OP "arc-us"
Didn't know where this might fit so put it here under Planetary Science. Feel free to relocate/delete if inappropriate. Extracted from a hijacked thread to its own topic here.
Whoa, that is amazing natural structure.redeye from a different thread wrote:LINK: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _13368.jpg@rc-us wrote: As unexplainable, say ... as a snowflake?
LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graupel_%28snow%29
LINK: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snow ... /class.htm (scroll down to see "capped column" section)
Rain, and snow, as related to an electrical universe. So how might this patterning be seen in terms of scalability, for instance?
Hmm, here's a couple of links regarding research into plasma crystals:
LINK: http://dusty.physics.uiowa.edu/~quinn/pchome.html
LINK: Experimental studies of two-dimensional and three-dimensional structure in a crystallized dusty plasma (PDF)
LINK: Dusty Plasmas Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Iowa
Seems like I may have seen something similar to this in another thread but I forget where if so:
LINK: If you take cosmic dust and add plasma ... do you get life? Findings suggest that plasma crystals may be the key to one of the universe's greatest mysteries: Is there life out there?
Referenced from article above:Howstuffworks wrote: The universe is filled with massive clouds of dust. From past studies, scientists have learned that this cosmic dust can, in the presence of plasma, creates formations known as plasma crystals. An international team of researchers published a study in the Aug.14, 2007, issue of the New Journal of Physics that indicates that these crystals may be more sophisticated than anyone realized. In simulations involving cosmic dust, the researchers witnessed the formation of plasma crystals displaying some of the elementary characteristics of life -- DNA-like structure, autonomous behavior, reproduction and evolution.
(article continues)
LINK: New Journal of Physics: From plasma crystals and helical structures towards inorganic living matter (PDF)
LINK: http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12466New Journal of Physics wrote: Abstract. Complex plasmas may naturally self-organize themselves into stable
interacting helical structures that exhibit features normally attributed to organic
living matter. The self-organization is based on non-trivial physical mechanisms
of plasma interactions involving over-screening of plasma polarization. As a
result, each helical string composed of solid microparticles is topologically
and dynamically controlled by plasma fluxes leading to particle charging and
over-screening, the latter providing attraction even among helical strings of the
same charge sign. These interacting complex structures exhibit thermodynamic
and evolutionary features thought to be peculiar only to living matter such as
bifurcations that serve as ‘memory marks’, self-duplication, metabolic rates in a
thermodynamically open system, and non-Hamiltonian dynamics. We examine
the salient features of this new complex ‘state of soft matter’ in light of the
autonomy, evolution, progenity and autopoiesis principles used to define life.
It is concluded that complex self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the
necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter that
may exist in space provided certain conditions allow them to evolve naturally.
(full article continues at above linked PDF)
NewScientistSpace wrote: According to a new simulation, electrically charged dust can organise itself into DNA-like double helixes that behave in many ways like living organisms, reproducing and passing on information to one another.
"This came as a bit of a surprise to us", says Gregor Morfill of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany. He and colleagues have built a computer simulation to model what happens to dust immersed in an ionised gas, or plasma.
(article continues at above link)