Sunspot cycles and the planets

[CharlesChandler]

John H. Nelson's theory of propagation...

I'll go along with that. All of the planets with magnetic fields, at least out to Saturn, intercept the heliospheric current sheet. If they're in line, they get daisy-chained. Perhaps that makes for a more organized electric field, and perhaps EM waves propagate with less refraction. I'd like to add that the field is better organized, producing stronger auroras, when the Sun's dominant magnetic field is opposite from the Earth's. This allows particles streaming out of the Sun's magnetic south pole to feed directly into the Earth's magnetic north pole, and vice versa. When the two magnetic fields are the same (during the alternate 11.2 year solar cycle), the particles in the HCS have to cris-cross between the Sun and the Earth, and this detracts energy from them, producing weaker auroras. So the solar cycle needs to be taken into account.

[upriver]

John H. Nelson's theory of propagation...

I'll go along with that. All of the planets with magnetic fields, at least out to Saturn, intercept the heliospheric current sheet. If they're in line, they get daisy-chained. Perhaps that makes for a more organized electric field, and perhaps EM waves propagate with less refraction. I'd like to add that the field is better organized, producing stronger auroras, when the Sun's dominant magnetic field is opposite from the Earth's. This allows particles streaming out of the Sun's magnetic south pole to feed directly into the Earth's magnetic north pole, and vice versa. When the two magnetic fields are the same (during the alternate 11.2 year solar cycle), the particles in the HCS have to cris-cross between the Sun and the Earth, and this detracts energy from them, producing weaker auroras. So the solar cycle needs to be taken into account.

And in addition there is the work done by Borovsky. The solar wind is composed of flux tubes, which in a sense are electric wires...

“Origin and Evolution of Structure in the Solar Wind” The image on page 5 is pretty remarkable...
ftp://ftp.lanl.gov/public/rfriedel/coll ... iscont.pdf

The Flux Tube texture of the solar wind (Borovsky http://researchindex.net/author/Borovsk ... 54e4045eaf publications) does make it out the the heliopause and is detected by Voyager. I doubt it would make it that far if it was a non columnated flow.

Observation of the Multifractal Spectrum at the Termination Shock by Voyager 1
http://www.cbk.waw.pl/~macek/bisa_2012.pdf

Observation of flux tube crossings in the solar wind
http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.1925

[CharlesChandler]

And in addition there is the work done by Borovsky. The solar wind is composed of flux tubes, which in a sense are electric wires...

Yes -- the HCS is made up of the so-called "flux tubes", which originate in solar granules, and which terminate in the Earth's aurora. The tubes have a magnetic polarity, due to the dominant magnetic field on the Sun where they originated. In other words, they're Birkeland currents, where the charged particles follow a helical path through the ambient magnetic field. Traveling through the interplanetary medium, the particles maintain their spins, so the "flux tubes" still have magnetic polarities. When they hit the Earth's magnetic field, the Lorentz force sends tubes of one polarity toward the North Pole, and the other polarity to the South.

[upriver]

And in addition there is the work done by Borovsky. The solar wind is composed of flux tubes, which in a sense are electric wires...

Yes -- the HCS is made up of the so-called "flux tubes", which originate in solar granules, and which terminate in the Earth's aurora. The tubes have a magnetic polarity, due to the dominant magnetic field on the Sun where they originated. In other words, they're Birkeland currents, where the charged particles follow a helical path through the ambient magnetic field. Traveling through the interplanetary medium, the particles maintain their spins, so the "flux tubes" still have magnetic polarities. When they hit the Earth's magnetic field, the Lorentz force sends tubes of one polarity toward the North Pole, and the other polarity to the South.

So sitting here playing with my plasma ball and wondering why the filaments follow my fingers.

Might the flux tubes from the sun get hooked up with a planet or comet and follow that body??

Typically EU says that its charge differences from orbital eccentricity that causes comets and maybe planets to discharge. If there was an electrical wire that followed the comet, then you would have a much greater current flow.

And I wonder if flux tubes propagate radio waves....

[CharlesChandler]

So sitting here playing with my plasma ball and wondering why the filaments follow my fingers.

The acrylic shell on the outside is a pretty good resistor, but nothing is perfect, so the current is flowing through the acrylic. And your finger is a better conductor than the surrounding atmosphere, so it's using your body as a capacitor to store the excess charge, until the A/C current switches direction and wants the charge back. You can take a pencil, and put the eraser end (which isn't a good conductor) up to the acrylic, and see no effect, but if you put the pencil lead (which is a good conductor) in contact with the acrylic, and it will use the lead as a capacitor.

Might the flux tubes from the sun get hooked up with a planet or comet and follow that body??

Yes, that's what I'm thinking. So I think that the Parker Spiral has perturbations in it, where it's pinned to the ecliptic plane where there are planets. The "ballerina's skirt" is only free to flutter if there isn't a planet there. After all, if the HCS fluctuated above and below the ecliptic plane the way it's shown in simulations, the aurora would only occur as the HCS passed through the ecliptic plane -- otherwise there wouldn't be any current to light up the skies. Since the auroras occur all of the time, the current has to be there all of the time. And the Earth's magnetic field is a lot stronger than the field in the HCS, so the Earth's field will dominate. Once the HCS got intercepted by the Earth the first time, it forever more would be pinned to the Earth.

Typically EU says that its charge differences from orbital eccentricity that causes comets and maybe planets to discharge. If there was an electrical wire that followed the comet, then you would have a much greater current flow.

But then comets would stop discharging at perihelion, and only start discharging on their way back out. Since that isn't what happens, that isn't the answer.

And I wonder if flux tubes propagate radio waves....

I'm wondering that myself. Actually, I'm contemplating the more fundamental question: is it the consistency (or lack thereof) of the electric and/or magnetic field lines that is the issue, or is it the distribution of the particles (because of the electric and/or magnetic fields)? Clumpy matter seems to be better at scattering photons, but a perfectly homogeneous gas leaves the wavefronts intact as they pass through, so they're better at propagation. If that's true, then are the flux tubes more consistent, or less consistent?

[upriver]

Typically EU says that its charge differences from orbital eccentricity that causes comets and maybe planets to discharge. If there was an electrical wire that followed the comet, then you would have a much greater current flow.

But then comets would stop discharging at perihelion, and only start discharging on their way back out. Since that isn't what happens, that isn't the answer.

I was thinking that the comet is in the middle of the flux tube. The tail of the comet is the continuation of the flux tube out to the heliosphere..
Voyager detected flux tubes all the way to the heliosphere....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5sDQXrBeQ8

[CharlesChandler]

I was thinking that the comet is in the middle of the flux tube. The tail of the comet is the continuation of the flux tube out to the heliosphere...

Oh, I see what you mean. I'll go along with that. As you know, my idea of cometary tails is not that they are particles shedding off of the comet, but rather, they're particles in the interplanetary medium that have been excited by the disturbance of the comet passing through, like vapor trails in a bubble chamber. So in that context, once ionized, the excited particles are subject to the ambient magnetic fields, which we know to be in the form of flux tubes (a.k.a., Birkeland currents). And yes, they would follow those magnetic field lines. That might also explain the "anti-tails" (facing toward the Sun), which are tough to explain with Newtonian metaphors, such as "solar winds". Once excited, the particles will follow the magnetic field lines, and while most of them will follow the "wind", some of them could follow magnetic field lines upstream, if there is enough electrostatic pressure on the upwind side, and if the magnetic fields are strong enough.

Would it be possible to determine if the comas are actually following the Parker Spirals?

[upriver]

I was thinking that the comet is in the middle of the flux tube. The tail of the comet is the continuation of the flux tube out to the heliosphere...

Oh, I see what you mean. I'll go along with that. As you know, my idea of cometary tails is not that they are particles shedding off of the comet, but rather, they're particles in the interplanetary medium that have been excited by the disturbance of the comet passing through, like vapor trails in a bubble chamber. So in that context, once ionized, the excited particles are subject to the ambient magnetic fields, which we know to be in the form of flux tubes (a.k.a., Birkeland currents). And yes, they would follow those magnetic field lines. That might also explain the "anti-tails" (facing toward the Sun), which are tough to explain with Newtonian metaphors, such as "solar winds". Once excited, the particles will follow the magnetic field lines, and while most of them will follow the "wind", some of them could follow magnetic field lines upstream, if there is enough electrostatic pressure on the upwind side, and if the magnetic fields are strong enough.

Would it be possible to determine if the comas are actually following the Parker Spirals?

So I made this video of a plasma ball with a florescent tube as the comet...

Filament tracking a comet around the sun.
https://youtu.be/eIbIbg5w4N0

[jacmac]

Charles said:

my idea of cometary tails is not that they are particles shedding off of the comet, but rather, they're particles in the interplanetary medium that have been excited by the disturbance of the comet passing through, like vapor trails in a bubble chamber.

What about after a comet goes around sun and the "tail" is out in front ?
Jack

[CharlesChandler]

What about after a comet goes around sun and the "tail" is out in front?

I'm saying that the particles in the coma started just as stationary particles in the interplanetary medium. But when the comet passed through, they got charge-separated, by frictional charging. Then they flowed away, following the magnetic lines of force. Analogously, think of a snow plow generating a plume of show as it rides down the road. Where did the snow come from? Was it all in the back of the truck? No -- the snow was just sitting there on the road. But the action of the plow accelerated it off the road. Now suppose that the road, and the snow sitting on it, are invisible, and all that we can see is the snow plow and its plume. That's how I'm imagining comets.

[jacmac]

That sounds reasonable. Thanks.

[webolife]

I've had a similar [to Charles] idea about comet tails for some time; here's an interesting observation:
Sungrazer comet tails tend to trail behind the comet like a wake, because the outward directed particle velocities are much slower than the velocity of the comet as it is near perihelion. This makes me question if the comet tail is in fact a wake, modified by the fact that some of the material becomes ionized by interaction with the comet head. I also wonder about a Newtonian 3rd law analogy, the droplet rebound... is the comet stirring up IPM material as it approaches the sun causing greater amount of rebound as it encounters denser IPM?

[upriver]

Here is something that I found on the anti tail and it has stuff about the three tails as well.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitail# ... i-tail.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitail

[upriver]

I was wondering if there is any correlation between comet activity and sun spots or solar cycles??

Do comets change activity when they are lined up with a sun spot??

I also wondered why Jupiter seems constant even though the solar cycles seem to change the solar wind....