# If the energy is distributed over several flashes, more than one crater on the comet nucleus could result—in addition to any impact crater.

# Any arcs generated will be hotter than can be explained by mechanical impact. If temperature measurements are made with sufficient resolution, they will be much higher than expected from impact heating.

Click to expand...

System Failure. Our prediction was: “Electrical stress may short out the electronics on board the impactor before impact.” The system did indeed fail a few seconds before impact, and data should be reviewed to look for indications of electrical breakdown.

Click to expand...

Multiple craters. We said, “If the energy is distributed over several flashes, more than one crater on the comet nucleus could result—in addition to any impact crater”. Unfortunately, NASA did not anticipate the volume of dust removed by the explosion, which may have made it impossible for even the best enhancement technology to see though the ejecta. However, by tracing rays back to their source we noted the appearance of two ejecta centers immediately after the impact.

Click to expand...

Advance Flash. Thornhill predicted that a visible discharge between the nucleus and impactor would be likely prior to the impactor’s contact with the surface. At least two flashes are now known to have occurred, though (for the obvious reasons) no one on NASA’s investigative team had anticipated this.

Click to expand...

Explosion Radiance. Within minutes of the impact, the coma of Tempel 1 was overtaken by a blast of light so great that it saturated the camera’s detectors. NASA spokesmen called this “one of the great surprises” of Deep Impact. The radiance was not expected under the model in use. (See “Fine Dust” below).

Click to expand...

In our Picture of the Day posted prior to Deep Impact we registered the most detailed predictions of any group in anticipation of the event. For their part, NASA investigators made no predictions. Nor can we find in NASA’s subsequent comments any acknowledgement that an independent group had successfully anticipated the greatest surprises of the encounter.

In view of this situation, we consider it essential that the remaining data analysis by NASA not be permitted to lag so far behind the event that no one will notice what has occurred. Nor will it be helpful if the data find their way into the public domain as isolated fragments of technical minutiae.

Therefore, to maintain the integrity of the most fundamental questions we offer the following status report.

Click to expand...

Initial results were surprising as the material excavated by the impact contained more dust and less ice than had been expected. The only models of cometary structure astronomers could positively rule out were the very porous models which had comets as loose aggregates of material

Click to expand...

Missing Water. Proponents of the electric model predicted that Deep Impact would reveal insufficient water to support the popular ideas about comets. Now we know the ejected material was largely—perhaps entirely—dust and vaporized rock

Click to expand...

Subsurface Composition. We said that the “impact/electrical discharge will not reveal ‘primordial dirty ice,’ but the same composition as the surface.” It is now known that the presence of volatiles in the coma immediately after impact did not change, with the exception of changes relating to charge exchange between the coma and the solar wind (see below).

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

Thunderbolts Team= PREDICTIONS!

NASA= Surprises!

See below

Click to expand...

-"Now we know the ejected material was largely—perhaps entirely—dust and vaporized rock "

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

the prediction was there would be more dusr than water/gas, guess what?

Why not next time you send a probe to a comet you look for electrical/plasma phenomena?



as was predicted, next time look for more dust than ice!

Click to expand...

Dancing David said:

Why not cite the source of your quotes?

Click to expand...

"It's pretty clear that this event did not produce a gusher, the more optimistic predictions for water output from the impact haven't materialized, at least not yet."

Click to expand...

Astronomer Charlie Qi (CfA) expressed surprise at these results.

Click to expand...

"Theories about the volatile layers below the surface of short-period comets are going to have to be revised,"

Click to expand...

SWAS operators were puzzled by the lack of increased water vapor from Tempel 1.

Click to expand...

SMA astronomers saw little increase in production of gases following the impact. Gas production rates remained so low that they could set only an upper limit on the total.

Click to expand...

Reality Check said:

Yes it is wrong in the case of Tempel 1.
That is why the model is being updated to fit the data. That is the scientific method. Scientific theories are driven by observations of the real universe. If the universe says that the theory is wrong then the theory is changed or even discarded in favor of a new theory.

IMHO: A "dusty iceball" model is more appropriate for Tempel 1 and possibly all short-period comets. Long-period comets may still be described by the "dirty snowball" model since they should retain more volatiles like water.

I wonder:
Has Thornhill updated the electric comet model to fit the observed densities of comets (much less than that of astoroids and even less than that of water)?
Has Thornhill updated the electric comet model to fit the missing observations of the X-ray bursts from each of his electrical discharges creating the comet tails?

Or has he proved himself to be a crackpot by ignoring the real universe?



Citations please for the primary mission goal and the report that the impact did not detect any ice at all.

As far as I can see they did find the ice that is below the surface - just not as much as they thought they would see. That is great science. Finding what you expect is nice. Finding the unexpected though is exciting and a primary mission goal of any space mission (or for that matter any science experiment).

EPIC SUCCESS FOR SCIENCE !

Click to expand...

The nucleus masses were estimated by comparing
nongravitational parameters with the rocket-like
forces expected from the gas-production curves.

Click to expand...

4. INFERRING MASSES AND BULK
DENSITIES OF THE NUCLEUS USING
NONGRAVITATIONAL EFFECTS

It is important to note that there are no direct determinations
for the mass or density of any comet and this is
likely to remain the situation until a spacecraft rendezvous
mission is carried out. Nevertheless, there have been many
studies suggesting that comets are rather low-density and
porous structures.

Click to expand...

6. SUMMARY
Cometary orbit-determination problems are dominated
by the proper modeling of the so-called nongravitational
perturbations that are due to the rocket-like thrusting of the
outgassing cometary nucleus. Modern astrometric positions,
particularly those that are referenced to Hipparcos-based
star catalogs and where the brightest pixel is employed as
the true position of the cometary nucleus, are usually accurate
to the subarcsecond level. Yet multiple apparition
orbital solutions for active short-period comets cannot often
provide a root mean square (rms) residual (observed minus
computed observational position) that is subarcsecond. It
is the improper modeling of the nongravitational effects that
is the largest problem by far.

Click to expand...

Yes it is wrong in the case of Tempel 1.
That is why the model is being updated to fit the data. That is the scientific method. Scientific theories are driven by observations of the real universe. If the universe says that the theory is wrong then the theory is changed or even discarded in favor of a new theory.

IMHO: A "dusty iceball" model is more appropriate for Tempel 1 and possibly all short-period comets. Long-period comets may still be described by the "dirty snowball" model since they should retain more volatiles like water.

Click to expand...

Predictions from the hypothesis

Any useful hypothesis will enable predictions, by reasoning including deductive reasoning. It might predict the outcome of an experiment in a laboratory setting or the observation of a phenomenon in nature. The prediction can also be statistical and only talk about probabilities.

It is essential that the outcome be currently unknown. Only in this case does the eventuation increase the probability that the hypothesis be true. If the outcome is already known, it's called a consequence and should have already been considered while formulating the hypothesis.

If the predictions are not accessible by observation or experience, the hypothesis is not yet useful for the method, and must wait for others who might come afterward, and perhaps rekindle its line of reasoning. For example, a new technology or theory might make the necessary experiments feasible.

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

Those crackpots made PREDICTIONS and according to your scientific theory the dirtyiceball model should be kicked to the side!

Hypothesis: Comets are electrical phenomena!

PREDICTIONS for a comet being an electrical phenomena.



let us read that bit again Only in this case does the eventuation increase the probability that the hypothesis be true.


Shall we go over the PREDICTIONS again realty check?

We can start with the prediction there would be two flashes, if you like? Or maybe lack of water or ......

forgot to add

Click to expand...

You are just getting dumber Sol88.
Comets emit jets. Jets act like rockets.

Click to expand...

The cause of the outburst is not definitely known. The huge cloud of gas and dust may have resulted from a collision with a meteoroid, or, more probably, from a build-up of gas inside the comet's nucleus which eventually broke through the surface.[12] However, researchers at the Max Planck Institute suggest in a paper published in Astronomy and Astrophysics state that the brightening can be explained by a thick, air-tight dust cover and the effects of H2O sublimation, with the comet's porous structure providing more surface area for sublimation, up to one order of magnitude greater. Energy from the Sun -- insolation - was stored in the dust cover and the nucleus within the months before the outburst. [13]

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

There is nothing wrong with our mainstream model

Energy from the Sun -- insolation - was stored in the dust cover and the nucleus within the months before the outburst. citations/papers to show this effect?

That comets shine in xrays and UV should be the death knell for the dirtyice ball model.

Click to expand...

ETA: Holmes was observed by Chandra (I have only found a blog post so far). No enormous ball of X-rays but a small X-ray emission consistent with an impact event or small explosion.
What is missing are the many X-ray bursts that the electric comet idea predicts for all comets:

Click to expand...

When Comet 17P/Holmes underwent a surprising outburst in October 2007, Bodewits tasked both Swift and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to observe it. "The comet was too bright to observe with the UVOT. We were afraid we'd damage the instrument," Bodewits says. "Despite this, we're still not sure whether we detected Holmes with the XRT or Chandra."

Click to expand...

At the time of the outburst, Holmes was about 19 degrees above the ecliptic, the plane in which the planets orbit the sun. At that elevation, the comet was probably experiencing a cooler, steadier flow from the solar wind. "The source of this cooler flow wasn't hot enough to produce the ions Holmes needed to make X-rays," Bodewits notes.

Click to expand...

Reality Check said:

As any intellegent person can see the electric comet model fails totally on two fundamental predictions for all comets.

• It predicts that comets will have densities ~3 gm/cm3.
  The actual measured densities are ~0.6 gm/cm3.
  EPIC FAILURE.
• It predicts that comets will emit multiple X-ray bursts from the electrical discharges.
  These multiple X-ray bursts are not seen.
  A glow of X-rays is seen, e.g. the first observation of X-rays was in 1996 for Comet Hyakutake. These X-rays surround the nucleus.
  Comet C/1999 S4: Chandra Solves Mystery Of Cometary X-Rays.
  EPIC FAILURE.

Electric Comets I, Electric Comets II: References and Electric Comets III: No EU X-rays.


Ok since you are so lazy (or not smart enough to use Google ), I will look. Of course the results will become part of my standard debunk of the electric comet idea. Thank you for the suggestion Sol88.

• Glanz, J (1996). "Comet Hyakutake Blazes in X-rays". Science 272: 194. doi:10.1126/science.272.5259.194. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1996Sci...272..194G.
• Comet C/1999 S4: Chandra Solves Mystery Of Cometary X-Rays.
  
  They pinpoint the origin of the X-rays as outside of the nucleus (just where does the electric comet idea say the X-ray bursts will come from?).
• X-rays from solar system objects
• X-ray tomography of a cometary bow shock

Click to expand...

During the last few years our knowledge about the X-ray emission from bodies within the solar system has significantly improved. Several new solar system objects are now known to shine in X-rays at energies below 2 keV. Apart from the Sun, the known X-ray emitters now include planets (Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), planetary satellites (Moon, Io, Europa, and Ganymede), all active comets, the Io plasma torus (IPT), the rings of Saturn, the coronae (exospheres) of Earth and Mars, and the heliosphere. The advent of higher-resolution X-ray spectroscopy with the Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray observatories has been of great benefit in advancing the field of planetary X-ray astronomy.

Click to expand...

Sol88 said:

Everything is electric, fancy that

Click to expand...