Original Post November 9, 2012 The Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy to the Milky Way, is called a nursery for new stars. The growing awareness of plasma should make it also a nursery for new ideas to explain its features. It features glowing filaments of…
Original Post October 26, 2012 Both nuclear powered stars and electrically powered stars produce bubbles in the plasma surrounding them. From that common observational beginning, the theoretical explanations diverge. Nuclear generated bubbles come in two types: planetary nebulae (PNs) and supernova (SN) remnants. The PNs are bubbles that are…
Original Post October 22, 2012 To talk about something, we have to conceive ideas and words with which to describe the thing. We can’t avoid these pre-conceptions. But will we try to compensate for this prejudice by conceiving more than one? The Seagull Nebula is a splotch of light…
Plasma encompasses a larger domain of evidence compared to gravity, and explains more phenomena with a comprehensive and unitary theory. It sees more landscape, more features of that landscape, and more relationships among those features. Gravity, in contrast, sees fewer features and sees them as disparate events, each requiring…
Original Post September 14, 2012 This recent image of the Pencil Nebula from La Silla Observatory showcases a cosmic counterpart to “hair” discharges from Tesla coils. Electric forces separate the plasma into parallel filaments. Magnetic forces further constrict them (the “z pinch”) and induce them to twist around each…
Final episode in a seven-arc series on the art of critical thinking. Ancient history is based on present interpretations of texts written by the rulers to justify and glorify such rulers. It’s more propaganda than records, and contain paradoxes such as the stratigraphy of ancient ruins that repeat themselves…
Sixth episode in a seven-arc series on the art of critical thinking. With a different presumption and metaphysical key, the interpretation of an observation is different. The evidence is different with each key. The possibility of different keys is what allows for a paradigm shift. The focus here is…
Original Post July 12, 2012 El Gordo is so called because it is the biggest, brightest, and hottest pair of colliding galaxy clusters known to astronomers. Astronomers “know” that El Gordo is over 7 billion light-years from Earth. This knowledge derives from the amount by which El Gordo’s light is shifted toward…
Original Post July 5, 2012 A recent image of the Helix Nebula in the constellation Aquarius exposes more details of its electrical structure. The new infrared image shows radial Birkeland currents (called “strands” in the press release) crossing the concentric rings and converging on the central star. (Will “strands” now replace…
Fifth episode in a seven-arc series on the art of critical thinking. Our universe composed of plasma is extremely intricate. Biological systems are also intricate. Irving Langmuir, who coined the term ‘plasma’ in 1923, noted the equilibrium of an electrical discharge acting as a layer carrying high-velocity electrons, molecules…
