Globular cluster NGC 4833. The colorful stars are foreground objects. Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope/ESA. Click to enlarge.
Aug 24, 2016
In space, spheres and filaments predominate.
Approximately 22,000 light-years away in the constellation of Musca, NGC 4833 orbits the Milky Way, along with at least 150 of its cousins. Globular clusters are thought to contain some of the oldest stars, so astronomers believe that they can provide an idea of how galaxies evolve and age.
Spherical clusters of stars are another example of how plasma is organized and confined into coherent formations. Astronomers think that globular clusters start life as a uniform assemblage of stars from a single birthing event, since the gas and dust needed for new stars is no longer present within them. However, some confusion exists because one of the Milky Way’s globular clusters, NGC 4833, contains “multigenerational” stars, something that should not be.
Globular clusters are a particularly difficult question when gravitational models of the cosmos are considered. Why do they develop spheres, rather than disks or ellipses? Stellar orbits inside clusters should cause them to dissipate over time if they are gravity-only congregations. Some stars should be accelerated out of the cluster, while stars closer to the center should further condense.
Previous Picture of the Day articles note that, because globular clusters orbit galaxies in a halo, each time they cross the galactic plane tidal forces should disrupt them, sending their stars every which way. Why this does not happen is not explained. NGC 4833 is supposed to be hundreds of millions of years old, yet it remains spherical despite crossing the plane of the Milky Way many times.
The Electric Universe view of stars provides an answer to that quandary. Since stars are positively charged objects bound together by electric and magnetic fields, their interaction with each other is not based on a kinetic model of the Universe. The electric star model insists that it is the strength of electric charges flowing into stars that determines their characteristics.
The old-fashioned Nebular Hypothesis has been found wanting when it comes to analyzing a star’s behavior in galactic formations or globular clusters. Therefore, populations of stars are not dependent on how long it took them to evolve, so the “problem” with multigenerational stars in NGC 4833 does not follow.
Electrically, individual stars might be considered as discrete charged particles, behaving according to the laws of plasma physics and not the laws of mechanical motion. Galactic disks act like Faraday motors, while globular clusters (as has been suggested in the past) might be more like ball lightning than anything else.
So, the Hubble research team has not discovered anything extraordinary. The stars in NGC 4833 are acting in accord with electrical concepts. They are probably not that old (as astronomers count age) because they behave according to a plasma cosmology hypothesis.
Stephen Smith
