Milky Way's Birkeland Current Falsifies "Black Hole" Assumption

06/23/08

Anatomy of the Milky Way core

At present, we find ourselves in the unsatisfying position of having remarkable new observational insight into the nature of the galactic center but lacking a sturdy interpretive framework. - Robert L. Brown and Harvey S. Listz "Sagittarius A and it's Environment" Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics

Written in 1984 it appears that since then things have only worsened.

According to some estimates the bright radio source known as Sagittarius A* (pronounced A-star), residing at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, is more than 50 light-years wide. It's radio glow stems from synchrotron radiation, the result of charged particles spiraling around magnetic field lines at relativistic speeds. Assumptions have been made that the Sag A* complex is the result of a massive black hole. Yet, save for mathematical computer models based on gravitational conjecture, not a single black hole has ever been found. Might the well known plasma dynamics of an electric universe reveal the true nature of the Milky Way's galactic center?

The central most region of our galaxy is filled with a variety of dense molecular clouds (plasma). A variety of factors such as temperature, chemical composition, bulk velocity etc are known to separate plasma of differing characteristics into separate molecular clouds. This self-organization is a fundamental aspect of plasma and is the 'life like' quality that prompted Irving Langmuir to so name them after blood plasma.

The Sagittarius A complex is divided into "Sag A East" and "Sag A West". Running perpendicular to the galactic plane is a series of filaments known to be magnetic called the Arc. They collectively form a long linearly polarized filament that appears to also interact with other molecular clouds but the filaments do not appear to be deflected by that interaction. That characteristic and their perpendicular relationship also implies that the "threads" composing the Arc are tracing the path of magnetic field lines.

One of these molecular clouds is known as "M-0.02-0.07" or simply the "50 km s^-1 cloud". This particular dense cloud of plasma, often mistakenly called a "gas", is considered "unique" due to high levels of energetic activity. This energetic activity is the result of an interaction which produces the central "plasma-focused plasmoid" and non-thermal filamentation as explained in Galaxy Filaments.

Wheel within a Wheel

Within the brightest region of Sagittarius A* yet another dynamic feature resides. It is known as the "circumnuclear disk" and has been described as an orbiting oval shaped ring of "molecular gas". However, that description belittles the true nature of the Milky Way galaxy's plasma torus.

At an estimated 100 kilometers per second the plasma torus appears to orbit, and is said to "feed" the central 7 light-year wide feature known as the " Mini-Spiral". The "wheel within a wheel" of our Milky Way galaxy. The Mini-Spiral is composed of the "Eastern Arm", the "Western Arc", the "Northern Arm" and all three appear to be joined at a relatively small central "bar" such as those which distinguish barred spiral galaxies from spiral galaxies.

Astrophysicists are generally at great pains to determine the cause of such highly energetic activity but not one of their number has, or can, explain how their gravity only universe can account for the wide variety of compelling features collectively embodied in the Milky Way's galactic nucleus.

It's "wheel within a wheel", or the "Mini-Spiral", has sent them scrambling for any number of assumptive gravitational scenarios such as 'tidally stretched and disrupted clouds', "gravitational potential due to the point-mass", "accretion disk", explosive "blast waves" from supernova - although the magnitude of Sag A* refutes that notion, 'molecular cloud collisions', "shock models", and of course a theoretical black hole "with over 2 million times the mass of the Sun." Or is it 3.7 million solar masses? 3.6? Maybe 4 million?

But no one has explained how so many supposedly "young stars" and star clusters, such as The Arches Cluster, and The Quintuplet Cluster can exist in a region so close to an alleged black hole.

In it's attempts to wrestle with the cause of anomalous gravitational behavior modern astrophysics inadvertently misconstrues the known plasma dynamic of self-organization and reinterprets the observed behavior as "self-consistent". Atop this interpretation any number of gravitational scenarios and inferences are then placed. The conventional theory of stellar formation via gravitational collapse fails at galactic center. For example:

According to the standard model for star formation, gas clouds from which stars form should have been ripped apart by tidal forces from the supermassive black hole. Evidently, the gravity of a dense disk of gas around Sagittarius A* offsets the tidal forces and allows stars to form. The tug-of-war between the black hole's tidal forces and the gravity of the disk has also favored the formation of a much higher proportion of massive stars than normal. - Chandra: "Stars Surprisingly Form in Extreme Environment Around Milky Way's Black Hole" [Emphasis added]

And also:

Finding such big star clusters so near the gravitational pull of the galactic center is surprising; tidal forces should rip them apart. - Angelle Tanner, Sky & Telescope

When observation contradicts the gravity only cosmology the result is to immediately 'morph' the supposed gravitational characteristics of the ever pliable theoretical black hole. It is habitually done on autopilot.

Not only do we see the 'scavenging' of plasma via well known Marklund Convection which "convects radially inwards, with the normal E x B/B2 velocity, towards the center of a cylindrical flux tube" it has been a lack of familiarity with plasma dynamics that has gravitationally interpreted the E x B drift of plasma towards the Mini-Spiral as "material... falling inward".

The Serpent in the Sky

When we assign culpability for radio structures many hundreds of kilo parsecs in extent to "nuclear activity" and then ascribe that activity to a massive nuclear black hole, we appear to basing our conclusions in large measure on informed, or perhaps inspired speculation. We may be correct, but we also may be simply engaged in clever legerdemain. - Robert L. Brown and Harvey S. Listz "Sagittarius A and it's Environment": Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics [Emphasis added]

The double helix nebula in infrared - Credit: M. Morris UCLA

In June 2006 NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and UCLA announced the "unprecedented" discovery of The Double Helix Nebula. The customary photo released on the occasion merely revealed the approximately 80 light-year long tip of a proverbial iceberg.

It appears to have been Mark Morris of UCLA who made the connection and described the Double Helix Nebula in a manner appropriate for the active plasma dynamics of an electric universe:

The direct connection between the circumnuclear disk and the double helix is ambiguous, but the images show a possible meandering channel that warrants further investigation - M. Morris "A magnetic torsional wave near the Galactic Centre traced by a 'double helix' nebula" Nature Journal Letters vol 440 [Emphasis added]

The Double Helix Nebula not sitting still. At a distance of perhaps some 300 light-years from the Sag A* complex the Double Helix Nebula exhibits unusually high dust temperatures for a galactic feature so far above the galactic plane and unaccompanied by nearby star formation. Morris also points out that the axis of the Double Helix Nebula points "roughly" towards galactic center and is oriented along the galaxy's axis of rotation.

Morris and his colleagues say the cause of the twist may be a huge disc of gas, known as the circumnuclear disc, which orbits just a few light years outside the black hole at our galaxy's center.

Morris told New Scientist the magnetic lines should be anchored in the circumnuclear disc. New Scientist

Again, to accredit the existence of such fully formed electromagnetic structures within such close proximity to a theoretical black hole should refute the existence of the latter. Morris then searched for a "meandering channel" through which a possible "torsional Alfven wave" could travel from the bright circumnuclear disk of the Sag A* complex. Although heavily obscured by dust as can bee seen from UCLA's comparative photos, it appears that Morris successfully traced the 'dust infused' portion of a "meandering" Birkeland current at least 300 light-years in length towards it's point of intersect with the 50 km s^-1 cloud and circumnuclear disk.

In addition, the unusually hot dust within the 80 light-year long tip is directly related to the scavenging of dust and plasma via the plasma related process of Marklund convection as misconstrued in the abovementioned Sky & Telescope article as being "material... falling inward". The plasma flow is usually inwards as matter is accumulated in the filaments revealing helically twisted densities greater than the surrounding area.

When coupled with the work of Anthony Peratt wherein:

Plasmas in relative motion are coupled by the currents they drive in each other and nonequilibrium plasma often consists of current-conducting filaments.

In the laboratory and in the Solar System, filamentary and cellular morphology is a well-known property of plasma. As the properties of the plasma state of matter is believed not to change beyond the range of our space probes, plasma at astrophysical dimensions must also be filamentary. - A. L. Peratt "Plasma and the universe: large scale dynamics, filamentation, and radiation"

Consider the structural formations: The plasma torus (circumnuclear disk), the "Mini-Spiral" enclosed within it, dust undergoing inwardly directed radial convection apparently up and out along the massive Birkeland current filament away from the galaxy center. The very existence of such structural integrity stares in complete defiance of said black hole theory.

During particle-in-cell simulations with up to 12 filaments Peratt also noted that multiple Birkeland currents can "neck off" leaving fewer (2-3) in number to account for the majority of "cosmic plasma phenomena". Through the decades long work of plasma physics the Electric Universe is not found "lacking a sturdy interpretive framework". The Double Helix Nebula fully demonstrates the nature of galactic-dimensioned Birkeland currents.

Further references:

The Double Helix Nebula: a magnetic torsional wave propagating out of the Galactic centre: Mark Morris (UCLA), Keven Uchida (Cornell), Tuan Do (UCLA) (see pages 11 & 14 for graphical presentation of "meandering channel")

A trip to Galactic Center: Sky & Telescope

The Origin of the High-Energy Activity at the Galactic Center: F. Yusef-Zadeh, W. Purcell, E. Gotthelf

Anthony Peratt's Plasmascience.net

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