Thunderbolts Forum v3.0

• Solar Wind Creates Water in Star Dust, Implications for Life
  News
  By Charles Q. Choi published January 27, 2014
  
  • Image
    This illustration shows water forming on interplanetary dust particles due to space-weathering from the solar wind. Hydrogen ions in the solar wind react with oxygen atoms in the dust to make the water inside tiny vesicles (blue). This type of water formation likely occurs in other planetary systems as well as our own. (Image credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
    Solar wind can form water on interplanetary dust, potentially adding to the primordial soup that gave rise to life on Earth, scientists say.
  "On Earth, there is life virtually everywhere water is found. Past research suggests much of this water may have come to Earth from comets raining down on the planet. But scientists have suggested another source of water in the airless void of space — the continuous flow of charged particles from the sun, a stream known as the solar wind.
  
  This wind consists primarily of protons, the positively charged nuclei of hydrogen atoms. When these particles slam against oxygen-laden rocks — for instance, minerals known as silicates — they could in principle form water molecules."

• “The flaw in the conventional approach is that only gas-phase chemical reactions and reactions induced by solar radiation (photolysis) are considered. The far more energetic molecular and atomic reactions due to plasma discharge sputtering of an electrically charged comet nucleus are not even contemplated…The hydroxyl radical, OH, is the most abundant cometary radical…It is chiefly the presence of this radical that leads to estimates of the amount of water ice sublimating from the comet nucleus. The electric field near the comet nucleus is expected if a comet is a highly negatively charged body, relative to the solar wind…”

Brigit wrote:The important point is that the OH does not need to come from water ice on, or in, the comet.

• The spectroscopic observations of the comet’s coma are then used to estimate what ices and minerals are coming from the comet nucleus. Whipple continues:
  
  • “From our vantage point on Earth, which is so distant from comets, we can observe only the end products of the chemical factory after they have escaped hundreds or thousands of kilometres into space, where the gas is so rare that collisions no longer count. Thus the complicated gas-phase chemistry disguises the composition of the original ices in a comet.”
  But if this concept is wrong then the data from Deep Impact is being misinterpreted and misrepresented to the public.
  
  There is another possibility that remains unexamined. It takes account of the obvious electrical nature of comets, which is the only model to successfully predict what would be found by the Deep Impact experiment.
  
  The flaw in the conventional approach is that only gas-phase chemical reactions and reactions induced by solar radiation (photolysis) are considered. The far more energetic molecular and atomic reactions due to plasma discharge sputtering of an electrically charged comet nucleus are not even contemplated [see below]. Yet this model solves many comet mysteries that are seldom mentioned.
  
  The hydroxyl radical, OH, is the most abundant cometary radical. It is detected in the coma at some distance from the comet nucleus, where it is assumed that water (H2O) is broken down by solar UV radiation to form OH, H and O. It is chiefly the presence of this radical that leads to estimates of the amount of water ice sublimating from the comet nucleus. The comas of O and OH are far less extensive than the H coma but have comparable density.
  
  The negatively charged oxygen atom, or negative oxygen ion, has been detected close to cometary nuclei. And the spectrum of neutral oxygen (O) shows a “forbidden line” indicative of the presence of an “intense” electric field. The discovery at comet Halley of negative ions puzzled investigators because they are easily destroyed by solar radiation. They wrote, “an efficient production mechanism, so far unidentified, is required to account for the observed densities.” And the intense electric field near the comet nucleus is inexplicable if it is merely an inert body ploughing through the solar wind.
  
  Let’s see how the electrical model of comets explains these mysteries. The electric field near the comet nucleus is expected if a comet is a highly negatively charged body, relative to the solar wind. Cathode sputtering of the comet nucleus will strip atoms and molecules directly from solid rock and charge them negatively. So the presence of negative oxygen and other ions close to the comet nucleus is to be expected. Negative oxygen ions will be accelerated away from the comet in the cathode jets and combine with protons from the solar wind to form the observed OH radical at some distance from the nucleus.
  
  The important point is that the OH does not need to come from water ice on, or in, the comet. Of course, some water is likely to be present on a comet or asteroid. It depends upon their parent body. And since there are many moons in the outer solar system and the rings of Saturn with copious water ice, we may expect some smaller bodies like comets and asteroids to have some too. But what is obvious from the closeup images of comet nuclei is that they look like dark, burnt rocks. They do not look icy. Their appearance fits the electrical model and not the poorly consolidated dirty ice model.

• • “Deep Space 1 plunged into the heart of Comet Borrelly and has lived to tell every detail of its spine-tingling adventure,” said project manager Dr Marc Rayman. “The images are even better than the impressive images of Comet Halley taken by Europe’s Giotto spacecraft in 1986.” “Up to Saturday night, we had only one example of a comet’s nucleus. Now, we have another one, and with it a much better understanding of comets,” said Dr Don Yeomans, of the American space agency’s (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, at a press conference to unveil the images. “It’s mind-boggling and stupendous,” said Dr Laurence Soderblom, the leader of DS1’s imaging team. “These pictures have told us that comet nuclei are far more complex than we ever imagined. They have rugged terrain, smooth rolling plains, deep fractures and very, very dark material.”
    
  A fourth core belief is that comets are merely inert, dirty snowballs evaporating in the heat of the Sun.
  
  • Image: Fred Whipple. Photo Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, courtesy Dr. Whipple
  The dirty snowball model of comets was proposed by Fred Whipple in 1950 and has since become dogma. His words are inscribed on a microchip riding on the Stardust spacecraft, on its way to a rendezvous with Comet Wild-2 in 2004: “Today we know that comets are black and cold, consisting of ices and dust that coalesced from an interstellar cloud as it collapsed to form the solar system.” Actually, as argued above, we know no such thing. The ices were required to explain why comets formed huge comas and tails as they neared the Sun. But it was obvious that something was wrong with such a simple heating model when in 1991 Comet Halley flared up between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus – fourteen times further from the Sun than the Earth. The images showed that the 15 kilometre nucleus had ejected a cloud of dust that stretched more than 300,000 kilometres. Cometary scientists were baffled by the outburst because the usual explanation of solar heating of ices cannot work at that distance. The comet is effectively in deep freeze. However, the electrical explanation fits the observation that the Sun was very active at the time. The negatively charged comet acts as a focus for the bursts of protons in the solar wind. The result is electrical erosion of its surface and the formation of a coma.
  
  Ices are not required to drive the comet jets. Ices cannot explain the narrow jets nor the corkscrew shape they sometimes take. Comet Hale-Bopp emitted more dust than could be explained by subliming ices. Further evidence that a comet is a cathode and emits electrons came from the puzzling discovery of negatively charged atoms in the inner coma of comet Halley. The problem for the inert comet model is that these ions are easily destroyed by solar radiation and therefore require an efficient production mechanism that is not available from solar heating. In the electrical model there is a high density of emitted electrons and neutral atoms available near the nucleus to form negative ions. Negative ions may form the sunward “spike” seen occasionally from comets.
  
  The low density calculated for some comets seems, at first glance, to support the dirty snowball model of comets. However, there is no difference between the appearance of a comet nucleus and an asteroid. One schizoid object, Chiron, has been called both an asteroid and a comet at different times. Yet asteroids are thought to be much more evolved bodies than comets. The ELECTRIC UNIVERSE® proposes that their origin is identical and that a cometary display is due entirely to highly eccentric motion of a charged body in the radial electric field of the Sun. And if gravity is a dipolar electrical effect in matter then G is not a constant and it is possible that the mass of a highly negatively charged body will measure less than that of the same body when uncharged. As a result the calculated density will be low and it will not reflect the true composition of the comet (or asteroid, moon, planet, etc).

• Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ose_up.jpg

• Giotto was a European robotic spacecraft mission from the European Space Agency. The spacecraft flew by and studied Halley's Comet and in doing so became the first spacecraft to make close up observations of a comet. On 13 March 1986, the spacecraft succeeded in approaching Halley's nucleus at a distance of 596 kilometers. It was named after the Early Italian Renaissance painter Giotto di Bondone. He had observed Halley's Comet in 1301 and was inspired to depict it as the star of Bethlehem in his painting Adoration of the Magi in the Scrovegni Chapel.
  
  Giotto trajectory
  
  There were plans to have observation equipment on board a Space Shuttle in low-Earth orbit around the time of Giotto's fly-by, but they in turn fell through with the Challenger disaster.
  
  [b]The plan then became a cooperative armada of five space probes including Giotto, two from the Soviet Union's Vega program and two from Japan: the Sakigake and Suisei probes. [/b]The idea was for Japanese probes and the pre-existing American probe International Cometary Explorer to make long distance measurements, followed by the Soviet Vegas which would locate the nucleus, and the resulting information sent back would allow Giotto to precisely target very close to the nucleus. Because Giotto would pass so very close to the nucleus ESA was mostly convinced it would not survive the encounter due to the spacecraft colliding at very high speed with the many dust particles from the comet. The coordinated group of probes became known as the Halley Armada.
  
  Science Instruments
  
  Giotto had 10 science instruments.[16][17]
  
  MAG: a magnetometer
  HMC (Halley Multicolour Camera): a 16-cm telescope and camera
  DID (Dust Impactor Detector System): measured the mass of dust particles that hit the instrument
  RPA (Rème Plasma Analyser): studied solar wind and charged particles
  JPA (Johnstone Plasma Analyser): also measured solar wind and charged particles
  PIA (Particulate Impact Analyser): studied the size and chemistry of particles
  OPE (Optical Probe Experiment): examined the emissivity of gas and dust behind the spacecraft
  EPA (Energetic Particle Analyser): analyzed alpha-particles, electrons, and neutrons
  NMS (Neutral Mass Spectrometer): measured the composition of the particles around the comet
  IMS (Ion Mass Spectrometer): measured the amount of ions from the sun and the comet
  GRE (Giotto Radio Experiment): used Giotto's radio signals to study Halley's comet
  
  Halley encounter
  
  The Soviet Vega 1 started returning images of Halley on 4 March 1986, and the first ever of its nucleus, and made its flyby on 6 March, followed by Vega 2 making its flyby on 9 March. Vega 1's closest approach to Halley was 8 889 km.
  
  Giotto passed Halley successfully on 14 March 1986 at 596 km distance, and surprisingly survived despite being hit by some small particles. One impact sent it spinning off its stabilized spin axis so that its antenna no longer always pointed at the Earth, and its dust shield no longer protected its instruments. After 32 minutes Giotto re-stabilized itself and continued gathering science data.
  
  Another impact destroyed the Halley Multicolor Camera, but not before it took photographs of the nucleus at closest approach.
  
  • First Earth flyby
    Giotto's trajectory was adjusted for an Earth flyby and its science instruments were turned off on 15 March 1986 at 02:00 UTC.
    
    Grigg–Skjellerup encounter
    Giotto was commanded to wake up on 2 July 1990 when it flew by Earth in order to sling shot to its next cometary encounter.
    
    The probe then flew by the Comet Grigg–Skjellerup on 10 July 1992 which it approached to a distance of about 200 km. Afterwards, Giotto was again switched off on 23 July 1992.
    
    The cost of this mission extension was $6.3 million.[18]
    
    Second Earth flyby
    In 1999 Giotto made another Earth flyby but was not reactivated.[19]
  Scientific results
  Images showed Halley's nucleus to be a dark peanut-shaped body, 15 km long, 7 km to 10 km wide. Only 10% of the surface was active, with at least three outgassing jets seen on the sunlit side. Analysis showed the comet formed 4.5 billion years ago from volatiles (mainly ice) that had condensed onto interstellar dust particles. It had remained practically unaltered since its formation.
  
  Measured volume of material ejected by Halley:
  
  80% water,
  10% carbon monoxide
  2.5% a mix of methane and ammonia.
  other hydrocarbons, iron, and sodium were detected in trace amounts.
  Giotto found Halley's nucleus was dark, which suggested a thick covering of dust.[20]
  
  The nucleus's surface was rough and of a porous quality, with the density of the whole nucleus as low as 0.3 g/cm3.[20] Sagdeev's team estimated a density of 0.6 g/cm3,[21] but S. J. Peale warned that all estimates had error bars too large to be informative.[22]
  
  The quantity of material ejected was found to be three tonnes per second[23] for seven jets, and these caused the comet to wobble over long time periods.[20]
  
  The dust ejected was mostly only the size of cigarette smoke particles, with masses ranging from 10 ag to 0.4 g. (See Orders of magnitude (mass).) The mass of the particle that impacted Giotto and sent it spinning was not measured, but from its effects—it also probably broke off a piece of Giotto[23]—the mass has been estimated to lie between 0.1 g and 1 g.[20]
  
  Spacecraft achievements
  Giotto made the closest approach to Halley's Comet and provided the best data for this comet.[24]
  Giotto was the first spacecraft:
  • to provide detailed pictures of a cometary nucleus.[25]
    to make a close flyby of two comets. Young and active comet Halley could be compared to old comet Grigg–Skjellerup.
    to return from interplanetary space and perform an Earth swing-by.
    to be re-activated from hibernation mode.
    to use Earth for a gravity assist.[1]