A plasma vortex spins cross the Sun. Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory/NASA


 

Solar Lightning
Aug 29, 2011

Solar flares can be thought of as giant lightning discharges.

Conventional thinking suggests that the Sun accelerates charged particles into space in the same way that sound waves are amplified. Eruptions in the photosphere travel outward through "acoustical wave-guides," known as magnetic flux tubes. Structures called spicules rise thousands of kilometers above the photosphere and carry the hot gas with them.

The Sun is the locus of positive charge with respect to interstellar plasma. Sunspots appear when electric discharges penetrate the photosphere, allowing electric current to flow into its depths. Electromagnetic flux tubes expose the Sun's cooler interior. The idea of acoustic heat transfer from the core cannot be supported by any observations of the Sun.

As standard theories about the Sun propose, there is also a vast "conveyor belt" circulating solar matter down into magnetically active zones deep inside the solar interior, where it is "reenergized." When sunspot magnetic fields begin to decline, the conveyor belt pulls what's left inside the Sun. As a recent press release states, they are drawn 300,000 kilometers below the surface, where they are re-magnetized by the "solar dynamo." The sunspots become buoyant in the plasma flow, rising back up to the photosphere to start a new solar cycle.

In an Electric Universe, plasma discharge behavior is a better model for solar activity. Laboratory experiments with a positively charged sphere show that a plasma torus forms above its equator. Electric discharges bridge the torus with the middle and lower latitudes of the sphere. Spicules are consistent with the principle of "anode tufting," a plasma discharge effect expected of a positively charged electric Sun.

Closeup images of sunspot filaments, seen clearly in sunspot penumbrae, indicate that they are whirling charge vortices. Looking down into a sunspot means seeing the rotating discharge columns in profile. Electric discharges in plasma form rope-like, hollow tendrils. Since they are funnels of plasma, their centers are darker, where convection cells would appear darker at their edges.

Standard theory does not accept that the darker and cooler regions revealed by sunspots means that the Sun is cooler in its interior.

"It is not coincidence that the photosphere has the appearance, the temperature and spectrum of an electric arc; it has arc characteristics because it is an electric arc, or a large number of arcs in parallel. These arcs quickly result in the neutralization of the accumulated space charge in their neighbourhood and go out. They are not therefore stable discharges, but may rather be looked upon as transient sparks. Arcs thus continually appear and disappear. It is this coming and going which accounts for the observed granulation of the solar surface." (A New Approach in Astrophysics and Cosmogony by C. E. R. Bruce 1944)

Coronal arches and multiple loop structures connect sunspots and rise up to penetrate the chromosphere. The chromosphere is a plasma sheath, or double layer region of the Sun, where most of its electrical energy is contained. When the current flowing into the Sun's plasma sheath increases beyond a critical threshold it can trigger a sudden release of that energy, causing solar flares and enormous prominence eruptions.

Powerful looping electric currents generate secondary toroidal magnetic fields that surround the loop. When the current grows too strong, the plasma double layer is destroyed. That event interrupts the current flow and the stored electromagnetic energy is blasted into space as a solar flare. Solar flares can therefore be thought of as tremendous lightning bursts, discharging vast quantities of matter at near relativistic speeds.

Stephen Smith