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In recent years, there have been unprecedented opportunities to learn
about the nature and origins of one of the most mysterious celestial objects: the comet.
For nearly three-quarters of a century, mainstream astronomy has held to the
theory that comets are dirty snowballs, that is loose aggregates of ice and dust,
that accreted billions of years ago in the solar system's infancy. It is
believed that comet activity, including the production of a comet's tail and
coma, is the result of sublimation of ices and outgassing as a comet moves
close to the Sun. Prior to the earliest space missions to comets, astronomers
expected the surface of a comet nucleus to be relatively smooth and covered with
abundant water ice, as illustrated in this artist's depiction prior to the
mission to comet Halley in 1986. However, for over 35 years, increasingly
fine close-up images of comet nuclei have revealed just the opposite: desiccated rocky surfaces with
shockingly complex features, including characteristics remarkably familiar to planetary geology.
Unbeknownst to most in the general public, as illustrated by the remarkable
research of author and historian Hannes Tager, various astronomers, physicists, and natural philosophers
began proposing electrical theories for comet activity as early as the 18th century.
In the early 20th century the Norwegian experimentalist Kristian Birkeland,
presented a theory of comets based on his experiments with gases in a discharge tube.
He proposed that comets interact with what he called ‘corpuscle rays’ from the
Sun, and the comets become negatively charged and produce explosive cathode
jets, causing them to erode. A photograph of these experiments can be seen on your screen.
in the later 20th century, the engineer Ralph Juergens proposed in the 1970s that
the Sun was the anode focus of a glow discharge. This simply requires the Sun to be a positively
charged body relative to its galactic environment. In this view, a comet moving toward the Sun
from the outer reaches of the solar system, develops a negative charge
relative to its environment. Physicist Wal Thornhill, the chief science advisor to the Thunderbolts
Project, later developed and modified Juergens model of the Sun and of comets.
An electric comet means that the assumption of charge neutrality for all
celestial objects, cannot be correct. An assumption that has guided the space sciences for over a century.
A new scientific investigation provides a remarkable predictive success for the electric comet theory.
A scientist from the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, named Sofia Bergman,
has recently published a doctoral thesis in which she outlines new methods for
observing low-energy ions around the Comet 67P. In the past, measuring and interpreting the
origins and behaviors of these ions, has proved extremely difficult. As the author explains,
”A spacecraft interacts with its environment, which leads to an accumulation of charge on the surface of
the spacecraft. This is problematic for the measurements of low-energy ions,
since the ions are affected by the spacecraft before they are detected,
changing both our energy and travel direction.” ”We want to know the original properties
of the ions before they were affected by the spacecraft, which is now possible
with the method that I have developed in my thesis. The Rosetta spacecraft was equipped with
an ion mass spectrometer and the data from the technology have been analyzed."
Sofia Bergman describes her findings, ”For the first time, we have now been able
to determine the flow directions of low- energy ions observed by ICA (the Ion
Composition Analyzer) at Comet 67P/ Churyumov- Gerasimenko. The results were surprising.
We see a large amount of ions flowing inward towards the comet nucleus, instead
of outward as we had expected.” As noted in the summary of the thesis,
”The Ion Composition Analyzer of the Rosetta Plasma Consortium measured
positive ions in the cometary environment with energies down to just a few electron volts.”
The flow of positive ions toward the comet nucleus is an emphatic
confirmation that the nucleus is negatively charged. This electrical relationship between a
comet and the solar environment is the predictive foundation of the Electric Comet model.
Of course, if a negatively charged body moves suddenly into a more positively
charged domain, it will discharge electrically. From the Electric Universe perspective,
this is the cause of most comet activity, including the explosive collimated jets
which have puzzled astronomers for decades, but which, as mentioned, were
replicated by Kristian Birkeland in the early 20th century. It also explains sudden cometary
outbursts, and even the explosion of comets, often at remarkably vast
distances from the Sun. In recent years, other scientific findings have also affirmed the
electrical activities of a negatively charged comet nucleus. Consider scientists’ baffling discovery
in 2007, that the comet McNaught was somehow able to modulate the solar wind.
Nasa's Ulysses spacecraft encountered the comet when it was passing close to the planet Mars.
Scientists detected that the comet's tail had slowed the solar wind to half its normal speed.
Space science professor Dr. Michael Combi said of the discovery, ”This was very surprising to me. Way past
the orbit of Mars, the solar wind felt the disturbance of this little comet.
It will be a serious challenge for us theoreticians and computer modelers to figure out the physics.”
Until recently, astronomers believed that the material in the comet's dust tail
would be too heavy for the solar wind to push around. However in 2019, scientists studying
images of comet McNaught found surprising effects on the quote ‘weird
striations’ in the comet's dust tail, as it crossed the heliospheric current sheet.
This electrical interaction was summarized by planetary scientist Geraint Jones who said, “For us,
this is strong evidence that the dust is electrically charged, and that the solar
wind is affecting the motion of the dust.” The model of a negatively-charged comet,
moving through regions of different electrical potential, can begin to
resolve numerous comet mysteries, including the production of comet X-rays,
the collimated jets of comets, and dramatic comet activity which does
not rely on the sublimation of abundant water ice which has never been observed on comet nuclei.
And the electrical activity we see on comets, mirrors in many ways the powerful
jets seen exploding hundreds of kilometers off the surfaces of planets and moons,
including the Saturnian moon Enceladus, Jupiter's moon Io, and even the surface of Mars.
The celestial bodies in our solar system can no longer be assumed to be
electrically neutral objects. An unavoidable realization in our Electric Universe.
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