SYMBOLS OF AN ALIEN SKY
Episode 4 THE ELECTRIC COMET - Best Evidence
Presented by THE THUNDERBOLTS PROJECT™
What is a comet?
To answer that question we've contrasted the common scientific view
with new evidence that challenges that view.
The new evidence directs our attention to the
Electrical behavior of comets,
almost entirely ignored through the course of the space age.
Of course, theoretical issues will always arise
when facts and interpretations are intermingled.
But, when a theoretical interpretation masquerades as fact,
that is a violation of the first principle of scientific investigation.
For many decades, it's been held that a comet is a leftover
from the primordial formative phase of the solar system.
That phase is typically counted in billions of years,
and more often than not, the comet theory will be stated as fact
simply because the idea is popular in the scientific media.
And so we read that... "Comets are often referred to as 'dirty snowballs'.
They are left over from the formation of stars and planets billions of years ago".
This popular message blurred a crucial distinction between what is known
- the undisputed facts - and a theoretical supposition.
So, we're told a story ...
"Comets are basically dusty snowballs which orbit the Sun. They are made of ices,
such as water, carbon dioxide, ammonia and methane, mixed with dust.
These materials came from the time when the solar system was formed".
In this case, the faith in a theory is ironic, since no fact about comets
has even remotely substantiated a comet's origins billions of years ago.
And, there are dozens of reasons not to believe that idea.
So, it's encouraging to see a sliver of doubt now creeping into official comet science.
We see it, for example, in the science magazine Sky and Telescope:
formation in the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago".
'Suspected'.
That's a refreshing use of language actually describing the present situation.
Always remember that today's textbook theory of comets arose prior to the space age.
And where interpretations differ, the first reference should be
the factual bedrock of comet science, not theoretical suppositions.
With this in mind, we offer here a comparative analysis of two models:
1) the standard model; and 2) the electrical model.
Both models are sufficiently explicit to invite a wide range of scientific tests
where the inherent predictions of the two models
can be readily compared to objective findings.
Standard Model of Comets
The standard model, largely unchanged since the 1950's,
sees comets as a window to the formation of the solar system.
Here these bodies are composed of the primeval matter
from which the Sun and the planets formed,
perhaps holding keys to the origins of life.
A comet is a dirty chunk of ice,
and it's visible displays are due to warming by the Sun,
such that vaporized water ice and other volatiles erupt as jets from the surface.
As we found in our first electric comet documentary,
the standard model did not fare well in the course of the space age.
Taken as a whole, the failure is confirmed by the direct testimony of leading
comet investigators as they confronted a continuing stream of surprises.
Together, these surprises add dramatic support for
an alternative perspective - an electric model.
Electric Model of Comets
The electric model starts with the evident electric field of the Sun,
a massive electric potential across the volume of the heliosphere.
In this view, comets possess accumulated charge.
And they move on distinctly elliptical orbits -
that means, they periodically plunge through the Sun's electric field,
and as they enter regions of different charge these bodies discharge electrically.
To place this summary in it's historical context, the door must stay open to a new
(and perhaps unsettling) truth about planetary history.
When we observe planetary motions today,
we see highly stable and predictable orbits,
as if the planets had moved this way for a billion years.
But, it has not always been so.
Our confidence on this point comes from the consistency of global testimony.
It seems that every culture on Earth
preserved vivid memories of world altering catastrophe.
And the agent most commonly cited is a comet.
Irrespective of differences in language,
the cultures describe a monstrous form attacking the world.
And these descriptions consistently use the local words and symbols for a comet.
Well, this is ground we've already covered,
but we cannot afford to ignore a consistent and global human pattern,
no matter how challenging to conventional opinion today.
Converging human testimony from around the world assures us that Solar System's
history was punctuated by episodes of instability and interplanetary violence.
Comets, asteroids and meteors originated in
the electrical excavation of surface material from planets and moons.
As we've documented in earlier episodes of this series, the most notable
players in these events were our two closest planetary neighbors today:
the planet Venus
and the planet Mars.
For this reason, our reconsideration of comet theory requires
that we address the worldwide memories of planetary upheaval.
Comets are not what we've been taught.
Yet, recent investigations of comets can take us directly
to this extraordinary conclusion.
Standard Model of Comets
One of the most telling milestones in the history of comet science
was the Deep Impact Mission to Comet Tempel 1.
But, here is a remarkable dilemma.
As occurred in all prior visits to comets,
no appreciable water ice was seen on the surface of this active comet.
From the first disclosures of dry cometary surfaces, theorists speculated
that such surfaces simply hid the icy, watery content beneath the surface.
Then, in response to solar warming, subsurface pockets of water vapor formed,
exploding through the crust to create the observed jets.
Of course, the envisioned rupture of the surface would expose the presumed ice below.
But, as occurred in all visits to comets,
no detection of Tempel 1 subsurface ice was ever reported.
Nevertheless, mission scientists tell us that infrared readings
did detect substantial water ice in the ejecta cloud.
"Though ice was not observed on the surface in the impact region, strong absorptions near 3 µm (micrometer) due to water ice are detected in IR measurements of the ejecta from the impact event."
The enigma deserves investigation.
What happened at the surface and below the surface at the moment of impact?
Most NASA scientists interpreted the fast-moving cloud as vaporized silicates.
The cloud was self-luminous at an estimated 1000º to 2000º Kelvin,
and the low angle of the impact and blast propelled ejecta downrange.
The infrared readings of the ejecta occurred about 3 seconds after impact
as the cloud came into the view of the infrared camera.
These readings show what NASA scientists describe as a narrow beam of water.
This water column was easily distinguished from the rapidly moving dust cloud
and was very close to vertical directly over the impact site.
That's a bizarre contrast to the trajectory of the dust cloud.
"The highly collimated water ice-rich component corresponds to a low-velocity, high-angle (i.e., near vertical), ejecta cloud above the impact."
How did a vertical column of water get instantaneously separated from
an explosion of dust, heated to over 1,000ºK and propelled downrange.
The Electric Comet model offers an answer.
The heated silicate cloud would be ionized (a plasma),
a conductive pathway for an explosive electric discharge.
The evidence indicates the discharge occurred between a negatively charged nucleus
and a surrounding region of positive charge.
An abundance of hydrogen ions gathered at, or close, to the surface of the nucleus
would provide the necessary conditions for two things:
first, an instantaneous electrical breakdown, or discharge, on impact;
and second, an equally instantaneous electrochemical response to the discharge.
Consider what is already known from laboratory experiments.
In a condition of electrical breakdown hydrogen ions from the solar wind,
combining with the oxygen and silicates
can produce an abundance of hydroxyl, and/or water.
This very process has been proposed
to explain the enigmatic water on the planet Mercury.
"...Oxygen-containing surface rocks could release water through sputtering by protons from the solar wind."
The Electric Comet models suggest that the detected column of water directly
over the impact site occurred along the path of an electric discharge,
and that always means roughly perpendicular to the surface.
Water created explosively, electrochemically, in the ejecta -
even if no water lay beneath the dry surface of comet Tempel 1.
This intriguing answer takes us deeper into the infrared readings.
The conventional model predicted that comet water ice
would contain substantial quantities of dust.
This dust content would be expected to show up as refractory
particles in the ice of the collimated ejecta plume.
But amazingly, the ice particles themselves were free of dust.
"These pristine materials consist of very fine grained (~1 ± 1 µm) water ice particles, which are free from refractory impurities."
It seems the instruments measured virgin water, water freshly formed,
as one would expect from the instantaneous electrochemistry
of water production from hydrated silicates.
This very point is emphasized in a recent analysis by Dr. Franklin Anariba,
a specialist in electrochemistry at the Singapore University of Technology and Design.
"Data from the infrared readings of the impact ejecta suggest that the explosive event may have triggered electrochemical production of water along an electric discharge pathway directly over the impact site."
Allow this possibility into discussions of comet science, in particular,
the unsolved mysteries of missing water and water creation by comets,
and the picture changes dramatically.
"The question that must be asked is whether the water detected in infrared readings of the Deep Impact ejecta was the byproduct of electrochemical reactions..."
"...driven by a potential difference between the comet and the solar flux: vaporized silicates transacting with a concentration of hydrogen ions from the Sun, localized on or around the nucleus."
When we follow this possibility, the missing water on the surface of Temple 1
becomes an affirmation of the Electric Comet model.
Thunderbolts.info