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New observations are again challenging astronomers' ideas
about the so-called volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io.
For nearly 40 years astronomers have told us
that Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system.
In 1979 NASA's Voyager spacecraft offered scientists on Earth their first glimpse
of mysterious structures jetting hundreds of kilometers above the moon's surface.
A phenomenon astronomers interpreted as volcanic plumes.
But that same year the world-renowned astrophysicist Thomas Gold
proposed that the locations of the so-called volcanoes
were instead the sites of powerful electrical discharges.
Eight years later in 1987, plasma scientist Anthony Peratt
and co-author Alex Dessler published the paper,
"Filamentation of Volcanic Plumes on the Jovian Satellite Io".
Peratt and Dessler argue that the filamentation and cross-sectional shape of the plumes
are "consistent with theories developed from laboratory observation".
Nevertheless, despite the contributions of Gold, Peratt and Dessler,
planetary scientists have held to the theory that Io's mysterious plumes
are the product of volcanism
which is caused by Jupiter gravitationally squeezing the moon.
But the problems with this theory have only continue to grow
with better images and data from the Jovian system.
NASA scientists have acknowledged their struggle
to explain the plume structure as volcanic in nature.
Concerning the so-called volcano Tvashtar, they state that
"the knots and filaments that allow us to track the plume's motions are still mysterious."
In recent years, the tidal heating model applied to Io's "volcanoes"
has been directly falsified by additional discoveries.
In 2013, a geologic survey found that the locations of the plumes
were incompatible with the predictions of the tidal heating model.
And now, scientists observing the so-called plume
of the volcano Loki have encountered a new mystery.
A New Scientist's report on the observation states,
"over decades of study, observers have noticed a pattern.
About every 540 days, a wave of brightness starts at one end of the lake of lava
and pivots anti-clockwise like a windshield wiper.
That front of warmer lava moves about one kilometer per day
until the whole lake glows hot.
Then the surface of Loki cools until the process starts again.
But in 2002, right when we thought we had Loki pegged, those phases stopped.
Then in 2009, according to recent work by Katherine de Kleer
at the University of California Berkeley,
they started again but are now moving clockwise.
Appropriate behavior for a feature named after the Norse trickster god.
However, anomalous movements of Io's so-called volcanic plumes
is not a new problem for astronomers.
When the Galileo probe arrived in the Jovian system in 1996,
it revealed that the plume of the so-called volcano Prometheus
had moved more than 80 kilometers since it was first imaged by the Voyager probe.
This fulfilled one of several predictions that physicist and Electric Universe
proponent Wal Thornhill had made prior to the Galileo mission.
Thornhill also predicted that the so-called vents of the volcanic plumes
would be much hotter than lava and that the plumes are in fact
the jets of moving cathode arcs eroding the periphery of the dark areas
that planetary geologists have been calling lava lakes.
According to Thornhill, these so-called lava lakes
are the solid dark surface of Io beneath the
"snow that has been deposited by continuous discharge activity".
Therefore the "lava lakes" would not reveal the expected heat of a recent lava flow. "snow that has been deposited by continuous discharge activity".
Therefore the "lava lakes" would not reveal the expected heat of a recent lava flow.
Each of these predictions received stunning confirmation.
Io's volcanic hot spots were not only hotter than any lava on earth.
They were too hot to be measured by Galileo's instruments.
Also as predicted by Thornhill, the discharging is found to be focused
on the edges of the so-called lava lakes
though the rest of these dark fields are comparatively cool.
In fact, the expected volcanic vents could not be found.
Inspiring further astonishment among mission scientists,
the "volcanic plumes" emit ultraviolet light.
Something inconceivable under normal conditions of volcanic venting.
But ultraviolet light is of course characteristic of an electric arc.
Space scientists have come to depend on Io's volcanoes
to account for the extraordinary electrical activity witnessed in Jupiter's atmosphere.
Many claim that charged particles from Io's volcanoes are responsible for the Jovian Aurorans
which are 1,000 times more intense than anything seen on Earth.
In this scenario, the profuse electrical activity at Jupiter's poles,
approximately 10 million Volts, is generated mechanically by the planet's spin.
Ions from the "volcanoes" on Io are thought to travel to the planet's poles,
then interact with the magnetic spin generated electricity,
creating an extraordinary charge exchange, producing the auroras.
The following NASA statement which quotes investigator Randy Gladstone reads,
"the polar electric fields grab any charged particles they can find
and slam them into the atmosphere.
Particles for slamming can come from the sun
but Jupiter has another more abundant source nearby: the volcanic moon Io
which spews oxygen and sulfur ions into Jupiter's spinning magnetic field.
Somehow these ions make their way to Jupiter's poles
where electric fields send them hurtling toward the planet below.
Upon entering the atmosphere, their electrons are first stripped away by molecules they run into
but as they slow down they start grabbing electrons back.
The charge exchange reaction produces intense X-ray auroras."
This rationale arises from the assumption that Jupiter itself has no net charge.
But since it is behaving like a charged body
the scientists looked to localized mechanically induced charge separation
as if an island in space, for some internal process,
can acquire and dissipate electric charge.
From the Electric Universe perspective, what is actually occurring
is an electrical connection between the Sun, Jupiter and its moons.
In recent years, discoveries have only supported this view.
When scientists discovered the most prominent auroral trail
or footprint of Io in the Jovian atmosphere,
they assumed it must be an effect of charge separation generated by Io's volcanoes.
However, this theory was undermined in 2005
when Hubble images of the Jovian aurora revealed a similar electrical footprint
imprinted by the moon Europa with its own swirling plasma tail.
A research team wrote of this discovery,
"Europa is not thought to be volcanic, so what could produce the electrical current
that zips along and eventually gives rise to Europa's auroral footprint?
NASA investigators also found that the electrical exchange
does not stop with Europa and also includes the moon Ganymede.
As reported on this series, in recent years space scientists have slowly edged closer
to recognizing significant electrical discharge activity on planets and moons.
It's now known that once a month when the Earth's magnetotail passes over the Moon,
the result is electrostatic dust storms and electrical discharges.
And in the past year, scientists reported that a coronal mass ejection
struck the planet Mars immediately before mysterious plumes
were seen jetting hundreds of kilometers into the planet's upper atmosphere.
A complete surprise to planetary scientists.
The purely gravitational processes that astronomers still prefer
have failed to explain Io's so called volcanoes.
But today, the basis is clear for scientists to consider an alternative explanation
in our electric universe.
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