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Astronomers are reporting their observation of the so-called brightest
and furthest pulsar ever observed from Earth. Using data from the European Space
Agency's XMM-Newton satellite, the supposed spinning magnetized neutron
star presents a major challenge to the consensus ideas about such theoretical
objects. Identified as NGC 5907 X1 the ”pulsar” appears to shine with the
brightness that is a thousand times greater than the object’s theoretical limit.
To gain a perspective on just how stupendously bright the pulsar appears
to be, a phys.org report states, “In one second it emits the same amount of
energy released by our Sun in three and a half years.” As the lead author of a
paper on the object states, “This object is really challenging our current
understanding of the accretion process for high luminosity stars. It is 1,000
times more luminous than the maximum thought possible for an accreting
neutron star. So something else is needed in our models in order to account for
the enormous amount of energy released by the object.” The mystery for
investigators is not simply the object’s brightness, but also the speed at which the
”pulsar’s” alleged spin rate increased over a period of 11 years. As
phys.org reports, “The same relative acceleration in Earth's rotation would
shorten the day by five hours in the same time span.” What is a so-called neutron
star? Scientists tell us that the material left over from a supernova
explosion of a massive star collapses gravitationally, forming an incredibly
small, yet massively dense star mostly composed of tightly packed neutrons. A
rotating neutron star is said to emit regular pulses of radio waves and other
sources of radiation, called pulsars. But the hypothesis of the neutron star was
not a predictive theory that was composed and then verified through
observation. Rather, the hypothesis was invented in the nineteen sixties after the
completely unexpected discovery of radio pulses from the constellation Vulpecula. In 1968 it
was the world-renowned astrophysicist Thomas Gold who proposed that the
source of the pulses was a rapidly rotating star acting very much like a
lighthouse, with the light beams becoming visible on Earth with each revolution of
the star. The extraordinary speed with which such an object is said to rotate
is sometimes many times faster than a dentist's drill. However, in recent years,
with finer technological data have come numerous discoveries that in effect
falsify the neutron star hypothesis. As reported in previous Space News episodes,
this is not the first instance that a so called pulsar’s apparent brightness
has exponentially exceeded its theoretical limit. Other behaviors have
proved equally puzzling, including the discovery reported in 2013, of a pulsar
that switches suddenly and unpredictably between radio and X-ray emissions. The
lead author of a paper on that discovery said at the time, “The people
creating models will have to rethink what we are discovering here. When we
look now to what is so far published in papers, nothing at this moment can
explain what is happening.” But is the hypothesis of a mechanically spinning
lighthouse of sorts really the only explanation for pulsars? If a crisis in
cosmology exists, is it a coincidence that institutional science continues to
try to explain stupendous electromagnetic phenomena through purely
gravitational mechanism? In the case of so-called neutron stars and pulsars the
disciplines of plasma physics and electrical engineering do offer
theoretical alternatives. It has been suggested that a more useful analogy to
pulsar flashes is the complex radio signals induced in Earth's ionosphere by
powerful lightning. This clue could help to explain the evidence inexplicable in
the standard model of pulsars switching from radio to X-ray
emissions, since lightning can produce both. In fact, scientists attempting to explain
this puzzling switching of emissions, are considering changes in the star’s
magnetosphere, which does bring them closer to the electrical interpretation.
In fact in 1995 the renowned plasma physicist Anthony Peratt and co-author
Kevin Healey published a paper, ”Radiation Properties of Pulsar Magnetospheres:
Observation, Theory, and Experiment.” Peratt and Healy examined well over a dozen pulsar
anomalies yet to be explained by the standard lighthouse model. They state:
”There yet exists no self-consistent theory to describe the Pulsar
electrodynamics.” Using electromagnetic particle-in-cell simulations, the team
investigated a, “Magnetospheric disk field-aligned current transmission line
system as the origin of the observed radiation.” With external wave excitation
by as yet an unexplained source, this model does not require a rotating object,
or the lighthouse effect. Rather, it in effect states that an electrical
discharge occurs close to a star which then travels along the magnetic field
lines outwards, where it meets a disk of matter surrounding the star. Where it
meets that more dense matter, a kind of short circuit occurs and the signal is
reflected as in transmission lines in electrical engineering theory. In fact, in
a Space News interview, retired professor dr. Donald Scott has suggested that the
ideal analogy for a pulsar’s flashes is not a lighthouse, but rather a strobe
light. A strobe light is a small ball containing a plasma driven by a simple
electrical circuit. As seen in this picture it can consist of nothing more
than a resistor, a capacitor, the voltage source, and a glass tube. In the 2015 Space
News, “The invention of the Neutron Star,” professor Scott explained the analogy in
space as follows, “If we have a pair of stars, a binary pair of stars out in
space and if they're closely spaced there may very well be a plasma bridge
between them and the resistance in the relaxation
oscillator is the resistance of that plasma bridge, and so the capacitance value
depends on the surface areas of the two stars and if one of the stars is [at a as]
being driven by an external current to higher and higher voltage, clearly this
kind of oscillation is possible. Also, voltage pulses can bounce back and forth
along a plasma bridge; if we have a plasma bridge that connects the two
stars and we get a voltage pulse that goes from one to the other, it can bounce
back again and there's all sorts of possibilities for reflections of pulses
on high-voltage power transmission lines.” But in institutional science today,
theorists seeking to gain a better understanding of “neutron stars” tend
not to be specialists in electrical engineering and plasma physics. Always
the assumption is that the detected light pulses are produced by spinning
magnetized neutron stars, even though said objects remain entirely
hypothetical and the predictive record of the hypothesis grows increasingly
poor. The mantra of self-styled skeptics is that extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence. Astrophysicists freely acknowledge that the neutron
star, if it exists, would be one of the most exotic objects in the known
universe. But an ongoing series of theory shattering discoveries have transformed
the neutron star hypothesis from exotic to extraordinary, to perhaps impossible.
However, as in countless other fields of space science discovery, real
alternatives await in our Electric Universe. For continuous updates on Space
News from the Electric Universe, stay tuned to Thunderbolts.info
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