http://digg.com/space/Cartwheel_Coronal_Mass_Ejection
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008 ... eelcme.htm
Remind me what we pay these people for again (at taxpayer expense, undoubtedly)?
Come again? "Magnetic whatnow?" Ohh, this can't be good... Okay, okay, I won't interrupt, maybe they'll explain later...May 27, 2008: Imagine a billion-ton cloud of gas launching itself off the surface of the sun and then ... doing a cartwheel. That's exactly what happened on April 9, 2008, when a coronal mass ejection or "CME" pirouetted over the sun's limb in full view of an international fleet of spacecraft. Even veteran solar physicists were amazed.
But that's not all[!] While one part of the cloud did a cartwheel, another part did a backflip at the same time. As strange as it sounds, this could be the normal way solar explosions unfold, say researchers analyzing the data.
"What a rare and exciting observation," says Ed DeLuca of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) ... "It is showing us the secret inner workings of a process called 'magnetic reconnection' central to solar flares and CMEs."
*Rummages*These videos reveal a billion tons of hot, magnetized gas twirling at speeds in excess of 1000 km/s. The cartwheel (left; recorded by the X-Ray Telescope onboard Japan's Hinode spacecraft) spins one way while the backflip (right; recorded by UV cameras onboard NASA's TRACE spacecraft) spins the other.
How can an explosion spin in two directions at once?
[...]
"We think we are seeing a twisted 'flux tube' of solar magnetism unfurl. One end of the tube spins clockwise, the other counterclockwise." This unfurling action pumps energy into the explosion, heating the CME and propelling it away from the sun.
To better understand the process, rummage through your desk and pull out a rubber band.
*Rummages some more*
Apparently I don't keep any rubber bands in my desk! Probably on account of my habit of flicking them at coworkers...
I guess we'll have to skip the rest of that thought experiment. Besides, "magnetic reconnection" is bogus anyway:
(Real Properties of Electromagnetic Fields and Plasma in the Cosmos)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007ITPS...35..822S
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_ ... er=4287080
Just in case anyone wants to look up how magnetic fields ACTUALLY behave (unfortunately it's not a "free" article, but it's informative nonetheless, if you can get your hands on a copy)...
And herein lies the rub... They have the right term, but apparently refuse to (I assume) either understand it, or explain it properly...Magnetic flux tubes on the sun behave a lot like rubber bands, researchers believe. They get twisted and knotted and filled with latent energy, until—crack!—the field lines rupture, producing an explosion more powerful than a hundred million hydrogen bombs. Remember the rubber band untwisting as it hurtled back toward your fingertips? There you have the cartwheel and backflip, writ small.
The CME, however, was merely the beginning. "The really interesting developments came later," says solar physicist Leon Golub of the CfA. Hours after the initial blast, the ruptured magnetic flux tube began to heal itself. Rubber bands never do this trick, but magnetic fields do because, basically, Nature abhors a broken flux tube. Thanks to the high-resolution of Hinode's X-Ray Telescope, says Golub, "we have witnessed a phase of magnetic reconnection never before seen in such detail."
The healing process began with the formation of a tall X-ray spike jutting out of the blast site. "This is a current sheet seen edge-on," says Golub. Current sheets are where magnetic fields of opposite polarity meet and rejoin. Hinode's X-ray movie shows material left behind by the CME flowing back down into the region from above: click to play. The current sheet seems to guide the flow as the area reloads for possible future explosions.
Once more, in slow motion (can you identify the train wreck as it happens?):
This is a current sheet... The key word is... (No not "is!" Wouldn't get very far in life without saying "is," now would you?)"This is a current sheet seen edge-on," says Golub. Current sheets are where magnetic fields of opposite polarity meet and rejoin [...] The current sheet seems to guide the flow as the area reloads for possible future explosions.
"current!"
*Twang!*
*Astronomers collectively scream...* Suffice it to say it is the one word heliophysicists cannot hear!
This is a silly place! (Okay, enough Monty Python and the Holy Grail references for now...)
Seriously, the key word in "current sheet" is current! As in an "electric current."
And yet, they explain it only through roundabout descriptions of incidental magnetic fields, failing to mention electric currents at all (except passingly in mentioning the current sheet, then reverting to "magnetic-only" language).
However, they appear to note that the current sheet plays a pivotal role. If only they would recognize the fact that what they're actually saying is that the electric currents underlying the "current" sheet must also then be implicated in playing a pivotal role. There is no current sheet without the current!
How significant is the data? A great question. If they'll recognize the pivotal role of electric currents in the pivotal structure they've identified, perhaps they can open up the question and consider the notion of "stellar electrics" (or whatever you want to call it).How significant are the data? The CfA researchers are planning an entire workshop dedicated to the study of this one CME. They and others will bring together data from a fleet of spaceships including Hinode, TRACE, SOHO, STEREO and RHESSI to gain a more complete understanding of solar eruptions.
Their conclusions will go far beyond the sun, however. Magnetic reconnection is a process fundamental to many realms of astrophysics. "It happens in black holes, pulsars, active galactic nuclei, planetary magnetospheres—you name it," says DeLuca. "The sun is a great big laboratory where we can watch it happen."
And who wouldn't want to watch a billion-ton cartwheel?
As they say, the implications go beyond just the sun. Magnetic fields and filamentary / helical structures in plasma are seen all over the place in the cosmos: from "magnetic flux ropes" (Birkeland currents or "field-aligned currents") to "black hole" jets, to the Double-Helix Nebula, to the filaments of plasma along which galaxies are born like beads on a string.
The implications will certainly be interesting, one way or the other... Especially if they figure out it may not be the BYPRODUCT magnetic fields, but the PRIMARY electric currents calling the shots...
I figure that by trying explain the whole shebang by way of a byproduct, they've "put the cart[wheel] before the horse," so to speak.
Cheers,
~Michael Gmirkin
ELECTRIC CURRENT. I wonder how many euphamisms are there for ELECTRIC CURRENTS 
