substance wrote:You know, I wonder, why hasn`t anyone tried to test our electric cratering model?
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/ser ... 823201.PDF
Priestley discovered erosion craters left by cathode spots:
“June the 13th, 1766. After discharging a battery, of about forty square feet, with a smooth brass knob, I accidentally observed upon it a pretty large circular spot, the center of which seemed to be superficially melted…after an interruption of melted places, there was an intrie and exact circle of shining dots, consisting of places superficially melted, like those at the center, Plate 1, fig.5, No.1” (here Fig. 5).
June the 14th. I took the spot upon smooth pieces of lead and silver. It was, in both cases, like that on the brass knob, only the silver consisted of dots disposed with the utmost exactness, like radii from the center of the circle, each or which terminated a little short of the external circle. Examining the spots with a microscope, both the shining dots that formed the central spot, and those which formed the external circle, appeared evidently to consist of cavities, resembling those on the moon, as they appear through a telescope, the edges projecting shadows into them, when they were held in the sun.” ([27], pp. 261, 262)
color emphasis added
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48174/title/Ice_confirmed_on_an_asteroidPlanetary scientists reported October 7 that they have, for the first time, confirmed that an asteroid contains frozen water on its surface. Evidence of water-ice, along with organic compounds, on the surface of the asteroid 24 Themis supports the theory that asteroids brought both water and organic compounds to the early Earth, helping lay the foundation for life on the planet.
At the asteroid’s average distance from the sun — 3.2 times Earth’s distance to the sun — frozen water on the surface would readily vaporize, noted Campins. That means the ice must be continually replenished, possibly by a reservoir of frozen water within the rock, he speculates.
One possibility is that ice lies buried several meters below the surface of the roughly 160-kilometer-wide asteroid and makes its way to the top when the asteroid is pummeled by space debris. Norbert Schörghofer of the University of Hawaii at Manoa proposed last year that ice can persist for billions of years just below the surface of a dusty space rock if the asteroid’s surface temperature is less than about 145 kelvins. The temperature of 24 Themis lies in that range.
At the asteroid’s average distance from the sun — 3.2 times Earth’s distance to the sun — frozen water on the surface would readily vaporize, noted Campins. That means the ice must be continually replenished, possibly by a reservoir of frozen water within the rock, he speculates.
The presence of frozen water on 24 Themis also suggests that some asteroids resemble comets, becoming active suddenly and venting material into space when pockets of ice vaporize, Campins noted.
I wonder if some of these objects are not that old and have yet to exhaust (through sublimation) there supply of ice? Just a thought.So, if water-ice is supposed to readily sublimate (vaporize from the solid to the gas phase) at the distance of 24 Themis form the sun, how does this water-ice come to exist (and persist) at the surface? There must either be a subsurface reservoir that is slow-to disappear, or the ice must be being constantly emplaced or regenerated at the surface by some as-yet unknown active process.
The make up and composition of the object is not the determining factor in giving a celestial object the characteristics of a "comet." See TPoD category [url2=http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00subjectx.htm#Comets]Comets[/url2].However, it doesn't seem to satisfactorily explain why some objects develop brilliant, luminous comas (comets) and some objects remain for all intents and purposes inert hunks of rock.
Comet theory has undergone many changes over the course of the last century. In the latter part of the 19th century and the earliest decades of the 20th, our level of technological sophistication was not especially advanced. Experimentation in the electrical sciences were fairly new to science. But in that newness there was also a fascination and a wish to compare the effects of electric discharges to many aspects of earth and space sciences. The spectra of comets were compared to those of low-pressure discharge tubes and found to be strikingly similar. Some likened the two directly.
Translation: it's a good theory only if you disregard the facts.But, as more advanced observing instruments have been pointed at comets, that "dirty snowball" theory has come under increasing strain.
The possibility that current theory may be wrong is intriguing. Anomalies offer a chance to correct the course of theories gone astray.
Sputtering is a relatively well-known process, whereby a surface bombarded by atoms or charged particles may give up some material from its surface. Those materials may then recombine with other materials to form molecules not originally present in either the surface material being bombarded or in that which was bombarding said surface. In this case, Oxygen may have been released from surface rocks and recombined with hydrogen from the solar wind to form the OH (hydroxyl radical) and H2O (water) observed in Mercury's atmosphere and magnetotail.
nick c wrote:The make up and composition of the object is not the determining factor in giving a celestial object the characteristics of a "comet."
nick c wrote:Fascinating! The study of comets will force mainstream into the Electric Universe.
nick c
Thanks to a unique method that uses ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, astronomers have been able to measure sizes of small asteroids in the main belt for the first time. Their observations also suggest that Barbara has a complex concave shape, best modelled as two bodies that may possibly be in contact. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada
A team of French and Italian astronomers have devised a new method for measuring the size and shape of asteroids that are too small or too far away for traditional techniques, increasing the number of asteroids that can be measured by a factor of several hundred. This method takes advantage of the unique capabilities of ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI).
http://web.mit.edu/press/2010/asteroid-seismology.html
Quotes from this article;
"New research suggests that near-Earth encounters can ‘shake’ asteroids and opens the door to field of asteroid seismology"
New research by MIT Professor of Planetary Science Richard Binzel examines the opposite scenario: that Earth has considerable influence on asteroids — and from a distance much larger than previously thought. The finding helps answer an elusive, decades-long question about where most meteorites come from before they fall to Earth and also opens the door to a new field study of asteroid seismology.
"Binzel next determined that an asteroid traveling within a distance equal to 16 times the Earth’s radius (about one-quarter of the distance to the moon) appears to experience vibrations strong enough to create fresh surface material."
"Many details about the shaking process remain unknown, including what exactly it is about Earth that shakes the asteroids, and why this happens from a distance as far away as 16 Earth radii."
"paper by Binzel appearing in the Jan. 21 issue of Nature. The paper suggests that Earth’s gravitational pull and tidal forces create these seismic tremors."
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Wikipedia;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocorona
quote;
The geocorona is the luminous part of the outermost region of the Earth's atmosphere, the exosphere. It is seen primarily via far-ultraviolet light (Lyman-alpha) from the Sun that is scattered from neutral hydrogen. It extends to at least 15.5 Earth radii.
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