First, I Need References on Solar Differential Rotation * I'd like to have references that show that sunspots were used to measure the Sun's differential rotation period at different latitudes, i.e. 27 days or so at 0 degrees and 38 days or so near the poles. Actually, I don't think sunspots start out near the poles, so I'd just need something that shows the rotation rate at the latitude where sunspots start out. I know they end up near the equator, although they're not the same ones that start out, because they only last for 12 days or so, I think. * The reason this is important is because Michael's, Brant's and Oliver Manuel's solar models have the surface under the photosphere as a solid, and at least Michael says sunspots form over volcanoes on the solid surface. So, if sunspots rotate more slowly at higher latitudes, it means that the surface is probably fluid, instead of solid. Solar Moss * If the surface of the Sun under the photosphere were solid, then there would be explanations for solar moss and other features. Brant says they're iron slag from coronal rain from coronal loops, where iron plasma shoots up electrically at high velocity and some of it falls off and cools along the way and makes larges mountains of iron slag. * But the mainstream (as at http://www.solarviews.com/cap/sun/moss1.htm) say:
Solar moss consists of hot gas at about two million degrees Fahrenheit which emits extreme ultraviolet light observed by the TRACE instrument. It occurs in large patches, about 6,000 - 12,000 miles in extent, and appears between 1,000 - 1,500 miles above the Sun's visible surface, sometimes reaching more than 3,000 miles high. It looks "spongy" because the patches are composed of small bright elements interlaced with dark voids in the TRACE images. These voids are caused by jets of cooler gas from the Sun's lower atmosphere, the chromosphere, which is at about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The solar moss appears only below high pressure coronal loops in active regions, typically persisting for tens of hours, but has been seen to form rapidly and spread in association with loops that arise after a solar explosion, called a flare.
* Here's what Charles said in the Electric Sun Discussion thread about the solar moss:
The image that I cited shows this smooth "surface" (away from the active regions). It doesn't look like the chaotic turbulence of the granular layer, which in my model is that topmost 4800 km. So qualitatively speaking I'd say that we're looking at the far more dense layer below 4800 km, that hasn't erupted in turbulence, and that has a nice smooth "surface." In my model this is highly compressed plasma, while in Michael's, it's the iron crust. But I "think" we're both thinking that it's the same depth (4800 km). - ... I actually "think" that solar moss isn't a "structure" at all, but just a concentration of iron ions, as a function of electric field density. I really need to think that through all of the way, as this is just going to keep coming up... But if we take the spectral data at face value, iron is only 1 part per 30,000 of hydrogen at TOP [top of photosphere]. Clouds in the Earth's atmosphere, with 1 part per 100 of water molecules, are a lot more "solid" than that, if that's what it is. If the moss does occur only in active regions, I wouldn't be surprised to see the differences in E-field density that could cause concentrations of ions. But I need to read a couple of papers on the topic, to get all of the facts, before I actually develop an opinion.
sjw40364
Re: What is Solar Moss etc?
Well, ion plumes have been discovered on even our moon and earth, plus Jupiters moons. I am not a big fan of a solid core, simply because the temperatures are too extreme for a solid anything IMO. A highly compressed viscous core of high density more than likely. Basically lava like what would be at our core, just of the heavy elements.
CharlesChandler
Re: What is Solar Moss etc?
I'm still gathering more info on the various questions that have been asked, but I thought I'd give you an update.
First, tracking sunspots isn't really going to answer the question of differential rotation. The equatorial band rotates faster than the solid body rotation, while the polar cap rotates slower. Sunspots occur at the boundary between these two masses of plasma. So we'd expect them to rotate at the solid body rate, even if there was faster rotation at the equator, and slower rotation at the poles.
I think that you were right the first time — we'd have to look at the solar moss, like in the RD imagery. I did some thinking on that. I think that it will disprove the solid crust hypothesis, and as such, I'm not sure how much labor I'd be willing to sink into it. But I at least thought out the steps:
Get ahold of some good imagery. Along those lines, the gray-scale imagery seems to have some 3D effects that look like they're from post-processing, to assist in data visualization. For example, the ridges seem to be dark on one side and bright on the other. I think that this is an applied effect. If so, we need images that don't have this.
Run the images through one of a variety of programs than can turn gray-scales into gradient contours, which are polygons.
With some 3D trig, points along the polygons can be projected onto a sphere, rotated the expected amount, and then projected back onto the 2D plane of the next image.
With software that can handle it (which I have), the rotated polygons can be compared to the polygons from the next image, to see how well they match up. (This can be done mathematically, by calculating the degree of overlap in the polygons. If they match exactly, you get complete overlap. If the polygons don't line up perfectly, the intersection of the two polygons has less area than the polygons being compared.)
With a bit more work, a program could tweak the rotation rates at different altitudes, to find the best fit rotation from one frame to the next, as the combination of rotation rates that yielded the largest overlaps of the gradient contours.
In this way, the features in the RD imagery could be tracked mathematically as they rotate, from the west limb all of the way to the east limb. And if done programmatically, it wouldn't be just us eyeballing the images and drawing conclusions — we'd be able to show the mathematical method used to track the features.
Would we also need helioseismic data for the same period, to show that the solar moss was moving like a solid body, even while the helioseismic data are showing differential rotation?
But like I said, this would take some work, and I wouldn't get to it right away. If MM and BC want to start gathering up the images, I can start thinking more specifically about what kind of code it would take.
Second, as concerns whether the solar moss is above or below the photosphere, I found the mainstream literature to be overloaded with assumptions. Basically, it sounds like they're setting altitude on the basis of temperature. They know the photosphere is 6000 K, and the corona gets over 1 MK. They say throughout the literature that there is a smooth progression of temperatures. So when they see a certain temperature, they just look up on the graph where that temperature is achieved, and read off the altitude. For our purposes, that's too indirect of a means. I really think that we need a comparison of Fe IX/X and H-alpha imagery for the same instant. The hydrogen emissions should show the limb quite distinctly, while the iron emissions should show the moss. If the images were taken at the same time from the same instrument, that should tell us exactly where the moss is, relative to the top of the photosphere.
how can anything that is over 2,000,000 degrees F be considered a gas?
Lloyd
Re: What is Solar Moss etc?
Timing Sunspots
Charles said: First, tracking sunspots isn't really going to answer the question of differential rotation. The equatorial band rotates faster than the solid body rotation, while the polar cap rotates slower. Sunspots occur at the boundary between these two masses of plasma. So we'd expect them to rotate at the solid body rate, even if there was faster rotation at the equator, and slower rotation at the poles.
* What's the solid body you're talking about there? Do you mean Michael's and Brant's proposed solid iron layer under the photosphere? Since Michael said sunspots occur over volcanoes on the proposed solid surface below the photosphere, measuring the speed of the sunspots should tell us if they are over a solid or fluid surface, because it should take them 27 days to complete one solar rotation, if there's a solid crust under the photosphere. But it should take longer than that, and less than 38 days, if there is no solid surface below and if the sunspot is far enough above or below the equator. Besides differential rotation with respect to latitude, I guess heliosmology suggests that there's also differential rotation with depth, so that seems to deny a solid interior too. Sunspot Latitude --- Solar Rotation Period (for the sunspot) 0° --------------------- 27 da for solid --- 27 da for fluid 45° ------------------- 27 da for solid --- ~30 da for fluid
Figure 7: Sequence of SOHO EIT 171 Å negative images of the north polar coronal hole, showing the persistence of a polar plume for many days.
* The solar moss features are also persistent for days sometimes and 171 A is the wavelength often mentioned by Michael for his solar moss images. So, since these images show plumes above the TOP (top of photosphere), it seems that solar moss could be the tops of these plumes. http://www.lafterhall.com/solar_prominence_photography.html
Polar crown quiescent prominence developing plasma bubble and plume, 35 minute time-lapse, 1.5 minute cadence ... 15 Aug. 2011
how can anything that is over 2,000,000 degrees F be considered a gas?
From the solarviews
cooler gas from the Sun's lower atmosphere, the chromosphere, which is at about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
LOL! when it's fed by jets of cooler "gas" at only 10,000°F.
Michael Mozina
Re: What is Solar Moss etc?
Sorry for the delayed response, but it's been extremely busy at work this week, and my father has been visiting from San Diego this week.
IMO, solar moss activity is essentially the stripping away of surface iron, and other elements, in large electrical discharge processes which create gigantic sized coronal loops in the solar atmosphere. IMO, solar moss activity can also be caused by volcanic eruption processes that spew large amounts of non ionized material into the atmosphere, which are then ionized in large current carrying loops in the solar atmosphere. Some of the largest loops that are created in these "active region" events penetrate up and through the surface of the photosphere. Once Birkeland sandblasted the surface of his smooth terella, and he introduced a powerful electromagnetic field in the core, he was able to create large, congregated discharge events near the rough 'bumps" on the cathode surface in horizontal bands slightly above and below the equator.
The actual light that we see in the iron ion wavelengths is from extremely hot plasma that is flowing inside of a 'Bennett Pinch" of very high energy plasma. The iron that was stripped from the surface (or spewed into the atmosphere) gets pinched into a powerful current carrying filament that moves electrical energy from one point on the surface to another. Birkeland described the overall surface to surface discharge events in his experiments and predicted that solar flare activity was related to these surface to surface discharge events.
The most important "prediction" that Birkeland's solar model makes is the prediction that the discharge process *must* begin underneath of the surface of the photosphere, and the loops should be visible *under* the photosphere. Birkeland's cathode sun is discharging itself toward the heliosphere, and the whole atmosphere of the sun is therefore experiencing a glow mode discharge. That discharge process is spewing electrons into the atmosphere,d ionizing elements to high energy states, and pulling along protons as it discharges itself toward the heliosphere. The atmosphere around Birkeland's cathode sun is highly energized, powered by voltages of around 600 million to a billion volts.
LMSAL claims that the base of the loops observed in solar moss activity all become visible far *above* the surface of the photosphere in some magical heating layer called the 'transition region'. I must be a magic transition region because LMSAL does not include electrical discharges as a heat source, and the mainstream recently lost it's most important power source, convection, in order to explain the temperature change from 6000K to millions of degrees Kelvin. They're in a world of hurt on the convection issue as it relates to explaining solar moss activity.
The real problem for the mainstream is that SDO shows the effect of the largest loops on the surface of the photosphere, and it shows flares blowing large chunks of photosphere material into the corona because many of the flares occur *under* the entire photosphere. As the largest loops come up and through the surface of the photosphere, they leave bright points seen in 1600A and 1700A, and magnetic field alignments in the magnetogram images that are related directly to the flow of current as it traverses that surface.
If the heat source for coronal loops was located high above the surface of the photosphere it would necessarily *need* to be an electrical discharge process that caused it. That's not even an option in the mainstream thinking process.
CharlesChandler
Re: What is Solar Moss etc?
Michael Mozina wrote: The iron that was stripped from the surface (or spewed into the atmosphere) gets pinched into a powerful current carrying filament that moves electrical energy from one point on the surface to another.
Be careful to keep things in perspective. A recent study found the current density in coronal loops to be in the range of 1~3 A/m2. See page 11 in the following:
But the density of the solar-heliospheric current is 539 A/m2, and that's across the entire Sun, not just in fleeting, narrow filaments found only in the active regions. So the current in the coronal loops is trivial by comparison to the solar-heliospheric current. I'm thinking that the main current, in the presence of the Sun's overall magnetic field, is being thrown into a spiral by the Lorentz force, setting up the solenoidal magnetic fields in the active regions. Small currents can then follow the magnetic lines of force if there are charge disparities between different spots on the surface. But this isn't the primary heat source. The 539 A/m2 flowing through the photosphere on its way out into space is what's generating the heat.
Michael Mozina wrote: Birkeland's cathode sun is discharging itself toward the heliosphere, and the whole atmosphere of the sun is therefore experiencing a glow mode discharge. That discharge process is spewing electrons into the atmosphere, ionizing elements to high energy states, and pulling along protons as it discharges itself toward the heliosphere. The atmosphere around Birkeland's cathode sun is highly energized, powered by voltages of around 600 million to a billion volts.
In 1941, Alfven estimated the electric field to be 1.7 GV. This is interesting because he didn't have access to CME data, so he arrived at this number independently. But now we know that CMEs expel 3.43 × 107 kg/s, which works out to 2.93 × 1015 A, assuming it's all ions. The electric current responding to this charge loss will be the same number of amps. We can then find the watts that this current will generate (as amps × volts), will comes out to 5.58 × 1024 W. The 2/3 of the solar power output not attributable to nuclear fusion is 3.13 × 1025 W. So the calculated electric current, from the Sun to the heliosphere, is within an order of magnitude of the measured power output, which is good enough for rough estimates like these.
Michael Mozina
Re: What is Solar Moss etc?
CharlesChandler wrote: Be careful to keep things in perspective. A recent study found the current density in coronal loops to be in the range of 1~3 A/m2. See page 11 in the following:
The problem with all mainstream mathematical models is that they require a 'build up' of charge and current due to "magnetic reconnection" and the energy release process is based on mainstream "reconnection" theories. I put zero credence in those numbers, particularly since the iron is in some cases ionized to a FeXX state for long periods of time, and the release of energy in solar flare events is *huge*. The current and voltages required to spew that kind of material is simply massive.
Michael Mozina wrote: Birkeland's cathode sun is discharging itself toward the heliosphere, and the whole atmosphere of the sun is therefore experiencing a glow mode discharge. That discharge process is spewing electrons into the atmosphere, ionizing elements to high energy states, and pulling along protons as it discharges itself toward the heliosphere. The atmosphere around Birkeland's cathode sun is highly energized, powered by voltages of around 600 million to a billion volts.
In 1941, Alfven estimated the electric field to be 1.7 GV. This is interesting because he didn't have access to CME data, so he arrived at this number independently. But now we know that CMEs expel 3.43 × 107 kg/s, which works out to 2.93 × 1015 A, assuming it's all ions. The electric current responding to this charge loss will be the same number of amps. We can then find the watts that this current will generate (as amps × volts), will comes out to 5.58 × 1024 W. The 2/3 of the solar power output not attributable to nuclear fusion is 3.13 × 1025 W. So the calculated electric current, from the Sun to the heliosphere, is within an order of magnitude of the measured power output, which is good enough for rough estimates like these.
IMO Birkeland was the quintessential scientist. Not only did he risk his live to take in-situ measurements he could compared to his lab results, he understood the math.
Vek
Re: What is Solar Moss etc?
I wonder what Birkeland would have made of this thing?
Michael Mozina wrote: The problem with all mainstream mathematical models is that they require a 'build up' of charge and current due to "magnetic reconnection" and the energy release process is based on mainstream "reconnection" theories. I put zero credence in those numbers, particularly since the iron is in some cases ionized to a FeXX state for long periods of time, and the release of energy in solar flare events is *huge*. The current and voltages required to spew that kind of material is simply massive.
I agree, that when evaluating literature, you have to separate fact from theory, as the latter might be fiction. I couldn't tell in that article how they got their numbers, so I don't know if they were observational or derived. But a low current density in the coronal loops, compared to the photosphere, makes sense to me, in that the photosphere is powerfully visible in all wavelengths, whereas the coronal loops are so faint as to be only visible in a few of the UV bands that are not so strong in the photosphere. If you're going to say that the coronal loops are a major energy source, you have to explain why they are so faint.
I also agree that the "magnetic reconnection" model is fiction. I think that the only reason why astronomers find it appealing is that it sounds complicated, and in a sufficiently complex formula, it's hard to tell the difference between physical modeling and ad hoc heuristics. And this, to astronomers, is a Good Thing. Nevertheless, you have an "electric reconnection" model that hasn't been fully fleshed out yet. You really need to start doing diagrams, showing where the current starts, where it stops, what dielectric enabled the potential to build up, what caused the dielectric breakdown, and where all of this overlaps with the observables. The main thing about coronal loops that kept puzzling me is that they are the most powerful after the flare. I think we agree that flares are arc discharges. But if so, why don't the flares discharge all of the potentials? In lightning strikes here on Earth, once the discharge channels get opened up, the conductivity is essentially perfect, and there can be as many as 20 return strokes, as charges slosh back and forth, until there is zero potential left. Then the current stops flowing, and the discharge channels close down, and you're once again below the breakdown voltage. That's when a new current starts flowing? That needs explaining.
Lloyd
Re: What is Solar Moss etc?
* CC said, regarding MM's coronal loops:
In lightning strikes here on Earth, once the discharge channels get opened up, the conductivity is essentially perfect, and there can be as many as 20 return strokes, as charges slosh back and forth, until there is zero potential left. Then the current stops flowing, and the discharge channels close down, and you're once again below the breakdown voltage. That's when a new current starts flowing [in solar coronal loops]? That needs explaining.
* I'm glad to hear your description of loops as faint, as that's something I hadn't noticed before. * But before MM explains his loops, I'd like to hear him explain how the differential rotation of sunspots is consistent with his solid iron sun model. I asked initially if solar moss shows differential rotation, which would also seem to contradict the solid surface model, but, since it seems that solar moss is said to be seen only in active regions, which is where sunspots often form (and nowhere else but there, I think), it seems that the differential rotation of sunspots is sufficient to disprove the solid surface model. So I hope Michael or Brant can explain that first, in order to give their theories enough support to be worth further study.
But if we take the spectral data at face value, iron is only 1 part per 30,000 of hydrogen at TOP [top of photosphere]. Clouds in the Earth's atmosphere, with 1 part per 100 of water molecules, are a lot more "solid" than that, if that's what it is. If the moss does occur only in active regions, I wouldn't be surprised to see the differences in E-field density that could cause concentrations of ions. But I need to read a couple of papers on the topic, to get all of the facts, before I actually develop an opinion.
