TPOD Archive September-December 2011

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An exploding double layer on the Sun

Sun Stroke

Dec 30, 2011 Is it the breaking and reconnecting of magnetic field lines that power solar phenomena? According to a popular view of the Sun, its core pressure is supposed to be so high that it crushes hydrogen atoms together until they fuse into helium atoms, releasing energy of such ...
Markarian's Chain

Power Lines

Dec 29, 2011 Galaxies often exhibit alignment with one another across vast distances. According to Electric Universe theory, galactic evolution occurs as large-scale plasma discharges form spinning wheels of coherent filaments that display electrodynamic behavior and not merely that which gravity alone can contribute. Stars in galaxies can also form ...
A traditional cosmology based on Icelandic mythology and a scientific cosmology

Traditions of Science

Dec 28, 2011 Science and folk tradition are supposed to be strictly separate domains of knowledge, but in practice they often shade into each other. The image shown above right attempts to map the entire visible universe. The galaxies tend to collect into vast sheets and superclusters of galaxies surrounding ...
NGC 4710

Criss Cross Bulge

Dec 27, 2011 A pair of field aligned currents can be seen discharging from the core of this active galaxy. Any substance containing charged particles is a plasma: electrons, positive ions, electrically charged dust, neon lights, lightning, planetary magnetospheres, the so-called "solar wind," stars, and even galaxies are plasma. Filaments ...
A coronal mass ejection erupts from the Sun

Which Came First?

Dec 26, 2011 Electric currents create magnetic fields in the Sun. “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Asking this question always gets a chuckle from a group of kids who haven’t been asked that before. For adults, it confirms their conviction that unanswerable questions must be laughably ignored ...
Kayapo headdress, C. 1910

Headed for the Sky

Dec 23, 2011 In parts of the Amazonian rainforest, traditional costume included a headdress consisting of a circular arrangement of feathers. The ring of 36 feathers, most of which are white, lacks an obvious counterpart in the skies we see above us. The above example was collected in c. 1910 ...
Supernova Remnant 0509: X-ray in blue and green, optical in red.

The Ornament Not Seen

Dec 22, 2011 This image of the Christmas Ornament nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud looks the same to Electric Universe and Gravity Universe proponents alike. Their radically contrary descriptions of what it is result from their ideas about what they don’t see. Gravity Universe proponents describe a star that ...
Front side of an Altai drum, Siberia

As Below, So Above

Dec 21, 2011 Nary a traditional culture failed to believe that the gods modelled the ‘lesser’ things on earth, including many aspects of human life, on the ‘greater’ things in the sky. European esoteric belief systems shared and elaborated this core idea. In its most common application, the ‘macrocosm’ or ...
Getting Sloshed

Getting Sloshed

Dec 20, 2011 Is hot gas sloshing in a gravitational wine glass—or is astrophysicists’ reasoning going in a circle? A recent press release explains: “Like wine in a glass, vast clouds of hot gas are sloshing back and forth….” The blue image is assembled electronically from x-ray data and superimposed ...
Composite image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope

Lines We Neatly Stumble Over

Dec 19, 2011 A recent press release proclaims that “astronomers have obtained the first direct evidence that black holes are common in the early Universe.” The tortuous path of prevarication between the evidence and the hole is direct evidence of irony. The evidence provided is a few blue smudges. To ...
Albedo and elevation images for Oppia crater on Vesta

Number Three

Dec 16, 2011 New images of the third largest asteroid reveal etched chasms and deep holes. The Dawn mission continues in orbit around Vesta. Vesta is ranked high among minor planets, with Pallas (531 kilometers) and Ceres (952 kilometers) as its larger cousins. Ceres is also part of the Dawn ...
Saturn's moon Enceladus

Bubbling Plasma

Dec 15, 2011 Enceladus joins other celestial objects that produce "magnetic bubbles." In a recent Picture of the Day, the so-called "bubbles" of magnetism supposedly found by the Voyager spacecraft at the boundary where the Sun's heliosphere meets the ISM (interstellar medium) were explained as Langmuir sheaths, or electrically charged ...
Artist's depiction of the solar heliosphere

Solar Stagnation

Dec 14, 2011 Matter from the Interstellar Medium has been detected by Voyager 1. A postulate of the Electric Sun hypothesis presupposes the Sun to be the positive terminal in a circuit, or anode. The negative electrode, or "virtual" cathode, is known as the heliosphere, a shell of charged particles ...
Markarian 739

Twisted Pairs

Dec 13, 2011 A remote galaxy is said to host two black holes. Could an electrical explanation better fit the observation? Electric Universe advocates propose that electric currents in plasma generate magnetic fields that constrict the current. As previous Picture of the Day articles point out, the constricted channel is ...
Martian landscape within a quart bottle

The Sands of Mars: a Speculation

Dec 09, 2011 Throughout human history the planet Mars has held mankind’s rapt attention. When telescopes were sufficiently advanced by the late nineteenth century, the red planet seasonally fogged over with dust storms. After such storms it appeared to darken in spots with what was thought to be vegetation. But ...
Artist's impression of "magnetic bubbles" surrounding the Solar System

Magnetic Effervescence

Dec 08, 2011 "Bubbles" of magnetic energy are said to surround the Sun's heliosheath. "In all our quest of greatness, like wanton boys, whose pastime is their care, we follow after bubbles, blown in the air." --- John Webster According to astronomer Merav Opher of Boston University's Voyager team: "The ...
Massive solar explosion on June 7, 2011

Twist and Shout

Dec 07, 2011 Alfvén waves are said to carry heat from the Sun's photosphere out to its corona. "Giant twisting waves" have been detected in the Sun's lower atmosphere, prompting heliophysicists to speculate that they are transporting heat energy upward from lower levels into the solar corona. Why the corona ...
NGC 3842

Crumpled Space and Canceled Time

Dec 06, 2011 More news about black holes is increasing the distortion of reason. According to a recent press release, two black holes with masses exceeding "9 billion times the mass of the Sun" have been detected. The supposed "event horizon" in NGC 3842 is said to be "seven times ...
 Star-Forming Region Around the Tarantula Nebula

A Superstar for Gravity is Normal for Plasma

Dec 05, 2011 A bright star without companions challenges popular theories. Electricity comes to the rescue. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released this image of a “superstar,” named VFTS682. It appears reddish, but the color is attributed to the absorption of higher wavelengths by surrounding dust. The spectrum indicates ...
Gamma-ray sources in the sky

Zero Mass Particles

Dec 02, 2011 Gamma-rays are said to be particles with no mass, yet possessed of extreme momentum. According to a recent press release, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected several unidentified sources of intense gamma-ray emissions that are not seen in any other frequencies. NASA launched the telescope (formerly ...
NGC 6744

A “Double” of the Milky Way

Dec 01, 2011 A nearby spiral galaxy in the southern sky looks like the Milky Way—except it is twice the size. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has put together an image of NGC 6744, a spiral galaxy that astronomers think looks a lot like our own Milky Way: “…striking spiral ...
"Glacial potholes" Niagara Escarpment, Canada

Glacial Potholes

Nov 30, 2011 Did pieces of stone really carve these holes? Rockwood Provincial Park lies alongside the Grand River in the Niagara Escarpment region of Canada. Numerous geological features are located in the park and all are attributed to glacial action as the sole creation mechanism. The two images above ...
The center of the Milky Way taken by Herschel SPIRE

Toroidal Tension

Nov 29, 2011 A ring of gas is said to be orbiting the center of our galaxy. In a previous Picture of the Day, a twisted ring of material within the nucleus of Centaurus A was discussed: active galaxies display characteristic axial jets and transverse, donut-shaped plasma discharges. According a ...
Nebula Henize 3-1475

A Spray of Plasma

Nov 28, 2011 Consensus opinions state that a star in the latter stages of its life will undergo violent upheavals as its supply of hydrogen fuel diminishes and the "ash" of heavier elements accumulates in its core. Before stars reach the final white dwarf stage in their evolution, it is ...
Artist's drawing of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft

Where Do Asteroids Come From?

Nov 24, 2011 Are carbonaceous asteroids the precursors of life or the wreckage of life? NASA plans to launch the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer mission, also known as OSIRIS-REx, in 2016. The spacecraft will orbit the Near Earth Object (NEO) 1999RQ36. After a year in close ...
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