Welcome to Space News from the Electric Universe,
brought to you by The Thunderbolts Project™
at Thunderbolts.info
For centuries, the spectacular displays of comets have been a source of awe, fear
and great mystery to observers on Earth.
With greatly enhanced technological data
the mysteries have only grown for comet scientists.
One of the most puzzling cometary phenomena is the spectacular collimated jets
seen exploding at tremendous velocities from comet nuclei.
Standard comet theory states that the jets erupt
do to sublimating volatiles and trapped gases
that explode from underneath the comet's surface.
But the strange vision of comet jets
explains remarkably little of what we actually see.
Proponents of the standard 'dirty snowball' comet theory might have been given pause
when the comet Hale-Bopp began discharging beyond the orbit of Jupiter
obviously much too far from the Sun to attribute to sublimating volatiles.
Yet it produced the spectacular seven jets seen in this image.
In fact, incredibly four years after Hale Bopp left the inner solar system
it was still active
even though it was farther from the Sun than Jupiter, Saturn or even Uranus.
As with every scientific mystery it's necessary to juxtapose the respective,
predictive successes and failures of competing scientific theories.
It's essential to remember that close-up images of comet jets
have only been achieved more recently,
many decades after the dirty snowball comet hypothesis had become an entrenched belief.
Historic space missions to comets in the new millennium
have emphatically refuted the expected behaviors of comet jets.
An official NASA report
describes the predictions of comet scientists on NASA's Stardust mission
as the spacecraft approached the comet Wild 2.
The report states,
"The team predicted the jets would shoot up for a short distance,
and then be dispersed into a halo around Wild 2.
Instead, some super speedy jets remained intact,
like blasts of water from a powerful garden hose."
Mission scientist Dr. Benton Clark stated,
"(A) big surprise was the abundance and behavior of jets of particles
shooting up from the comet's surface.
We expected a couple of jets,
but saw more than two dozen in the brief flyby."
One obvious problem is that the comparison of comet jets to the blast
of a "garden hose" is completely inappropriate in the vacuum of space.
What mechanism collimates the jets
causing them to not disperse
as comet scientists had predicted.
The more recent European Space Agency's Rosetta mission to comet 67P
has only deepened the mysteries.
A new scientific study published in the journal Nature Astronomy
notes a connection between the sudden formation of some of 67P's jets
and a region of the nucleus being exposed to sunlight.
The lead author of the paper states,
"When the Sun rises over a part of the comet,
the surface along the terminator almost instantaneously becomes active.
The jets of gas and dust, which we then observe within the coma,
are very reliable:
they are found each morning in the same places and in a similar form."
But of course, the gentle warming of sunlight acting on ices
will not act quickly enough to produce the "almost instantaneous eruptive jets".
From the Electric Universe perspective
the sudden switching on of the jets when sunlight hits
is most likely a photoelectric effect
where the sun's UV light releases electrons from surface minerals.
That would suddenly increase the conductivity of the plasma above that surface
enough to trigger a discharge activity.
Heating of ices cannot act anywhere near so swiftly.
Even stranger attempts are made to explain the mysterious collimation of the comet jets.
The mystery goes back a number of years
and has been acknowledged as an ongoing problem by comet scientists.
As reported in the 2012 scientific paper
'Cometary Jet Collimation Without Physical Confinement',
"Contemporary models postulate that these jets collimate
when the expanding gases and dust pass through a physical aperture or nozzle.
However, recent high-resolution spacecraft observations
fail to detect such apertures on cometary surfaces.
Recent high-resolution images of comet nuclei
reveal that the gas and dust expelled by the comet
is organized into narrow plumes or jets.
Furthermore, these models do not explain why cometary jets
appear to be directed normal to the local gravitational potential.
This is especially puzzling because the jet velocity,
typically 300 m/sec far from the comet,
greatly exceeds the escape velocity of only about 1 m/sec."
The astounding up-close high-resolution images of Comet 67P
have also failed to reveal the so-called apertures or nozzles
thought to be required to collimate the comet jets.
Nevertheless, the authors of the new paper
propose that the comet's subsurface structure and terrain
are somehow responsible for the jet collimation.
The phys.org report states,
"...pits and other concave structures virtually concentrate gas and dust emissions
- much like an optical lens."
Curiously, the team also suggest that the comet's mysterious double-lobed form
like a "rubber duck" plays a role in jet collimation.
From the phys.org report,
"On a spherical or even potato-shaped comet,
these structures within the coma might not be as prominent.
Gas and dust would be much more evenly distributed."
But this strange conjecture is not supported at all
and has been emphatically refuted by numerous comets
including the aforementioned Comet Wild 2
whose high velocity collimated jets remain totally unexplained by standard comet science.
It seems incredible that the most promising theoretical pathways for comet scientists
remain completely ignored.
Amazingly, as far back as the early 20th century
the Norwegian physicist Kristian Birkeland
demonstrated experimental evidence for the electric comet theory.
He was able to emulate cometary jets from a cathode in a vacuum tube.
Birkeland wrote,
"From a cathode of graphite there came long, steady pencils of light,
which greatly resembled the so-called eruptions or jets in comets."
Cometary discharging is certainly not due to sublimation
of invisible imaginary subsurface ices
nor eruptions of equally speculative pockets of gas through unseen apertures.
The most dramatic comet activity is usually seen as comets move towards perihelion
or their closest approach to the Sun.
Comets spend most of their time in the farther reaches of the solar system
where plasma charge density is low.
The comet moves slowly
and its charge will normally easily come into balance with that region.
But as it approaches the Sun
the nucleus moves at a furious speed through regions of increasing charge density
and varying electrical characteristics.
The comet's surface charge and internal polarization developed in deep space
respond to the new environment by forming cathode jets
and a plasma sheath that can turn into a coma.
The jets flare up and the comet may shed and grow anew several tails
or on some occasions the comet may explode like an overstressed capacitor.
In fact, comets exploding for no apparent reason
sometimes at vast distances from the Sun,
remains an unsolved problem in space science.
However, as is demonstrated many times, cometary discharging may also occur
due to any disturbance of the comet's electrical plasma sheath
as it passes through regions of varying electric potential.
This can happen even as a comet is moving away from the Sun.
In fact, as we reported in 2017
this appeared to happen stunningly on comet 67P.
On July 3rd 2016,
the Rosetta spacecraft took this image of an extremely bright and explosive plume
that suddenly appeared on the comet nucleus.
At the time, the comet was over 500 million kilometers from the Sun,
a distance at which the sublimation of invisible, hypothetical water ice
is not expected at all.
The lead author of a paper on the phenomenon stated,
"We saw a bright plume of dust blowing away from the surface like a fountain...
It lasted for roughly an hour, producing around 18 kg of dust every second."
The team admitted they had no idea what could have powered the plume.
The ESA's website stated,
"Initially scientists thought that the plume
might have been surface ice evaporating in the sunlight.
However, Rosetta's measurements showed there had to be something more energetic going on
to fling that amount of dust into space."
The lead author stated,
"Energy must have been released from beneath the surface to power it.
There are evidently processes in comets that we do not yet fully understand."
Perhaps a better understanding could begin to be obtained
if comet scientists considered this side-by-side comparison
of an electrical discharge in the laboratory and the so-called plume on 67P.
Ironically, as we reported in 2016,
a NASA funded study suggested that electrostatic dust transport
is in fact a common process on airless worlds, including comets.
As phys.org reported; the study,
"...showed that electrostatic processes may be responsible for the Rosetta detection
of fluffy dust particles released from the surface of Comet 67P."
But it is telling that even the repeated observations of desiccated,
rocky comet nuclei has not altered the enduring notion
that comets are slowly sublimating dirty snowballs.
The dirty snowball myth persists
not because of the strength of the scientific evidence
but solely due to the power of entrenched belief.