Welcome to Space News from the Electric Universe, brought to you by The Thunderbolts Project™ at Thunderbolts. info
Today, the chief principals of the Thunderbolts project, Wal Thornhill and
Dave Talbott, take a closer look at the latest information from the Rosetta
mission to comet 67P. As discussed in previous episodes, the comet nucleus
looks nothing like the smooth icy body expected by mainstream scientists.
67P’s double-lobed form may have its ideal analog in the structure achieved
by plasma scientists Dr. C. J. Ransom, blasting hematite with an electric arc.
and the mysteries do not end with the comet's appearance. The so-called “water
output” detected in the comet's coma has puzzled scientists on Earth. Months ago,
the detected signal of water was much too high to explain through sublimating
ices from solar heating. And on October 23rd,
scientists from the University of Bern announced that they are “detecting
many more molecules already at large distances from the Sun,” which comes as
quite a surprise. The surface of the comet does not reveal a single trace of
water ice. It is covered with abundant rocks and debris, including this 150-foot
boulder which Rosetta scientists have called Cheops. Many of the comet’s
features make it appear as if it were torn from a mountain.
We also see curious chains of pits, reminiscent of many planets and moons. At
the comet’s neck, we even see features resembling the
Martian sand dunes, which planetary scientists attribute to mechanical wind
on Mars. Wal Thornhill begins our discussion with a closer look at the
features on comet 67P, which testify to electrical discharge machining having
shaped the comet’s surface. One of the key arguments used to support the impact
origin of craters in the solar system, is that they seem similar to terrestrial
explosion craters. However, superficial appearances can be deceptive:
there are many unresolved problems with the impact cratering model. The more than
90% of circular craters on the moon require the supposed impact cause to hit
the surface vertically. So, it was proposed that hypervelocity impacts
would cause an explosion above the surface and generate circular craters.
However, comets are supposed to have been formed by accretion. Circular craters
should be rare, but Comet 67P shows many circular craters. In the image here, we
see two overlapping circular craters, with no evidence of damage to, or
in-filling of, the earlier crater. Professor Tommy Gould remarked upon this kind of
crater overlap and the fresh appearance of craters, when viewing images of the
moon's surface from the Lunar Orbiter. Planetary scientists have never solved
this puzzle. Neat, overlapping circular craters are characteristic of electric
discharge machining where an arc strikes the surface vertically, and moves from a
newly excised crater to the nearest high point, which is generally the wall of the
crater just formed. What's more telling is that the walls of the craters on
comet 67P are raised above the surface and
sharp-edged. An impact tends to flatten and scatter surface material. Once again,
an electric arc melts and sputters surface material cleanly off into space.
When the arc ceases or moves on, we see the process frozen, like a single frame
from a movie. The slightly irregular shape of the crater
walls on 67P, is reminiscent of Victoria crater on Mars, which has been
investigated both from above and on the ground by the Mars rover Opportunity. I
proposed an explanation for its irregular walls in 2006, based on the
unique behavior of an arc impinging briefly on an anode. This may seem like a
contradiction of the comet as a cathode in the Sun's discharge. But the
electrical birthing process from a planetary surface can have the comet
temporarily more positively charged than its surroundings. Victoria crater notably
has a pattern in its floor that is attributed to windblown sand dunes, but
may more easily be accounted for by the detailed behavior of an anode arc. So, it
is significant that the comet has a similar pattern in the neck region.
A good example of cathode edging is to be seen on this smooth area and is most
closely matched by that scene on Io, with the scalloped walls of its so-called
”calderas.” That is where the comet jets originate, just as we see on Io, along
the edge of the caldera. Prior to the Deep Impact mission of 2005, NASA
scientists had suggested that Tempel 1 lost about one third of a meter of depth
in each orbit. When the Stardust Next spacecraft reimaged the Tempel 1
comet's surface in 2010, it found that the wall of the most prominent mesa,
which was 15 meters high, had retreated an astonishing 50 meters. The excavation
of material was precisely focused at the location of the mysterious pixel
saturation, which according to proponents of the Electric Universe, was the focal
point of electrical arcs. The erosion along an escarpment is also one of the
features seen on comet Tempel 1. Interestingly, judging by the muted
feature to the right, some of the machined surface material is being
deposited electrostatically, mostly in the neck region of the comet. Presumably,
in a manner recently discussed by lunar scientists in reference to migrating
lunar dust. All of the visual evidence so far, discounts the dirty snowball story
of comets and supports the Electric Universe story
of recent planetary history, witnessed by our prehistoric ancestors, and involving
the Thunderbolts of the planetary gods. You know, week by week this comet is
challenging all of our popular ideas about comets, their origin and their
nature. Here, we see this amazing cold, black and scorched landscape. We can't
find a trace of water; we see a surface dominated by craters and sharply cut,
even mountainous peaks. And now we see the comet releasing gases that under
present theory, could not be released at such distances from the Sun. Not if
warming is the cause. Now, keep in mind that these observations are not
speculation. But how could our long-held comet theories withstand these latest
surprises. For decades, comet science rested on a dirty snowball model. The
claim has been that volatiles, most notably water and carbon dioxide ices,
sublimate as a comet moves closer to the Sun. Sublimation simply means volatiles
converted directly into gases, without passing through a liquid phase. Now, today
67P is almost 300 million miles from the Sun. That's more than three times the
distance from the Sun to the Earth. At that distance in the vacuum and the deep
freeze of interplanetary space, theorists cannot find a way for trivial warming to
account for the molecules now being actively removed from the surface and
injected into the 67P coma. This includes formaldehyde, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen
cyanide, sulfur dioxide and carbon disulfide. At the present distance, origin
by sublimation is just not even conceivable. Now, what do we do when a
theory runs into contradictory discoveries. Well, the first requirement
is to simply expand the field of view. Consider alternative theories,
alternative explanations. You know for many years
now, the leading theorists of the Electric Universe paradigm have claimed
that popular comet theory no longer works. They see the 67P discoveries not
as surprises, but as confirmation of explicit predictions that follow
inescapably from an electric comet model. When comets move through the electric
field of the Sun, they begin discharging electrically. That would logically begin
with sputtering of surface materials by the bombardment of protons in the solar
wind. But as electrical stresses grow, that
leads to excavation of material by electric arcs. Now that should show up, as the
Rosetta probe draws closer to the surface or the Philae Lander, actually
reaches the surface, and achieves the closest ever view of a cometary surface.
And as the comet itself moves toward perihelion this coming summer, what will
be the surprises in store for us at that time? For continuous updates on Space
News from the Electric Universe, stay tuned to Thunderbolts.info.