NGC 346
(image above) is a cluster of stars
immersed in glowing filaments of
plasma. The
press release sees in
the new image “massive stars” that
have thrown off “light, wind and
heat,” which has “dispersed the
glowing gas.”Once again,
astronomers see what they believe
and talk about blowing hot air. The
press release elaborates: “gas
within [the nebula] has been heated
up by stars until the gas emits its
own light, just like the neon gas
used in electric store signs.”
One must wonder if the experts at
ESO know how neon signs operate.
Have they been so expertly
conditioned by their years of
indoctrination with gravity and gas
that they are unaware of electricity
as a natural phenomenon? One recalls
the conference at which a well-known
astronomer declared, “Of course
there’s electricity in space; it
just doesn’t do anything.”
Neon signs are powered externally
by a high-voltage source of
electricity. Most people would guess
that’s why they’re called “electric
store signs.” The strong electric
field between the electrodes at each
end of the tube ionizes the neon,
and the continuous recombination and
re-ionization of electrons and ions
produces the light.
The electric current supplies the
energy for the light, not some
internal thermal source that has
“heated up” the “gas.” Thermal
energy is due to random motions of
atoms and molecules; in an electric
current, electrons move toward one
electrode, ions toward the other,
and random motion is minimized.
Hence, a cool “gas”—actually a
plasma—can emit radiation.
Converting the energy of that
radiation into a “temperature” as
though it were emitted by a thermal
source is fundamentally misleading.
It is at this level of epistemic
awareness (or unawareness!) that
experts can be misled by what they
believe into seeing what isn’t there
and not seeing what is. The
difference between a neon light in
space and a neon light in a store is
the fervency of belief in applying
Newton’s Laws or Maxwell’s Laws.
The choice of laws to apply to
explain a phenomenon is determined
more by conformity with politically
dominant interests than by criteria
of truth. Especially with phenomena
in deep space, there are few if any
consequences to explanations: a fib
is as good as a truth, and getting
along with one’s colleagues becomes
the only criterion that matters.
Scientific truth is a thin layer of
frosting on the cupcake of
scientific politics.
The electricians who string wires
through the store would be surprised
to hear that the wires are only
decorative: the neon signs are
obviously powered by tiny nuclear
furnaces in their hot, dense cores;
the electricity in the wires doesn’t
“do anything.”
But seeing wires in stores as
decorative is “just like” seeing the
filaments in NGC 346 as not “doing
anything.” An astronomer who is
aware of plasma phenomena will see
in this image Birkeland currents
powering an “electric store sign” of
the galaxy.
Mel Acheson