Peru meteorite may rewrite rules - BBC

[Reality Check]

I can't say exactly, the interplanetary potential has never been measured directly. Hopefully soon technology will be good enough to measure what it is. But from what i have seen from many effects that could be caused by it, it seems to be a lot larger than conventional theories allow. Certainly more than 100 C.

Evidence for double injections in scatter-free solar impulsive electron events - Geophysical Research Letters (quote from page 10)

If it has not been measured then how do you know that is is not even smaller than 100 C?

 

[BenBurch]

Shouldn't someone here (mentioning no names) read up on the Stark Effect?

Great point.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Shouldn't someone here (mentioning no names) read up on the Stark Effect?

Great point.

The stark effect does not (to my knowlegde) discount the potential charge that planets and the sun could possess. It can be applied to particles, and point charges, but not really large bodies like planets or meteors.

I could be corrected on that, if you could show how it negates this idea then that would be a good addition for the discussion.

 

[BenBurch]

The stark effect does not (to my knowlegde) discount the potential charge that planets and the sun could possess. It can be applied to particles, and point charges, but not really large bodies like planets or meteors.

I could be corrected on that, if you could show how it negates this idea then that would be a good addition for the discussion.

Light being emitted by or reflected by planets ultimately is emitted or reflected from PARTICLES that make up those planets, and which would share the electrostatic charge of those planets, and hence the light so-emitted or reflected would be subject to the Stark Effect, and we don't see that.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Shouldn't someone here (mentioning no names) read up on the Stark Effect?

That would require learning some physics, as opposed to just making it all up as you go along

Sigh... I love the "ignore" feature

 

[MattusMaximus]

If it has not been measured then how do you know that is is not even smaller than 100 C?

That's easy... just wave your hands!

 

[MattusMaximus]

So stars "have a net charge and a resultnig E-field". Please present your calculation of the effect that a star with a net charge of 100C will have on an object. Take the subject of this tiopic as an example.

A similar set of nutty claims about an Electric Sun were made on another thread referencing the Pioneer Anomaly.

So, assume the woos are right when they claim the Sun has about 100C of charge, and also assume the Pioneer 11 probe has about 1C of net charge on it as well. How does this fit the data?

Horribly... because here's the calculation via Coulomb's Law:

F = kQq / r²
where k = 9x10⁹ Nm²/C², Q = 100 C, q = 1 C, and r = 1.05x10¹³ m (the distance to the last known contact, I think, with Pioneer 11 probe).

Result when you plug n' chug the numbers: F = 8.16x10^-15 N

Now when you take the mass of the Pioneer 11 probe into account, where m = 259 kg...

Theoretical acceleration: a = F/m = 3.15x10^-17 m/sec²
... which is about 7 orders of magnitude too low to account for the Pioneer Anomaly. So in order for these claims to have any validity at all, the net charge on the Sun and Pioneer probe together would have to be higher by a factor of 10,000,000.

Nutty, nutty, nutty...

 

[MRC_Hans]

The solar wind.

The fact that the solar wind can be considered a plasma shows that a vacuum is conductive, provided ions are injected into it. And this sorta shoots down the idea that strong differential charges exist in space.

really? I'm pretty sure differencial charging and other effects are well known.
Electrostatic charging phenomena of contaminated spacecraft thermal blankets - AIAA and ASME, Joint Thermophysics and Heat Transfer Conference, 5th, Seattle, WA, June

That paper is about deep-space probes. It has nothing to do with meteorites.

So as the comet is travelling through the E-field produced by the sun, it will reach a certain equilibrium where its charge in relation to the solar wind stay constant. This value will depend on the surface conductivity of the space craft, if it conducts electricity well then it will adjust very quickly to the voltage of the surrounding plasma, but if it has a low surface conductivity the charge will take longer to adjust, and so will build up to a higher amount.

No, it won't make a bit of difference. We are working with timescales of months. Even even planet-sized objects with very poor surface conductivity will have plenty of time to adjust.

That would be true if you are not using the idea of EU proponents that the sun retains a substancial net charge, in which case the voltage the comet travels across is much larger than conventionally thought.

No. Even if it retains a net charge of practically any value, the voltage differential over the orbit of a comet will be small. This is because a potential is only meaningful if you have a reference, and the nearest reference will be other stars, which are very far away.

Zodiacal lights are a direct consequence of electric currents incident on the poles of the Earth, i dont see what they have to do with EM effects and comets. ?

Because they are the result of interaction with the solar wind. If it could produce a coma around a comet, why doesn't it produce one around Earth?

The coma would be caused by the currents that are travelling between the comet and the suurounding space plasma which are equalizing the voltage between the two. This current changes the mode of operation of the plasma into a visible glow mode, similar to the corona of the sun, and the ion tails of comets.

Why do only comets have comas? Why not other objects, like asteorids, planets, moons, sattelites, space probes? Why does the coma (and tail) increase in size and the comet gets nearer to the sun?

Does in not bother you the slightest that we do in fact know what makes the coma of a comet, the tail of a comet (and the corona of the sun, for that matter)?

Hans

 

[Ziggurat]

You can not prove anything in science, but various observations indicate that this is true.

That what is true? That the sun has a much larger charge than 77 Coulombs? I don't think so.

Such as the very model we are talking about now,

There's quite a bit of disagreement about that. And your model has no serious calculations to back up its claims. Isn't it curious that, despite a large charge on the sun being a central feature, the actual charge in question is never calculated? Doesn't that give you any pause to think that maybe, just maybe, it's completely junk?

And incase you didn't see my post, where I outline why that paper is not very accurate

What kind of accuracy is needed? 10% I can believe it's off by that much. That would make it not accurate. But a 10% error isn't enough to make your ideas work. Not even close. And a factor of 10 or more difference between the calculated and actual charge? That would not just be inaccurate, that would make it wrong. And you've never indicated why the paper should be considered or even suspected of being wrong.

and very theoretical,

That's a meaningless criticism in context. The theory involved is very well established and well tested. I asked you before about what errors you thought the paper made. Can't remember which thread it was. You finally responded, but none of your criticisms (such as the rotation rate of the sun, which we can discount as significant rather immediately because it's not enough to distort the shape of the sun significantly from a sphere, or the assumption of uniform charge distribution, which to first order will make no difference at all and which cannot be very large because of the conductivity of plasma) could account for anything but minor corrections. So you've never presented any reason to think that there's even a single order of magnitude error in their calculated charge, let alone the many orders of magnitude required to close the gap between what a 77 Coulomb charge can do and what you want your model to do.

 

[BenBurch]

I think we can calk this whole idea up to un-informed woo.

 

[The Man]

I think we can calk this whole idea up to un-informed woo.

It is even worse then that, as exemplified by this following quote.

The build-up of static charge on spacecraft will occur naturally in order to minimize the potential difference between the spacecraft surfaces and the ambient plasma environment.

So as the comet is travelling through the E-field produced by the sun, it will reach a certain equilibrium where its charge in relation to the solar wind stay constant. This value will depend on the surface conductivity of the space craft, if it conducts electricity well then it will adjust very quickly to the voltage of the surrounding plasma, but if it has a low surface conductivity the charge will take longer to adjust, and so will build up to a higher amount.

So after quoting a document that clearly indicates the charges of the spacecraft and the ambient plasma will tend to equalize, minimizing their potential difference (or voltage). Zeuzzz makes a completely different and opposing assertion, claiming that spacecraft would maintain some constant charge difference (or voltage) with the solar wind. Zeuzzz then asserts some form of misguided voltage equilibrium with the surrounding plasma for a conductive surface, while the less conductive surface taking a longer time to adjust (or equalize) will somehow “build up to a higher amount”. So, the application is not only inconsistent with the reference quoted but it’s not even self consistent with its own misapplication.

 

[MattusMaximus]

What kind of accuracy is needed? 10% I can believe it's off by that much. That would make it not accurate. But a 10% error isn't enough to make your ideas work. Not even close. And a factor of 10 or more difference between the calculated and actual charge? That would not just be inaccurate, that would make it wrong. And you've never indicated why the paper should be considered or even suspected of being wrong.

Factor of 10? Try a factor of 10,000,000! Like I showed in the calculations above. Of course, that was in reference to the Pioneer Anomaly, but these EU-woos have been using that as "proof" of their claims as well.

Woo... woo... woo...