The Crab Nebula in X-ray (Chandra), optical (Palomar), infrared (Keck), and radio (VLA).

 

Nebular Flares
Jan 12, 2010

NASA launched the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope (formerly GLAST) on June 11, 2008. Its primary mission is observing high frequency electromagnetic waves in space, including gamma rays. Since gamma rays are unable to penetrate our atmosphere, Fermi was placed in high orbit.Scientists from the University of California Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics have identified 16 new so-called "pulsars" from scans of their gamma ray emissions. Pulsars were usually discovered by monitoring radio waves, but Fermi has discovered "radio quiet" pulsars.

Pulsars are described as "lighthouses" with concentrated beams of energy constricted to narrow regions on the surface of a rapidly spinning neutron star. Gravity relies on rotation as the pulsation mechanism, so when a pulsar's beam comes in line with Earth, a flash of light can be seen.

However, the rotation rates of some pulsars are faster than one revolution per second (even with many times the mass of our Sun). Nothing known to science can withstand the forces involved with those spin rates, so "neutron stars" were mathematically created. Only something that dense was thought able to withstand the rotational velocity.

According to a recent press release, one of the most well-known pulsars, the Crab Nebula, is emitting such extremely energetic gamma ray bursts that astrophysicists are reconsidering their theories. Stefan Funk from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator facility in California said:

"We thought we knew the essential ingredients of the Crab Nebula but that's no longer true. It's still surprising us." KIPAC's director, Roger Blandford agreed: "We were dumbfounded."

The Fermi report states that the gamma ray flares occur in short periods of time, as little as two days before the intensity drops back to normal levels. In agreement with Electric Universe theory, the research team acknowledges that the rapid slew rate points to synchrotron radiation as the gamma ray source: ten trillion electron volts worth.

The press release also poses the most critical question: how can the nebula do that?

On July 4, 1054 CE, Chinese astrologers saw a "guest star" near Zeta Tauri in the constellation Taurus. They record that it was bright enough to shine in daylight, but lasted only about a year before fading out. John Bevis saw a bright nebula in the reported location in 1731, with Charles Messier's observation coming in 1758.

William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse, using his 72-inch, four ton metal mirror telescope called "the Leviathan of Parsonstown," wrote that the nebula resembled a crab's claw, so it came to be named the Crab Nebula. Consensus opinions ascertain that the nebula is what remains after a supernova explosion.

The lowest energy electrons emit radio waves as they spiral in the nebula's magnetic fields. They can travel the farthest distance, so the nebula's central pulsar was initially discovered by radio astronomers in 1968. Subsequently, the pulsar was also catalogued as an optical and X-ray radiation source.

The Crab Nebula pulses at 30 times per second, so by definition, the central star rotates 30 times per second. Electric Star theory proposes that neutron stars are imaginary objects. A gravity-only cosmology requires them because the forces generated from spinning billions of megatons as fast as a power drill would cause the star to tear itself apart.

Neutron stars are supposed to answer the question of anomalous pulsar behavior, especially when their brightness fluctuates over a short time, like the Crab Nebula pulsar. They are thought to be the leftovers after stars "blow off" their outer layers in powerful explosions, leaving a super-dense core behind. All the electrons in the remaining stellar core are said to be gravitationally compressed until they combine with protons in the nuclei, forming matter so dense that a single teaspoon would weigh billions of tons on Earth.

Previous Thunderbolts Picture of the Day articles have discussed the problems associated with neutron stars. Primarily, they violate the "Island of stability" principal. The number of neutrons plotted against the number of protons in elemental nuclei reveals a ratio of about one-to-one for light elements and one point five-to-one for heavier ones. Anything outside that range will spontaneously decay until it reaches equilibrium. Too few neutrons and atoms will emit protons until they stabilize or vise-versa. Therefore, an atomic nucleus consisting of neutrons alone would be unstable and immediately decay.

Pulsars are thought to form when a neutron star's magnetic field exceeds 10^15 Gauss. In comparison, Earth's magnetic field measures one-half Gauss. The evidence for neutron stars is indirect, however, and none have ever been observed. What is observed are intense magnetic fields pulsing in fractions of a second.

Since magnetic fields are induced by electric currents, there must be electricity generating the intense fields in a pulsar. Those "feeder currents" must also be part of a circuit, since persistent electric current must flow in a completed circuit. Electric Universe advocates speculate that the oscillations in pulsars are caused by resonant effects in those circuits. The sudden release of stored electrical energy in a “double layer” is responsible for their energetic outbursts.

As current flows through clouds of dusty plasma, the Biot-Savart effect draws linear filaments together, forming zones of compression known as "z-pinches" or "Bennett pinches." Depending on how much electricity is flowing through the circuit, the star's magnetic field will be greatest where the current density is at a maximum. It seems more likely that pulsars are exhibiting an immense accumulation of electricity focused by a "plasma gun" effect.

Super-dense matter and extreme rotation are unnecessary. Electricity flowing in circuits provides a coherent explanation for pulsar behavior, including gamma ray flares, that agrees with accepted electromagnetic theories.

Stephen Smith

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