Double layers surrounding a discharge electrode. Credit: SAFIRE project.
Jan 12, 2018
Electric fields in space generate cosmic phenomena.
Astronomers discovered an energy signature they called a “Fast Radio Burst”, or FRB, almost ten years ago. The event supposedly released more energy in five milliseconds than the Sun puts out in a month. Distance to the source was said to be a billion light-years and was surmised to come from the death of a black hole. Some consensus theories state that black holes will eventually explode like hydrogen bombs.
According to a recent press release, light frequencies from an FRB discovered by Cornell University astronomers seem to “shout and twist”. “Twisting” occurs when radio waves are polarized as they travel through magnetized plasma. As the announcement states, FRB 121102’s Faraday rotation is “…more than 500 times greater any other fast radio burst observed to date…” They believe that this means the plasma is 500 times more dense than anything previously seen around an FRB.
It is important to remember that, in an Electric Universe, radio waves and a range of energy curves are properties of lightning bolts. Computer simulations demonstrate that plasma phenomena are scalable over several orders of magnitude: they behave in the same way and illustrate basic premises whether in atoms or galaxies.
Experiments confirm that plasma formations in space can be modeled in the laboratory due to that scalability factor. Under similar conditions, plasma discharges produce the same formations independent of size. Since duration is proportional to size, an electric spark that lasts for microseconds in the laboratory might last for years at the stellar scale, or for millions of years at the galactic scale. Or, they might suddenly erupt and then dim again.
When charged particles accelerate in an electric field, they emit synchrotron radiation, creating X-rays, gamma-rays and radio waves. All forms of electromagnetic radiation are conventionally thought to be carried by photons. Photons are assumed to be “massless”, as astrophysicists define mass, but since they travel at 2.993 x 10^10 centimeters per second, so-called “relativistic effects” come into play. That high velocity increases their inertia, enough for them to knock electrons out of an atom, allowing astronomers to build detectors that can “see” those theoretical electrons and assume their photon progenitors.
The problem with “force carriers” is not the topic of this paper. Suffice to say, there is no need to invoke ghostly particles of thought when electricity is considered. Electric fields, magnetic fields, and associated energetic events are all aspects of electromagnetism.
Electric Universe cosmologists postulate that FRBs, measured via redshift correlation, is not correct. FRBs are actually occurring in nearby galactic neighborhoods, so they are not unimaginably powerful, and not coming from the edge the Universe. As mentioned, plasma discharges in the form of exploding double layers can accelerate particles in ways that are confirmed with laboratory experiments.
Plasma physicist and Nobel laureate, Dr. Hannes Alfvén thought that “exploding double layers” should be considered a new class of celestial object. Z-pinches in plasma filaments create plasmoids that evolve into stars and galaxies. Electricity is responsible for stellar behavior, and when the current density gets too high, double layers in the circuit catastrophically release their excess energy, appearing as FRBs, X-rays, or flares of ultraviolet light.
Alfvén wrote:
“A study of how a number of the most used textbooks in astrophysics treat important concepts like double layers, critical velocity, pinch effects and circuits is made. It is found that students using these textbooks remain essentially ignorant of even the existence of these, in spite of the fact that some of them have been well known for half a century (e.g., double layers, Langmuir, 1929: pinch effect, Bennet, 1934). The conclusion is that astrophysics is too important to be left in the hands of the astrophysicist. Earth bound and space telescope data must be treated by scientists who are familiar with laboratory and magnetospheric physics and circuit theory, and of course with modern plasma theory. At least by volume the universe consists to more than 99% of plasma, and electromagnetic forces are 10^9 [sic!] time stronger than gravitation.”
If correct, FRBs are actually nearby, and they are less energetic. Plasma is the correct way to interpret their behavior, but it is exploding double layers that impel them. Rather than relying on mathematical phantoms like black holes in tandem with overweight neutron stars, why not create real, testable hypotheses and work them up with real, physical models? Perhaps FRBs are really flashes of cosmic lightning erupting from electrified clouds of plasma on an immense scale.
Stephen Smith
