Welcome to Space News from the Electric Universe,
brought to you by The Thunderbolts Project™
at Thunderbolts.info
A new picture of the cosmos is emerging.
A vastly different picture than the one astronomers have been painting for over a century.
But a picture that was drawn many decades ago
by specialists in plasma and the electrical sciences.
In this picture, antiquated notions of charge neutrality in space have been erased,
replaced with theoretical models which recognized the pervasive conductive medium
or fifth state of matter called plasma
through which electric currents flow throughout the cosmos.
For many decades, electric currents were,
and in some instances remain, verboten in the space sciences.
But with improved instrumentation and ever finer data,
cosmic electric currents at all scales are now undeniable.
Nevertheless, a strange dilemma is unfolding in astronomy and astrophysics.
Scientists attempt to explain electric currents in space
through theoretical models in which electricity does not cause anything.
But as we will see, electric currents in space
are not just a curious byproduct of gravitational and magnetic phenomena.
From the Electric Universe perspective, the measurement of electric currents in space
is in the inevitable recognition of the electrical circuitry that connects celestial bodies
across interplanetary, interstellar and intergalactic space.
It's essential to remember that electric currents are only visible
when they meet regions of dust and gas
where one sees the unmistakable filamentary structure of electrified plasma.
As in the vast star-forming networks in our own Milky Way.
Measuring the strength of cosmic electric currents
is of course no easy matter for scientists on earth
and is even vastly more challenging
than estimating the strength of cosmic magnetic fields.
A good recent example can be found in our own solar system
and scientists' investigation of the Saturnian moon Enceladus.
As we outlined in a recent Space News,
prior to the arrival of the Cassini spacecraft at Saturn over a decade ago,
planetary scientists had expected Enceladus to be "geologically dead".
Instead, they found explosive filamentary jets shooting material
at tremendous velocities up to hundreds of kilometers from the moon's surface.
Adding to the surprise, the jets were seen at the moon's South Pole,
the last place they expected such activity.
As reported by space.com in 2005,
"The finding flipped everything scientists knew about Enceladus on its head,
because what should have been a dead moon appeared to be geologically active
and what was supposed to be the moon's coldest region turned out to be its warmest."
Since their discovery, scientists have interpreted the features as so-called "ice geysers"
which they view as a form of cryovolcanism probably resulting
from Saturn's gravitational forces producing tidal heating within the moon.
In 2008, Cassini's plasma spectrometer discovered evidence
for electrical currents in the plumes of water and dust.
In recent years, a number of papers have been written
on the presence of negatively charged dust grains in the so-called plumes.
And now, based on data from the Cassini Langmuir probe,
a new scientific paper is providing evidence that these dust grains have actually
"blocked the signal" of the powerful electrical currents in the Enceladus' jets.
For a number of years, Standard Theory has proposed
that electrically neutral water molecules are ejected from the moon's surface
where UV rays from the Sun and interactions with plasma in Saturn's magnetosphere
strips electrons from water molecules forming positively charged water ions.
In theory, these ions are then free to be "picked up" and merged
with co-rotating plasma supposedly generating an electric current.
Cassini scientists had estimated the strength of the jets' electric currents
based on disturbances to Cassini's magnetometer instrument.
But as noted in a summary of the new scientific paper
in the Journal of Geophysical Research,
"...when Cassini flew through the icy plume,
its instruments sent back vastly different readings.
According to the craft's Langmuir probe, which measures particle density,
there were enough ions present to generate a current of 10 million amps.
The magnetometer indicated a current more than 20 times weaker."
The authors provide experimental evidence
that ions like those in the Enceladus plume are,
"...attracted and trapped within the sheaths of negatively charged dust grains."
They conclude that,
"Cassini's Langmuir probe is measuring the entire ion population
(both free and trapped ions),
while the Cassini magnetometer detects the magnetic perturbations associated
with pick up currents from the smaller population of free ions,
with this distinction possibly reconciling the ongoing debate
in the literature on the ion density in the plume."
Simply put, the results are anomalous for the standard "pick up ions model"
but they are expected if the surface of Enceladus
is being etched by electrical discharge machining.
As our chief science adviser Wal Thornhill has always proposed,
electrical discharge machining works by stripping electrons from high points on a surface.
In this process on Enceladus,
positive ions generated on the surface are heated by electric discharge
and electrostatically attracted to follow the electrons into space.
This would in fact explain the high loading of positive ions
that the Langmuir probe measured.
And as we reported in great detail in a recent Space News,
the notion that the gravitational influences of the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn
produces tidal heating at their respective moons, resulting in cryovolcanism,
has never been more questionable in light of new discoveries.
As we noted, in 2013,
scientists reported that the locations of the so-called volcanic plumes on Io
are completely incompatible with the moon's internal heat signatures.
A finding which, according to lead author Christopher Hamilton,
"...can't be reconciled with any existing solid body tidal heating models."
Likewise, on Enceladus in 2016, scientists were amazed to discover
that when the so-called geysers on the moon are producing the most water and dust,
the accompanying gas output was anomalously low.
As reported by space.com,
"The researchers expected quite a lot more gas
expelled at the far part of Enceladus's orbit,
to help explain the outpouring of dust,
but they found the gas output had bumped up by just 20%, far less than expected."
The leader of the study said of the findings,
"We had thought the amount of water vapor in the overall plume,
across the whole south polar area,
was being strongly affected by tidal forces from Saturn.
Instead, we find that the small-scaled jets are what's changing."
Both scientists' new insights into the strength
of the electric currents in the Enceladus plumes
and the failure of the tidal heating models to explain discovery,
are stunning victories for the electrical interpretation of the phenomenon.
Of course, given scientists' difficulties in accurately measuring
the electric currents at Enceladus,
this naturally emphasizes the present technical and observational constraints
on quantifying the electromagnetic energies at the vastest cosmic scales.
However, as we've reported in many recent episodes,
the evidence for cosmic scale electric currents
is being more and more routinely presented in mainstream scientific literature.
One of the most spectacular electromagnetic phenomena in space
is the many light-years long collimated jets produced at active galactic nuclei.
Today, standard astrophysics offers no explanation for the phenomena
that does not involve a hypothetical black hole producing tremendous magnetism.
However, with increasing regularity, mainstream scientific literature
has proposed that the jets are composed of powerful electric currents.
From radio astronomers estimating the current in an extra galactic jet,
supposedly the equivalent of a trillion bolts of lightning,
to more recent scientific papers which describe a "battery mechanism"
close to the hypothetical black hole producing electric currents.
As a recent paper by Gabuzda et all states,
"...astrophysical jets are fundamentally electromagnetic structures."
Nevertheless, in every case
astrophysicists can only envision colossal gravity producing magnetic fields
which are somehow primary in the creation of the spectacular "cosmic lightning".
A recent Phys.org report describes new findings
that can only confound the standard interpretation of so-called black hole jets,
"As matter is broken down around a black hole,
jets of electrons are launched by the magnetic field
from either pole of the black hole at almost the speed of light.
Astronomers have long been flummoxed by these jets."
But this view is not supported by new research into the magnetic fields
surrounding a "black hole" that is believed to be in our own Milky Way,
within a micro quasar in the constellation Cygnus.
The phys.org report summarizes the findings,
"The team observed the magnetic field of a black hole within our own galaxy
from multiple wavelengths for the first time...
They discovered that magnetic fields are much weaker than previously understood,
a puzzling finding that calls into question previous models of black hole components.
The research shows a deep need for continued studies
on some of the most mysterious entities in space."
However, the real deep need may be for astrophysicists to finally consider
actual theoretical alternatives to the black hole's existence.
As stated many times by physicist Wal Thornhill,
what these increasingly problematic discoveries highlight,
is the problem of over specialization in the sciences.
Far removed from the spotlight of popular science,
for decades, plasma cosmologists have presented experimental
evidence that the spectacular electromagnetic phenomena
that space scientists attribute to black holes,
is in fact a high-density energy storage phenomenon demonstrated in laboratories,
called a plasmoid.
In several episodes, we have briefly described how a plasmoid
is a kind of load in a galactic electrical circuit
concentrating and storing energy.
When a plasmoid reaches a threshold density, it will discharge,
usually along a galaxy spin axis,
producing the stupendous galactic jets whose electric currents
are now increasingly recognized in mainstream scientific literature.
All astrophysicists who seek an answer to the mystery of cosmic jets,
should be acquainted with the experimental research
into the plasmoid's applicability to cosmic phenomena.
We encourage viewers to consider the landmark research of the scientific pioneer,
the late physicist and MIT scientist Winston H. Bostick,
whose experimental research on the plasmoid
led to the development of the dense plasma focus device.
Bostick simulated many astrophysical phenomena through plasma physics experiments
including galaxy formation and spectacular cosmic jets.
The jets' collimation over tremendous cosmic distances,
the knotted structure seen in many jets,
their nearly light speed velocity,
their emissions of synchrotron radiation
and now the inferred measurements of electric currents in the jets,
are all the predictable features of a discharging galactic plasmoid.
Since the plasmoid's jets are part of a vastly larger electrical circuit,
this can also resolve an enduring intractable problem for astrophysicists
which is the mysterious source of the energy to the most distant parts of the cosmic jets,
sometimes over many hundreds of thousands of light years.
Occam's razor states, the simplest explanation is the most likely.
Standard astrophysics tells us that electric currents in space are the product
of extremely complex and strange gravitational and magnetic processes.
The Electric Universe states that electric currents
flow through the conductive medium of plasma
which composes more than 99% of the visible universe.
Celestial bodies moving in electrified environments, are electromagnetically connected
and will discharge electrically when experiencing dramatic voltage spikes.
As we see on our own planet in the form of spectacular blue jets,
elves and red sprites above the clouds reaching toward space.
Electric currents in space mean only one thing,
we live in an Electric Universe.