Jun 27, 2019
Regions inside this nebula are described as “cocoons” for new stars.
The Tarantula Nebula’s designation is 30 Doradus. It is an “emission nebula” in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Readers may remember that a well-known supernova, 1987a, exploded near the nebula’s edge. The nebula’s average diameter exceeds 1000 light-years, making it one of the largest ever discovered. If it were located in our own galaxy at a distance of 1500 light-years, or as close as the Great Molecular Cloud in Orion, it would span 30 degrees of arc in the night sky, and would be so bright that one could read a newspaper by its light.
According to consensus astrophysicists, the active “star-forming region”, NGC 2074, is a dense cluster of stars that they believe are some of the newest members of the LMC. Theories of stellar evolution describe star formation in terms of collapsing nebular clouds. The majority of astronomers believe star birth is due to shockwaves from supernovae, high frequency radiation from nearby stars, or the gravity flux from a passing black hole, causing dust and gas to collapse into a “protoplanetary disk”.
Stars are thought to result from a cloud of nebular gas slowly contracting toward a center of gravity that has somehow formed within it. This is known as the “Nebular Hypothesis”, expounded by Pierre Simon, Marquis de LaPlace in the eighteenth century as an amplification of Immanuel Swedenborg’s original Solar System cosmogony theory. LaPlace thought that stars, in general, form when nebular clouds develop concentrations, or gravity vortices, in higher density regions. Those densities gradually collapse into “accretion discs” that draw more and more gas and dust into them. Despite its out-dated proposition, astronomers cling to the theory, since it is their only recourse.
Star-forming regions are conventionally associated with gamma rays, X-rays, and extreme ultraviolet light shining from the “cosmic eggs” that appear to be the glowing tips of condensed gas balls. This is despite the fact that gas cannot be heated until it gives off X-rays without stripping electrons from the nuclei, forming a plasma.
A better nebular model is a neon light, glowing at its excitation frequency. Electricity passing through the tube causes the neon plasma to glow. Astronomers say shock waves from supernovae can activate many frequencies of light because the compressed gas heats up. However, since more than 90% of the light from nebulae radiates in the frequency range of ionized oxygen, they should be thought of as oxygen discharge tubes and not as clouds of gas.
The Electric Star hypothesis resolves many of the distorted opinions that arise from misunderstanding the role of plasma and electric fields in space. Rather than kinetic energy from gravitational compression, the Tarantula Nebula’s radiant emanations result from electric currents. Electric discharges in a dusty nebula draw matter toward the current axis where it is accelerated in the axial electric field. Plasma sheaths form bubbles that are normally invisible until “pumped” with additional energy from the galactic Birkeland currents in which they are immersed. The strong electric field across these plasma sheaths accelerates particles and pushes them into “glow mode”.
Powerful long-range electromagnetic scavenging of matter in a nebula is the way that stars are born, like “beads on a string.” Gravity, although it plays a small role in stellar formation, is a far too weak a force when compared to an electric field and ionized particles.
Stephen Smith
