Still convinced that the Sun is electric, I then decided to take a crack at the problem myself, to see if I could show how the Sun IS electric, and in a way that is more consistent with the evidence. The following is what I came up with. I am no expert on Sun theory (EU or otherwise), and I've only been working on this for about 30 days now. There is little doubt that this framework is, itself, a gross over-simplification, and maybe even fatally flawed. I'm not even sure that I'll be able to keep up with the criticisms (or suggestions?) that might result from this post, as just about everybody here knows more about the Sun than myself. But I am committed to letting truth be my guide, not adherence to the consensus of a community (mainstream or otherwise), and I am committed to the "pursuit" of truth, as it evolves with new knowledge. That spirit (and certainly not brains) is what allowed me to ultimately work all of the way through the study of tornadoes, resulting in a complete theory that proves that the electric force is the main ingredient. (It's just not the same electric force that others previously thought, and which has been thoroughly refuted.) If somebody else can be as open-minded and diligent with Electric Sun theory, a similar feat can be accomplished, yet on a far grander scale. But without considering new ideas, we are all as wrong as we were yesterday.
So here's what I believe to be a new framework for understanding the Sun. (At least I haven't seen this particular treatment of the topic anywhere else.) I hope it inspires somebody to pick up where I shall invariably leave off, due to my own personal limitations. If this post gets deleted and I am banned for life from the EU community, you can find this material on my board, at:
http://scs-inc.us/Other/QuickDisclosure/?top=5237
I have no intention of censoring any posts on my board, even if I'm the one who is getting flamed (as usual).
Anyway, here goes...The Sun: Nuclear Fusion & Electric Reconnection
There is much that is known about the Sun. The primary source of energy is nuclear fusion, where the force of gravity has created the pressure and temperature necessary to fuse hydrogen into helium. But there are many more questions than answers.
For example, consider Figure 1, from the Wikipedia article on the Sun, along with its caption. The consensus is that the Sun has powerful and extremely complex magnetic fields, and that matter moves along the magnetic lines of force, like metal filings aligned by a bar magnet. But hydrogen has an extremely weak magnetic dipole moment. How do hydrogen atoms respond so vigorously to the magnetic force? And magnetism can only accelerate particles where the lines of force are converging, with the acceleration only in the direction of the convergence. How does magnetized matter get accelerated away from one pole (where the lines of force are diverging), through the parallel region, and into the converging lines of force approaching the other pole?
Figure 1. Taken by Hinode's Solar Optical Telescope on January 12, 2007, this image of the Sun reveals the filamentary nature of the plasma connecting regions of different magnetic polarity.
We should prefer to think of the filaments not as magnetized matter, but rather, as electrically-charged matter. Then it could be accelerated by time-varying magnetic fields (Faraday's law of induction). But these currents sometimes last for days, and that's a problem for the induction hypothesis. An oscillating magnetic field creates an alternating current that can continue indefinitely. Yet this current is unidirectional, meaning that the magnetic fields continue to vary in the same direction. How could the fields between the filaments continue to vary in the same direction, producing a steady current for days on end?
All the more interesting is the question of what created such complex magnetic fields in the first place. Recent research maintains that the fields originate in the tachocline, which is the boundary between the radiative and convective zones, at roughly 200,000 km below the surface. But that doesn't explain the complexity of the fields at the surface. Figure 2 shows distinct structures that are less than 500 km across. If the magnetomotive forces are 200,000 km below the surface, why didn't the lines of force obey the principle of superposition, and merge into a single, unified field? In other words, the effective force should get simpler with distance, not more complex.
Figure 2. Close-up of the Sun's surface, seen in the H-alpha wavelength on August 22, 2003, taken by the Swedish 1 m Solar Telescope, courtesy Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, credit Oddbjorn Engvold, Jun Elin Wiik, and Luc Rouppe van der Voort.
And the questions get tougher still. The surface of the Sun is the top of what is called the "convective zone," where the plasma rises so rapidly that it overshoots its gravitational equilibrium. Then it cools and falls back into the Sun, establishing convective cells. The vertical velocity averages about 2 km/sec, with peak velocities exceeding 7 km/sec. These are supersonic speeds in the solar atmosphere. In what sense do the principles of convection explain supersonic speeds?
And then there is the problem of explaining the density of the Sun, which is far larger than it has a right to be, given the force of gravity, and the expected hydrostatic pressure of the plasma. Furthermore, the density should fall off with the square of the distance from the center of gravity, producing a (more or less) straight line on a log graph (as in Figure 3). But the fall-off should continue on that straight line to infinity, which is not what happens. At the surface of the Sun, the density drops off sharply, as if the plasma is inside a sealed container. So what is the nature of the containment?
Figure 3. Density of the Sun as a Function of Altitude
To get all of this sorted out, we have to recall that the "convective zone" isn't comprised of hot gas that obeys simple laws of fluid dynamics — it's plasma, which is charge-separated matter. It's possible that the inexplicable behaviors will only yield to a fuller understanding of the electromagnetic forces at play.
So let's start with the intricate filaments of plasma at the Sun's surface. We have seen that the magnetic fields generated 200,000 km below the surface cannot possibly be responsible for such complexity. We know that the visible structure corresponds directly with the strength of the magnetic fields that have been measured. So what is the magnetomotive force? It's the plasma itself! Moving electric charges generate magnetic fields, and the plasma is moving at several km/sec. At extreme velocities, the powerful magnetic fields exert back-pressure on the moving charges, consolidating them into filaments (known as Birkeland currents). So these filaments are following their own inertia, constrained by their own magnetic fields, and influenced by the fields generated by neighboring filaments.
But we still don't have an explanation for the supersonic speeds of the plasma at the surface. Only considering the buoyancy of hotter plasma in cooler surroundings, the laws of fluid dynamics dictate that particles can achieve a maximum of the speed of sound in the relevant medium, minus the friction imposed by neighboring particles. This is clear evidence of the presence of another force. So what is it?
To find the answer, we have to take a closer look at the behavior of charged particles in motion. At extreme speeds, positive and negative charges get split apart. (See Figure 4.) Even though they are attracted by the electric force, they generate magnetic fields that spin in opposite directions, which make them repel each other. As the electric force falls off with the square of the distance, while the magnetic force only falls off with the distance, the magnetic force is a bigger factor on larger scales. So once the charges get separated into parallel streams, they'll stay separate. (This, by the way, accounts for the fact that sunspots start as a pair of particle streams with opposite magnetic polarity. One is positive and the other is negative, and they were split into parallel streams by the magnetic force.)
Figure 4. Opposite charges traveling in the same direction are attracted by the electric force, but repelled by the magnetic force.
All other factors being the same, the positively-charged atomic nuclei and the negatively-charged electrons would stay separate forever as they speed off into space. But the streams are still within the scope of the Sun's gravitational field, and because of this, the particles decelerate. The strength of a magnetic field is a function of the amount of charge, and the speed at which the charge is moving. Hence as the plasma slows down, the magnetic fields weaken. If they weaken to the point that they are no longer more powerful than the electric force pulling the charges together, the charges will recombine.
But this will not bring the charges together at supersonic speeds. As the magnetic fields gradually weaken, we would expect the charges to slowly come together, like traffic on a highway that was split into two parallel lanes that are now merging back together, and where the relative speed is slight.
Yet there's a way in which the charges can recombine at much faster speeds. If the charge streams can create a loop and then curve inward toward each other, they will meet head-on. In this configuration, the magnetic force no longer opposes the electric force, and the particles can be accelerated to relativistic speeds. So the loops in the photosphere are not convective currents at all, but rather, electric currents, with speeds measured relative to the speed of light, not the speed of sound.
Figure 5. Fast-moving electric charges can recombine if they form a loop.
Note that we should not expect the charges to meet in the symmetrical center (as depicted in Figure 5). While a proton and an electron have the same amount of charge (though opposite in sign), a proton-neutron pair in a hydrogen nucleus is about 4,000 times heavier than an electron. Hence the positive stream has far more inertia than its negative counterpart. Therefore, we would expect the electrons to fly out ahead and then curve back so that they can meet the protons head-on. When we see "matter" flying out of one sunspot and curving back down into another, we should expect this to be the electrons, not the atomic nuclei.
And that, by the way, helps account for the wild undulations in coronal loops. Those who believe that coronal loops must be made of atomic nuclei (with a more powerful magnetic dipole moment than the diamagnetic electrons) have a hard time explaining the relativistic speeds at which they can change form. But if these are electron streams, such speeds are not an issue. So it's far more likely that the photons emitted in coronal loops are from stationary hydrogen atoms floating in the chromosphere that just happened to be in the way of electrons responding to the electrostatic potential between two sunspots.
So why doesn't conventional theory acknowledge the importance of the electric force in the creation of the loops in the photosphere and chromosphere?
Solar scientists don't acknowledge the electric force because electric fields do not radiate outward like magnetic fields — they are entirely between the oppositely-charged particles. As such, the fields cannot be measured from a distance. Being conservative by nature, scientists prefer to work with the data that they do have, and with regards to the study of the Sun, this means magnetic field data, which are then superimposed on the expected hydrodynamic properties of plasma, creating the MHD framework that is so popular these days. Since the properties of magnetism and hydrodynamics fall well short of explaining the actual behaviors of the Sun, there are blanks to be filled in — with more MHD! But as the specificity and volume of data increase, the anomalies continue to pile up. It's time to start considering other possibilities. If we introduce the electric force into the mix, everything makes a lot more sense. And even though we can't get close enough to the Sun to measure it, the electric force is real, which means that it outranks all MHD inventions put together.
When the charges recombine, they'll create a bright electric arc, making a significant contribution to the light emitted in the photosphere. (See Figure 6.) The average temperature in the convective zone below the photosphere is 3,000~4,500 K, as evidenced by the temperature of sunspots. Plasma at that temperature does glow brightly, but not compared to plasma heated up to 6,000 K by the electric arc that occurs when opposite charges recombine.
Figure 6. The photons that we see from the Sun are from electric arcs in the photosphere.
So far, so good. But if all of that is true, why would the photosphere be so well defined? We would expect a highly irregular "surface" as varying amounts of matter are boiled up from the radiative zone. In other words, we'd expect little arcs occurring at a wide variety of altitudes. The "surface" of the Sun is by no means perfectly flat, but it's way flatter than we'd expect, given just the reasoning presented so far.
Ah, but we're not done!
The electric arcs that occur where the opposite charges recombine will heat the plasma, from as little as 3,000 K up to as much as 6,000 K. The extra heat will cause the plasma to expand. All other factors being the same, we'd expect the expansion to generate a bubble that would rise to a higher altitude. But the electric arcs have another force that is pulling them inward. Opposite charges attract. The loop provides a way for the charges to recombine without the magnetic fields clashing. Once formed, the electric force will try to shorten the loop, to get the charges to recombine as soon as possible. The shortness of the loop is limited by the hydrostatic pressure in the surrounding plasma. So there is an equilibrium involving the Sun's gravitational field, the electric and magnetic forces, and the pressure of the plasma. As soon as the pressure relaxes to the point that the positive and negative charges can split into parallel streams, they can then curve toward each other, and the electric force tightens the loop. And since the pressure is a direct function of gravity, all of the plasma streams will hit the threshold for charge recombination at the same altitude.
This explains the sharp drop in density outside the photosphere. The electric loops seal the surface of the Sun, preventing matter from escaping, and increasing the pressure below the photosphere, way beyond the expectations of hydrostatics. Hence the photosphere is actually a "shell," where the electric force is pulling inward, while the hydrostatic pressure gets the plasma to expand laterally into broader arcs, since it cannot expand outward.
So what causes solar flares, and the resulting coronal mass ejections?
Figure 7. This sequence of flares, from 2003-10-17 to 2003-11-05, included the largest ever recorded, courtesy SOHO.
Here is the standard explanation (from Wikipedia):
"Scientific research has shown that the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection is responsible for solar flares. Magnetic reconnection is the name given to the rearrangement of magnetic lines of force when two oppositely directed magnetic fields are brought together. This rearrangement is accompanied with a sudden release of energy stored in the original oppositely directed fields."
While that may be the standard answer, here's what the Australian Space Weather Agency on the topic.
"The bottom line is that at this stage in solar physics we do not really know what produces a flare nor what produces a coronal mass ejection. There are competing theories, but all tend to have deficiencies with respect to matching the observational evidence. We certainly believe that they all depend on the reconfiguration of magnetic fields as their primary energy source, but in the final analysis, we really only believe this because we can conceive of no other solar energy source of sufficient magnitude."
Magnetism is certainly a powerful force — 39 orders of magnitude more powerful than gravity. But we have to do better than just learn to use magnetic terminology, just because it's the most powerful measurable force present, if we are to approach an explanation. In fact, the way MHD theorists speak of magnetic reconnection is phenomenology, not physics. "On the surface of the Sun (and not in any laboratory that we have ever found, or anywhere else in nature for that matter) there are these opposing magnetic fields, and then there are these huge releases of energy in the region between them, so it is the opposition of magnetic fields that generates these huge flashes of EM radiation, and ejects all of these particles and stuff." (That's like saying that sniffling and sneezing will give you a runny nose. Put another way, the symptoms cause the symptoms.) If we actually want to do more than just rationalize the data after the fact, we have to identify the underlying principles.
There are definitely opposing magnetic fields, and the opposition can exert back-pressure on whatever is creating those fields (as in Figure 4). And time-varying magnetic fields can induce electric currents, which would explain the supersonic speeds of plasma in the filaments (if there was a magnetomotive force up to the task). But the bare-faced fact is that neither the magnetic nor the electric force can explain the explosive nature of solar flares, and the resulting ejection of huge volumes of matter.
In rough terms, we might think that an unusually large electric arc might generate so much heat, so fast, that the plasma might expand at an unusually high speed, like a stick of dynamite causing an instantaneous expansion due to the heat from a runaway chemical reaction. But the amount of heat that can be generated by an arc discharge is limited by the properties of plasma beyond its breakdown voltage. The discharge heats the plasma, which gets it to expand. The reduction in density increases the conductivity within the channel, allowing the passage of more current. We might think that more current would heat the plasma even more, but this is not what happens. When the plasma expands, it offers less resistance to the current, meaning less resistive heating. As the current density increases, it does not increase the temperature in the discharge channel — it simply widens the channel, heating up more of the surrounding plasma. It is actually the ambient pressure that sets the balance between the amount of electric current and the density of the plasma, thereby controlling the temperature within the channel. For this reason, the temperature is roughly the same, regardless of the amount of current in the discharge. And while the channel can expand faster than the speed of sound, it's nature is not explosive, because there is no way to contain the pressure.
Furthermore, and regardless of whether it's magnetic or electric reconnection that is the primary energy source in the photosphere, an even bigger problem is that solar flares are not just a matter of degree — they are a totally different kind of energy release. There is no continuum between the plasma moving at several km/sec in a photospheric loop, and plasma moving at 100,000 km/sec ejected from a solar flare. Rather, it's one or the other. None of the existing or proposed models have a scale-dependent threshold that would account for energy releases that were either weak or extremely strong, but nothing in-between. So what is the difference in kind?
In fact, there is a fundamentally different kind of energy release that can occur, that is less intuitive, yet far more powerful. Instead of looking at the expansion of the plasma during the electric arc, we should rather look at the implosion of the arc channel after the discharge. When a concentric column of plasma implodes, the pressure and temperature at the infinitesimal center approach infinite values. This kind of concentration of energy can produce nuclear fusion even in small laboratory devices. So what happens when an arc channel 500 km wide implodes in a hydrogen-rich environment? It would be absent-minded of us not to expect a thermonuclear explosion. If this explosion occurs near the surface, any matter accelerated outward from the Sun will encounter little friction. So if electric reconnection gets an arc discharge to loop back down into the higher-density plasma under the photosphere, the discharge channel will collapse instantaneously when the charges are neutralized, and then there will be a huge explosion. And the nature of the explosion explains the gamma rays that are generated, which do not come from electric arcs, but which do come from nuclear fusion events.
Figure 8. In the preflare stage (13:50 to 13:56 UT), the soft X-ray emission gradually increased, but little if any hard X-rays or gamma rays were detected above the instrumental background level. This was followed by the so-called impulsive phase, in which the hard X-ray and gamma-ray emission rose impulsively, often with many short but intense spikes of emission, each lasting a few seconds to tens of seconds. (Data and description courtesy NASA.)
Note that the rise in soft X-rays preceding the flare is consistent with the presence of an electric arc. In finer-grain data, we should see a dip in all of the radiation when the arc ceases, followed a couple of milliseconds later by spikes at all wavelengths when the fusion event begins.
It's also interesting to consider the geometry of the discharge channels. Electric lines of force repel each other, so a charged particle might follow a curved path responding to the electric field between two point charges (such as oppositely-charged sunspots). In a drawing, curved lines merely indicate the direction of force, where the field is actually continuous throughout. But once charged particles start flowing along these lines, the magnetic pinch effect will consolidate them into distinct Birkeland currents. Hence the physical manifestation of the electric force will actually start to look like the drawing, with discrete channels of electric current. These are the currents that will then graduate to arc discharges, and which will implode when they're done. Now look at the geometry — an imploding discharge channel that curves will create a shock wave that will get magnified as it approaches the center of the curve. It's possible that this will create a secondary explosion at the point of convergence. As this could be happening at several different places at the same time, wherever the secondary shock waves meet, there will be yet another explosion. This could be the chain reaction that creates the eventual "flare."
Figure 9. Electric lines of force repel each other.
The largest remaining anomaly concerns the temperature of the plasma above the photosphere, which gets over 1,000,000 K (pretty hot compared to 6,000 K in the photosphere).
Figure 10. Temperature as a Function of Altitude
Many consider this to be the biggest mystery of all, and the topic drives some extremely exotic speculation, both within the mainstream of the scientific community, and outside of it. The problem, as conventionally stated, is that we would expect the temperature to fall off with the square of the distance from the source of the heat. Instead, after a small decrease in the first 500 km above the photosphere, the temperature levels off, and then rises sharply 2,000~3,000 km above the photosphere, where it achieves 1 MK.
But this shouldn't actually be a mystery at all. The Earth's thermosphere reaches a temperature of 1,700 K without any help from surface heating. In the near perfect vacuum of space, particles achieve extreme speeds, and when drawn in by the Earth's gravity, the initial particle collisions are extremely high-energy events.
Figure 11. Temperature in the Earth's atmosphere, from Lutgens and Tarbuck, "The Atmosphere."
The Sun's mass is 333,000 times greater than the Earth's.
1,700 K × 333,000 = 566,100,000 K
So could the Sun's corona achieve temperatures into the millions of K just on the basis of high-energy collisions in the near-perfect vacuum of its outer atmosphere? Yep. And would the effect drop off sharply as the density of the atmosphere increases, as the particles have been slowed down by previous collisions? That's what happens in the Earth's atmosphere, so yes, we would expect this to happen near the Sun as well. Are we seeing evidence of high-energy collisions (such as gamma rays)? Yep. And what would be the source of such particles, so many billions of years after the Sun first got established? Coronal mass ejections are constantly spewing matter outward, and what goes up must (eventually) come back down. With respect to the Sun, any particle that doesn't escape the solar system, and that doesn't get drawn into the gravitational field of one of the planets or moons, is a candidate for a collision in the Sun's corona at some point in the future, after it reaches its apogee and then returns to the solar center of gravity.
So why do scientists insist on approaching the problem with abstract math and make-believe constructs (such as magnetic reconnection ripple effects)?
Because they can!
OK, you can shoot me now.
that is the magnetomotive force, not "magnetic reconnection" as the electromotive force. Opposite moving charges get split apart by the opposing magnetic fields that they generate. Then, if they can form a loop, the electric force can accelerate the particles to relativistic speeds, without the opposition of the magnetic force. The unified magnetic field in the loop then contributes to the larger-scale lattice, wherein magnetic pressure between particle streams establishes a shell, with the electric force tightening the loops, and hydrostatic pressure sealing the surface. At least in broad strokes, this framework seems to address a far larger range of phenomena, with far more plausible physics.
