"Hot Hot Hot!"
Dec 15, 2008

NASA scientists monitoring the Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) recently announced finding a candidate for the hottest star ever discovered. KPD 0005+5106, a "white dwarf" star, measures an incredible 200,000 degrees Celsius, based on an analysis of ultraviolet light in the star's spectrum. In comparison, the Sun is approximately 6000 degrees Celsius.

White dwarfs are commonly referred to as being very hot, exceeding 10,000 degrees, and they are supposed to be stars near the end of their lives. If the star was born with several times the mass of our own Sun, then it is theorized to undergo increased heating after it exhausts its primary nuclear fuel and to collapse under its own gravity. Such superheated white dwarfs are therefore exceedingly rare, since they are said to pass through that phase in a short time.

The photosphere of KPD 0005+5106 is reported to be so intensely hot that it is glowing in ultraviolet light frequencies. FUSE researchers say that the phenomenon has never been seen before. The statement is not surprising because "hot gas" does not normally emit ultraviolet light unless it is feeding the flame of an arc welder.

In a previous Picture of the Day article, a review of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (H-R) demonstrated that critical information about stellar environments is ignored when attempting to classify stars into a chronological chart. Their births in a "nebular cloud" and their deaths from heat loss or supernova explosions are illustrated and their characteristics codified based on brightness, redshift and total mass, but charge density and current flow are not charted. According to consensus opinions, this "stellar main sequence" describes what happens to stars as they age.

Since astronomers and other specialists are not mapping the current flow through space and its influence on stellar evolution, they have seriously overstated the case for the gravitational model of the cosmos. No information as to the electrical input or output of the stars is considered when the various conventional theories are debated. By failing to give credence to the electrical interaction of stars with their galactic environment, an entire line of investigation remains fallow.

In The Electric Sky, retired professor of electrical engineering Dr. Don Scott provides a fresh look at the plot of stars on the H-R diagram. Scott proposes that the mass, temperature and luminosity of stars are not the only factors that should be considered when describing the life cycle of the stars. The most important factor in any star's characteristics is the current density in Amperes per square meter (A/m2) at the star's surface. If the incoming current density increases, the surface gets hotter, radiates shorter wavelengths (from red toward blue) and becomes brighter. Therefore the strength of the current density impinging into its surface, and the star's diameter, are responsible for its absolute brightness.

Some stars have been found that are too cool and too small for atomic fusion to take place. Stars are supposed to be at least 75 times the mass of Jupiter for fusion reactions to occur. Now stars that are too hot and bright for their positions in the sequence are causing astronomers to revisit their theories of nebular birth. As the Electric Star hypothesis suggests, though, by including electricity in cosmological equations the puzzles that arise with new observations will be resolved.

Don Scott: "In the Electric Star model, there is no minimum temperature or mass requirement. If a brown or red dwarf is operating near the upper boundary of the dark current mode, any slight increase in the level of current density impinging on any portion of the surface of that star will shift this plasma into the normal glow mode. This transition will be accompanied by a rapid change in the voltage rise across the plasma of the star's upper atmosphere. Maxwell's equations tell us that such a change in voltage can produce a strong dynamic electric field and a strong dynamic magnetic field. If they are sufficiently intense, dynamic electromagnetic fields will produce x-rays. [or ultraviolet - editor]."

By Stephen Smith