Summary of Ralph Juergens' Electric Sun Model

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nick c
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Summary of Ralph Juergens' Electric Sun Model

Unread post by nick c » Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:38 am

Here, for reference purposes, is a copy of an article which appeared in:

THOTH
A Catastrophics Newsletter

VOL III, No. 6
March 31, 1999

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SUMMARY OF RALPH JUERGEN'S ELECTRIC SUN MODEL
By Wal Thornhill


I have attempted to paraphrase Ralph Juergen's argument several
times in the past but because it is so important I'll do it
again. At the outset let me acknowledge the fine work done by Dr
Earl Milton in publishing Ralph's work "Electric Discharge as the
Source of Solar Radiant Energy" (KRONOS VIII Nos. 1 and 2),
after the author's untimely death in 1979.
.................................................
The standard model of a star assumes that the physical isolation
of a star in space is total. Therefore all of its radiant energy
must be generated internally. This model was developed chiefly by
Sir Arthur Eddington in his classic work "The Internal
Constitution of Stars", first printed in 1926. He wrote, in
Chapter 1, "Survey of the Problem": "The problem of the source of
a star's energy will be considered; by a process of exhaustion we
are driven to conclude that the only possible source of a star's
energy is subatomic; yet it must be confessed that the hypothesis
shows little disposition to accommodate itself to the detailed
requirements of observation, and a critic might count up a large
number of 'fatal ' objections." Almost all of the efforts by
theorists since then has been to gloss over the 'fatal'
objections (note that the use of quotes in the original seems to
imply that the objections are not fatal) . The worst fatality is
that the neutrinos that we should expect, if the sun's engine is
ticking over as advertised, do not exist in anywhere near the
numbers required.

Of course, since Eddington's work early this century, space has
been found to be surprisingly populated with charged particles
which provide high electrical conductivity. But, as Juergens
notes, astronomers prefer an invisible source of energy inside
the sun to an invisible source of energy that surrounds the solar
system and is connected subtly to the Sun.

"Electricity or more appropriately, electric discharge, since we
are concerned with a phenomenon occurring in a gaseous medium-
seems to offer precisely the qualities of "subtle radiation" that
we are looking for. Electric discharge is a known and observable
phenomenon, yet we might live immersed in a cosmic discharge and
know nothing of its existence. Without understanding its ultimate
nature any more than we understand the nature of the
gravitational field, we know that the electric field is
potentially one of the greatest storehouses of energy in the
universe. Electric discharge offers phenomena so numerous and so
diverse that we have little trouble finding analogs for every
observable feature of the Sun." (Juergens, Kronos VIII, No. 1,
pp. 5-6).

Juergens makes the interesting observation that Alfven, the
father of cosmic plasma physics, considered the anode region of
a discharge as "rather unimportant" and has led everyone since to
believe that is so.

"Electrons, by virtue of their lesser mass and higher mobility
compared with positive ions, usually initiate discharges and
ordinarily carry a disproportionate share of the current. On this
basis, apparently, it is assumed that the source of the electrons
is more essential, and hence inherently more interesting, than
the anode. The shortsightedness of such reasoning may be
demonstrated simply by pointing out that cathodeless discharges
are not unknown. ...

Transmission lines carrying high-voltage direct current electric
trolley wires, for example discharge almost continuously to the
surrounding air. In the case of a positive (anode) wire electrons
ever present in the Earth's atmosphere drift toward the wire,
attracted by its positive charge. As they penetrate the
increasingly intense electric field close to the wire, the
electrons gain energy from the field and are accelerated to
energies great enough to initiate electron avalanches as they
collide with and ionize air molecules. The avalanching electrons,
in turn, intensify the ionization immediately surrounding the
wire. Positive ions, formed in the process, drift away from the
wire in the electric field. In this way, a more or less steady
discharge is maintained, although there is no tangible object
other than the surrounding air that can be considered a cathode.

Such a discharge is classed as a corona discharge. The region of
intense activity close to the wire is referred to as the coronal
envelope. And since so few "cathode" electrons are involved, and
since they move so quickly through the outer region of the
discharge, most of the current in this outer region is carried by
the positive ions." (ibid., p. 7).

The Electric Sun model provides a cathodeless discharge centred
on the Sun (as the anode) with two key observed characteristics
of the Sun: the solar corona (what irony in using the same term,
although a corona usually means a discharge at atmospheric
pressure!) and the solar wind.

To understand more about the Electric Sun we need to look at
laboratory low-pressure glow discharges.

Most people will remember seeing a demonstration at school of a
long glass evacuated tube with metal disc electrodes at each end
connected to a source of high voltage DC. You may recall the
resulting glows emanating from the discs, at various places along
the tube, and from the glass walls. For those who had a vacuum
pump, you will have seen the glows move and disappear as the
pressure was reduced. A neon sign is a conspicuous application of
a low-pressure glow discharge.

However, don't confuse the light from a neon tube with the
mechanism that lights up the Sun.

The glow from the neon tube is produced in the "positive column"
of the discharge. The positive column is a typical plasma having
equal concentrations of positive ions and of electrons, with the
electron temperature very high - sufficient to maintain the
degree of ionization required to carry the electric current. The
glowing positive column is formed only in thin tubes because in
an extended plasma a much lower degree of ionization is
sufficient to carry the current. Also there is no continual loss
of ions to the tube walls to be compensated for. Bear in mind
that the Sun operates in a very extended spherical plasma, most
of it of much lower density than that used in neon tubes. In that
case the positive column will not appear.

Why don't we see a stream of energetic charged particles heading
toward the Sun if it is truly electrically powered?

The bulk of a glow discharge is comprised of a "cool" plasma,
that is an equal number of positive ions and electrons moving
randomly, or thermally. Superimposed on that random motion is a
drift of electrons toward the anode and positive ions toward the
cathode. It is the cool plasma that behaves very much like a
metal conductor (except that it has two charge carriers instead
of just electrons). In a copper wire the entire current is
carried by electrons drifting very slowly from one end to the
other. The total current carried in the cool plasma by the two
opposite drifts constitutes the discharge current. The electric
field gradient in that cool plasma is very low. In such an
environment we would be hard-pressed to detect that we were
inside a glow discharge. The field strength is high only in the
cathode and anode "sheaths" where the imbalance in positive and
negative charges is marked. Juergens has identified most of the
space from the solar corona out to the heliopause as devoted to
the negative glow region of a glow discharge. The chromosphere
forms the limit of that region on the anode side. The photosphere
is identified as the first anode phenomenon.

So, what might we expect to find in space near the Earth if we
occupy the negative glow region? James Cobine writes in his
textbook "Gaseous Conductors" in section 8.5 Cathode Phenomena
and Negative Glow: " an appreciable fraction if not nearly all of
the electrons entering the negative glow from the Crookes dark
space have a range [of energies] corresponding to the entire
cathode drop." In other words, if we accept the estimate from
Juergens, electrons will be accelerated toward the Sun with a
range of energies up to almost the full potential difference
between the Sun and the surrounding plasma, 10 billion volts. As
Dr Earl Milton pointed out in his editorial of Juergens' KRONOS
article, such relativistic electrons cause "effects not seen in
more mundane discharges". It tends to cause the discharge current
to become self-limiting allowing the observed range of stellar
luminosities.

But back to the question: it is a simple matter to equate the
observed energy output of the Sun with the energy of incoming
relativistic electrons (they must be responsible for the solar
energy in this model since ions are emitted with low energies
from the Sun). It requires 3,000 relativistic electrons per cubic
metre at the Earth's orbital distance, streaming toward the Sun.
Measurements in the Earth's vicinity give a range of 9 to 11
million electrons per cubic metre (mostly thermal secondaries
generated by ionization of solar gases). Juergens writes: "Thus
it would appear that, if but one in every 3,000 electrons near
the Earth turned out to be a current carrier moving at almost the
speed of light toward the Sun, the power delivered would be
enough to keep the Sun 'burning' at its present rate. This seems
a rather subtle stream but it would suffice to power the Sun."
Why haven't we seen these relativistic electrons? Juergens says:
"Detection may be made difficult ... by the fact that such fast
electrons quickly charge up the detecting instruments to the
point where they repel electron currents. Probes of presently
feasible proportions may be unable to carry apparatus sufficient
to maintain suitable potentials on electron detecting devices
...".

I mentioned that the light from the Sun does not come from a
positive column effect. It comes from the bright granules that
form the photosphere. They are an anode phenomenon occurring when
the anode is small in relation to the discharge current. As
Cobine writes in section 8.12 Anode Phenomena: "The presence of
impurities and the evolution of gas may cause local points of
high activity which appear as luminous regions." Stars are well
constructed to provide gas to the anode discharge. In fact, the
chromosphere of the Sun exhibits the same sheath of negative
hydrogen ions observed in Earth-based anodes fed with the gas. So
the bright granulations are the result of cool neutral gas from
below the photosphere (at the temperature seen in the umbrae of
sunspots) being injected into the anode glow region, or
chromosphere of the Sun by solar lightning, which magnetically
compresses and heats the gas to incandescence, ionizes some of it
and accelerates it vertically - giving a superficial appearance
of convection. It is actually a means to provide more electrons
to carry the current load at the anode. The relatively quiet,
orderly behaviour of the photospheric granulations as they grow,
fade, split and combine is characteristic of anode "tufting" but
has no sensible explanation in terms of convection.

Because anode tufting occurs above the true anode surface we do
not know the actual size of the Sun. It explains why the
photosphere is almost perfectly spherical despite the Sun's
rotation (sometimes it is actually prolate!) - its shape is
constrained by electrical forces far more powerful than
centrifugal rotation effects. It provides an answer to how the
diameter of the Sun can change over short intervals of time in
response to changes in its electrical environment. Also, if the
Sun's differential rotation is driven electrically from outside,
it explains how that rotation rate can vary quite markedly and
why sunspots seem to plough through the photosphere as if they
were evidence of invisible magnetic stirrers, dipping into the
Sun.

Juergens felt that the solar wind is an electric wind created by
collisions of ions accelerated in the chromospheric plasma
sheath, with neutral hydrogen. The chromosphere is where we have
the lowest "temperature" and most rapid heating found on the Sun.
Actually, the concept of temperature in a plasma sheath is
meaningless. The filamentary structures in the chromosphere and
corona, seen down to the limit of resolution, are diagnostic of
predominantly radial electric currents in these regions. I would
take issue with the use of the word "wind". The solar wind is
structured in a way that suggests it is a spiral of Birkeland
currents feeding a plasmoid shaped like a twisted doughnut that
encircles the Sun very closely. As shown in laboratory
experiments, such a plasmoid can store considerable energy. That
energy is released at intervals by discharging to the surface of
the Sun. Solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejection events result
from particularly violent discharges.

The glow discharge model predicts that at the boundary of the
Sun's influence (termed the heliopause and considered
conventionally to be a purely mechanical shock phenomenon) the
ion (proton) current from the Sun will be accelerated through
almost the full potential difference between the Sun and the
surrounding plasma - estimated by Juergens at around 10 billion
volts. Here is a possible answer to the puzzle of the origin of
cosmic rays. As Juergens pointed out, most are likely the "spent"
ions from other stars. Their range of energies gives a measure of
the driving potentials suffered by other stars. It also provides
a check on the reasonableness of Juergens' estimate for the Sun.
Interestingly, there is a gap in the energy spectrum of cosmic
rays. The most highly energetic are probably released from the
plasma focus activities at the centre of active galaxies.

I have briefly covered some of the most obvious phenomena
associated with the Sun and shown how they may be coherently and
simply explained by the glow discharge model. However, some
people have objected that such a star could not form in the first
place. I will attempt to answer that next.

Wal Thornhill
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Last edited by nick c on Tue Dec 19, 2023 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: punctuation correction to thread title

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