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Spiral Galaxy M74 (NGC 628) thought to resemble our own galaxy. Credit: NASA/HST

Sep 26, 2008
Misplaced Mavericks

Why do stars in the Sun's local neighborhood vary in their chemical composition? They should all be products of the same nebular cloud.

In a recently published paper, scientists from the University of Washington described a newly created computer simulation that might provide support for the conventional theory of galaxy formation. For many years astronomers have devoted resources to the question of why the stars nearest the Sun do not share the same chemical makeup.

The Milky Way galaxy is currently thought to contain almost a trillion stars in orbit around a common center of gravity. As with all other galaxies, it is theorized to have condensed out of a "nebular cloud" thousands of light-years in extent with a more-or-less homogeneous blend throughout—only minor variations in its elemental composition are supposed to have existed. Hydrogen, helium, and some trace elements in the form of micro-fine dust are said to have clumped together, organizing into a great whirlpool-like structure that started spiraling inward due to gravitational influence.

As the gas and dust continued to condense, eddies formed in the gravitational vortex, crushing the material together into extremely hot, dense spheres. When the temperature and pressure reached a critical point, hydrogen fusion reactions ignited at the cores of the new stellar orbs and the galactic disk began to shine.

Because the initial cloud was theoretically undifferentiated overall, other stars in proximity to the Sun should all be cut from the same cloth and contain similar chemical constituents. However, surveys of the nearest 6000 stars reveal that they are all very different from one another: some with more helium than their ages will allow, some with more iron than they should have, and other compositional oddities that could not previously be explained.

Stars are said to age according to a well-established process that involves consumption and fusion. Hydrogen fuses into helium and helium into heavier elements until the nuclear fuel is exhausted through radiative output and the star implodes, throwing off its outer layers. More massive stars collapse into neutron stars, while stars that are less massive gradually darken into cool, red shadows of their former glory. Therefore, a star's age is determined by its temperature and luminosity, so the Sun's stellar companions are all thought to be different ages. In fact, they are supposed to vary in age to such an extent that astronomers think they were not even born in the same place or at the same time.

The new computer simulation was constructed to model the hypothetical evolution of a galactic disk over its multi-billion year lifespan. Astronomers have found that the simulation produced stellar movements that seem to indicate the Sun and other stars could have been born far from where they are currently located. This might account for the discrepancy in their blend of elements and why many of them appear to be traveling along paths that are more elongated than they "should be."

The proposed solution is that the spiral arms of the Milky Way appear and disappear as it changes over the eons of its existence. Stars like the Sun take about a million years to complete one revolution around the center of the galaxy, and during that time they might have felt a push or a pull from one or another of the arms. If the spiral arm happened to be ahead of the star at a close enough distance, then it might have imparted a gravitational pull, accelerating it into a higher, more elongated orbit farther away from the galactic center of gravity. Conversely, if the star travelled ahead of a spiral arm, it might have been pulled from behind into a lower orbit.

Previous Picture of the Day articles have taken exception to most of the theories set forth by the scientific consensus. Galactic and stellar evolution due to accretion and gravity-only models of compaction, thermonuclear furnaces in stellar cores, age-relevant data compiled from stellar brightness and color, and gravitational acceleration by congregations of loose-knit spiral arms have all been vigorously opposed by the electric model of stars and galaxies.

According to consensus theory, the "stellar main sequence" is a chart of what happens to stars over long periods of time. No information about the electrical input or output of stars is considered when the various conventional theories are debated. By not bringing the electrical interaction of stars with their galactic environment into the picture, an entire line of investigation is never considered. Astronomers and other specialists are not mapping the current flow through space in order to determine its influence on stellar evolution. Because of that oversight, they constantly overstate the gravitational model of the cosmos.

Retired professor Dr. Don Scott wrote that the absolute brightness of a star depends on the strength of the current density impinging into its surface, along with the star's diameter. As current density increases the star becomes hotter and brighter, glowing bluer and whiter. If the current flow into the star decreases, the star becomes red and cools down. So using magnitude and color to determine a star's age is a false premise.

Anthony Peratt, in his particle-in-cell simulations of plasma reactions, has demonstrated that galaxies are not formed by rarified wisps of gas and dust gradually falling into their own gravity wells. His models of galactic evolution reveal that electrically conductive plasma is able to create the shapes of spiral galaxies without resorting to gravity-specific influences. Peratt's work with high-energy electric discharges indicates that the composition of stars in galaxy evolution is due not to where they were born, but to how they were born.

In plasma cosmology and cosmogony, the stars are created in the compression zones of galaxy-spanning Birkeland currents. Such currents actually draw charged material along their filaments from across vast distances in space. As two (or more) filaments begin to twist around one another because of the long-range attractive force, the z-pinch effect crushes the interstellar plasma into galaxy-shaped masses.

In consideration of the work done by Don Scott and Anthony Peratt, the variations in stellar chemistry as well as their velocity differences are more probably explained by the plasma hypothesis. It is the electrical forces that are active in space and not the gravitational shuffling of locations that causes the differences among the stars.

By Stephen Smith

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