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Today, we begin a series of reports that will discuss the latest scientific papers on the
European Space Agency's Rosetta mission to Comet 67P. In addition to countless unresolved puzzles
facing comet scientists, we have discussed in previous episodes the
problem of the comet's double-lobed shape, however that particular form of a
comet nucleus is apparently not unique. Several other of the comets imaged to
date have displayed similar forms. Multiple asteroids, including this one
imaged on July 25th of this year, have displayed distinct peanut-like shapes
with a marked narrowing at the body's neck. And recently, NASA's New Horizons
mission has revealed that the Plutonian moon Hydra also has a double-lobed form.
Why do so many of these different types of bodies in the solar system display this particular shape?
The Electric Universe theory states that comets and asteroids were electrically
excavated from planets and moons in a relatively recent epoch of planetary
instability, as discussed in previous episodes. Plasma scientist
Dr. C.J. Ransom produced these familiar double-lobed forms in experiments with
electrical discharges to samples of Heamatite. In fact, Comet 67P has revealed countless
distinctly planetary features, including wind- streaked rocks, fields of boulders and rubble,
mountainous terrain that appears to have been uplifted from a planetary body and
even sand dunes. However, as Wal Thornhill explains, the only explanation that Rosetta
scientists can offer for the comet's shape is a remarkably improbable
low-velocity collision between two comets.
A report by the European Space Agency published on 28 September titled,
"How Rosetta's comet got it's shape", concluded from some important research published
in the journal Nature (the same day) that, "Two comets collided at low speed in the
early solar system to give rise to the distinctive rubber duck shape of
Comet 67P Churyumov–Gerasimenko". Earlier, there were two competing ideas: Did two comets merge or
did localized erosion of a single object form the neck? Now, scientists have an unambiguous
answer to the conundrum. They have shown that the shape arose from a low speed
collision between two fully fledged, separately formed comets.
Matteo Massironi - lead author from the University of Padova, Italy, and an
associate scientist of the OSIRIS team said, "It is clear from the images
that both lobes have an outer envelope of material organized in distinct layers,
and we think these extend for several hundred meters below the surface ... This
points to the layered envelopes in the comet's head and body forming
independently before the two objects merged later", concludes Matteo.
"It must have been a low-speed collision in order to preserve such ordered strata to the
depths our data imply". Co-author Bjorn Davidsson added, "In addition, the striking
structural similarities between the two lobes imply that despite their initially
independent origins, they must have formed through a similar accretion process.
Layering has also been observed on the surface of other comets during
previous flyby missions, suggesting that they also underwent a similar formation
history". Holger Sierks, OSIRIS principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute
for Solar System Research in Göttingen said, "How the comet got its curious
shape has been a major question since we first saw it. Now, thanks to this detailed
study, we can say with certainty that it is a 'contact binary'."
So much for the reports, but how exactly do you get two widely separated bodies
experiencing similar primordial stratified accretion? And why primordial?
That's simply an assumption, and the mechanism of gravitational accretion has
never been shown to work!
Notice also the emphasis on gentle and low-speed collisions. Just how slow does
it have to be, so the result is not mutual fragmentation and dispersal?
And how does a collision form a neck between these two lobes?! On top of that, what are
the chances of collision of two tiny bodies of a few kilometres cross-section
in a volume of space in the outer solar system that is unimaginably huge! The
explanation requires so many post-hoc and unlikely conditions that it is
unbelievable. It only passes the critical faculties because it's a story that is
being repeated and repeated until we no longer think about it. The Nature paper
refers to the stratified rocky-like material, seen on the comet's surface
it shows how experts can become blind to what the untrained eye can plainly see -
that Comet 67P is rocky. The selective blindness occurs because it destroys a
cherished belief in the centuries old story of the primordial solar system, but
that story has failed repeatedly. It is not predictive. Each new discovery is a
surprise - the most recent being Pluto and it's moon. And now that we have
information from more than 2,000 XO planetary systems, our solar system seems
like the odd one out. But modern specialization and fragmentation of
science allows such disconnects to exist, and spread, which must lead to an
inevitable crisis. The history of science shows this to be the case with centuries
of stagnation followed by sudden breakthroughs and often the
breakthroughs have come from outsiders who look at problems with a beginner's
mind. Old beliefs die hard. The astronomer, the late Tom Van Flandern, in his 1993 book
"Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets" made the comparison between
comets, minor planets and asteroids and suggested they are the same basic types
of rocky bodies. Comets are dark, reflecting a few percent of sunlight
which is not expected for icy bodies. And radar echoes from Comet Encke implied a
non-porous, probably rock surface material. An expert in celestial
mechanics, Van Flandern is perhaps best known for his exploding planet
hypothesis which he proposed as the origin of asteroids and comets and which
is supported by showing that the orbits of comets and asteroids could be
understood in terms of an origin in a late explosive event in the asteroid
belt. His exploding planet hypothesis is discounted, of course, by the lack of a
plausible mechanism to cause a planet to explode. And now, by the onion-skin
layering in the two lobes of Comet 67P, which implies formation by accretion
rather than fragmentation in an explosion. But his arguments are
compelling for a cataclysmic event in the asteroid belt to produce tens of
thousands of asteroids and comets. What's most persuasive is, that he's unusual
hypothesis predicted stable asteroid satellites, which was surprisingly
confirmed. So, what was the explosive event and how did it form peanut-shaped
comets and asteroids? The chances of direct collisions of tiny rocks in the
vastness of interplanetary space to produce the peanut-shapes are negligible.
Multiply that by the odds of the colliding rock sticking together and
forming a neck and the chances are about zero. Gravitational capture and tidal
forces do not enhance the odds significantly. The serious nature of this
problem was highlighted in July this year when Lance Benner, who leads NASA's
Asteroid Radar Research program said that, "Radar imaging has shown that about
15 percent of near-Earth asteroids larger than 600 feet (or 180 metres) ... have this sort of
lobed, peanut shape. There must be a process that forms the double-lobe shape naturally."
A clue comes from experiments done by C.J. Ransom using an electric
discharge striking Haematite powder to simulate the red Martian surface. The
Martian "blueberries" were replicated in color and shape by the laboratory
discharges. It was also found that interlocking blueberries are a property of
spherules formed during an electric discharge. It may also be significant
considering the apparent low density of Comet 67P, that the Haematite
spherules were hollow with thick walls. It seems that the catastrophic event
required by Van Flandern's research was of an electrical nature. There is a
cosmic electric discharge - an interplanetary thunderbolt - which has
been graphically depicted many times in our Space News. Van Flandern, an expert
in orbital dynamics, traced his exploding planet event to the asteroid belt beyond
Mars. So, it is highly significant that Mars was identified with the cosmic thunderbolt
and was reported to have received a scar, visible at the time
from Earth, following a battle using this favored weapon of the planetary gods.
The great canyon system of Valles Marineris, which stretches a third
of the way around Mars, is that scar. Almost four billion cubic kilometres of
rock and dust was excavated from Mars within the memory of mankind - a great deal of it
accelerated into space by gigantic plasma arc. Meteorites from Mars are still arriving
on Earth today, and in 1988, I published a paper arguing that of 17 mysteries
associated with common meteorites a plasma arc process could explain all of
them. The discharge attracts and heats matter along the discharge axis. Repeated
lightning strokes along the same path will produce layering of matter
accreted along that discharge axis. The appearance of that discharge could be
likened to bead lightning - a string of glowing rocky beads. Matter is also
accelerated along the axis giving a high probability of forming lobed asteroid
and comet precursers. The spatially and temporally confined nature of this process
is also ideal for forming stable asteroid and comet satellites. So, when
Rosetta project scientist Matt Taylor says of Comet 67P, "This result adds to our
growing knowledge of the comet - how it formed and it's evolution", he is dead wrong.
The accepted story of the slow formation and evolution of the solar system over
billions of years is fictional. The story I have told here is one of chaos and
violence in the solar system within the last ten thousand years or so. As one
philosopher has written, Newton on consciously religious, rather than
scientific grounds, gave currency to a new form of the old belief that the
celestial order is altogether superior to the terrestrial and cannot, in
particular, be the scene of any catastrophic change. That belief has not changed much
in 350 years. When researchers are met with endless surprises in space exploration,
they must be open to re-examining old beliefs and assumptions -
only then will mankind benefit fully from their remarkable
space engineering and exploration feats.
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