Sep 13,
2006
Seeing Circuits (2)
In Part 1 we listed some of the effects of circuits
in space and noted that they were all power-consuming effects. We
asked: Where is the power source?
The power could be generated locally. The rotational
inertia of a body could drive the circuit in much the same way as a
water-driven turbine in a dam drives a generator. Early plasma
physicists often simply assumed such a mechanism. But because
smaller-scale circuits in space are invariably coupled to
larger-scale circuits (such as the coupling between the auroral
circuit and the "solar wind" circuit), the Electric Universe posits
a remote power supply.
An electrical current in plasma will generate its
own magnetic field and "self constrict" the current channel. This is
called the Bennett pinch effect. It produces filaments or threads of
current that remain coherent over large distances. Multiple
filaments tend to spiral around each other, forming helical "power
cables" that can transmit electric power over large distances.
These cables have been identified running from
equator to poles in the circuits that power the aurora. Plasma
cosmologists also identify them in the filaments that extend from
active "radio" galaxies to the "radio lobes" (double layers) far
above each pole of such galaxies. Almost every body in the universe
displays some kind of filamentation. Venus has a tail composed of
invisible "stringy things" (NASA's description). Comets have tails
composed of visible "stringy things"--the ion tails. The
neon-light-like glows of planetary nebulas resolve, in close-up
views, into intricate webs of strings. The jets of Herbig-Haro stars
and active galaxies are often resolved into braided filaments. And
the spiral arms of some galaxies look "hairy" with threads of
material extending from them.
If all these filaments are Birkeland currents, they
are only the visible portions of entire circuits. The rest of the
circuit may generate magnetic fields that can be mapped, and the map
will give an indication of the extent of the circuit.
The smaller image above is such a map of the galaxy
M82. The arrows indicate the direction and strength of the magnetic
field. The larger image is an artist's conception of a likely
circuit schema that flows around and organizes the galaxy.
High-density currents flow out along the spin axis to large
distances. These distant regions are likely locations for energetic
double layers (which show up as radio and x-ray lobes in certain
active galaxies). The currents then spread out and flow
circumferentially around to the equatorial plane. They return to the
galactic core along the spiral arms, pulling in matter and pinching
it into stars as they go.
Every element in these galactic circuits radiates
energy. So the circuits must be powered through their coupling with
a larger circuit. The extent of that larger circuit is indicated by
the observation that galaxies occur in strings. This is why Arp's
observations of connections between high-redshift objects
(supposedly far away) and low-redshift galaxies (relatively nearby)
are important to plasma cosmologists: If the far-away objects are
really companions of nearby galaxies, everything we see outside the
Milky Way is part of the "stringy" structure of the galaxies. The
strings of galaxy-quasar groups are actually super-galactic
Birkeland cables along which the groups are "pinched" out. Arp's
observations raise the possibility that everything we see occurs
along one braided filament that swirls from the Virgo supercluster
to the Fornax supercluster, with our galaxy situated midway.
This
"string of galactic superclusters" would then be a load in a circuit
whose extent--and whose power supply--is far beyond all we presently
see and know.
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