I'll start by pointing out correlations I think may be relevant: Notice in the last paragraph here http://www.binaryresearchinstitute.org/ ... arch.shtml ,the observation of planetary and cometary perihelion points to Sirius' position. For example, Earth reaches perihelion when it is at its closest point in its solar orbit, to the star Sirius. But is Homann correct that this is due to gravitational forces of Sirius? Notice from the image here http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... arrows.jpg and the text here http://www.idialstars.com/apex.htm , that Sirius marks the antapex of the sun's way. As the sun moves through space, planets alternately lead or trail the sun. Perihelion for Earth happens when Earth is most trailing the sun, aphelion happens at the point where the Earth is most leading the sun in their mutual motion through the galaxy. That is the correlation I would like you to consider.
If you are familiar with DJ Sadhu's video,and Phil Plait's objection http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronom ... wrong.html I would like to make a few comments: 1. DJ Sadhu's video is in fact a good starting point to visualize planetary motion. 2. Phil Plait is correct however, we must realize that planets alternately lead or lag the sun. It is the leading and lagging positions that correlate to perihelion/aphelion positions. So Plait is not only right that planets sometimes lead the sun, but since perihelion points are in the trailing position, planets in fact spend a disproportionate amount of time actually leading the sun. 3. When you realize that the sun is moving through the galaxy at something like 220 km/s , and yet even Earth (an inner planet) only moves around the sun at about 30 km/s, you see that Sadhu's images show much too tight spiraling of planets. The planet's paths are in fact strung out more along the sun's direction of motion. Now it is time to view this (thanks to GaryN for pointing out this link) http://epsppd.epfl.ch/Roma/pdf/P4_053.pdf When you look at figure 4 (a) ,realize that the Earth is in a "dusty filament" that runs nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic plane,and appears to only slightly curve as it travels above or below the ecliptic plane. In other words, this "dusty filament" does in fact trace out the path of Earth's motion through space, once we correct Sadhu's model for the much slower spiraling around sun's direction of travel.
First, Is Wal Thornhill correct, that we need a "feedback mechanism" to maintain planetary orbits? Absolutely. We know (thanks to guys like Tom VanFlandern), that even in a simple three body system, the most likely fate of the least massive body, is to collide with one of the more massive bodies, or be ejected from the system completely. If we want to merely add E-M forces, we only make the problem worse. As Newton realized, if we had forces that propagated slowly (light speed here being "slow"), we would even more quickly have a break down in stable planetary orbits. So we do need some mechanism to keep planetary orbits stable, even on timelines that we have observed.
Here is the problem: Wal, in his model, wants to make the primary driver of charge exchange, the motion of Earth towards and away from the sun. Notice in the other link, (again, figure 4 (a)), that the Earth seems to be in a "dusty filament" running up and down through the galactic plane. So Wal would have the primary "current filament" responsible for stabilizing orbits, running at a 90 degree angle from the observed "dusty filament"? Should not the "dusty filament" be aligned with the primary current flow?
I've argued that the inclination of elliptical orbits, is a direct result of Donald Scott's filament model. You don't need to accept that, (keep it in the back of your mind), but note just that Pluto is in the most elliptical AND inclined orbit of planetary bodies. What that means, is that Pluto's orbit takes it most "up and down" along the direction that we OBSERVE our "dusty filaments". In other words, Wal is right, that elliptical orbits get "dampened" into circular orbits. But it is not because elliptical motions carry the planets towards and away from the sun, and get dampened into circular orbits. It is that elliptical orbits carry the planets up and down along these "dusty filaments", that causes the planets to "dampen" into circular orbits which lie in the ecliptic plane. In short, Wal is right, that it is charge exchange that stabilizes orbits. He does, however, have the current direction wrong. The current flows along the observed dusty filaments. (by the way here: this will resolve some arguments between various solar models. The main current flow in our solar system is NOT between sun and planets. What is the direction of current flow? Follow the "dusty filaments") Once again, in Donald Scott's filament model: if we have an object moving down the filament axis, we can have charged objects circling around it at a constant radius, and a constant "winding rate". These will be perceived as circular orbits from the perspective of that central object, and all in the same plane. We can also have charged objects traveling down that filament, that move away from, and towards the filament axis. They find themselves traveling rapidly down the filament axis, where the field is more axial, and when they are at a radius where the field is more azimuthal, they spiral more around the filament. From the perspective of the central object, these are inclined AND elliptical orbits.
Here is the picture I'd like you to start with: Imagine planets circling the sun, just as shown in the video by DJ Sadhu. Next, apply what you know from Donald Scott's filament model. That is, if planets move towards and away from the sun (change radius in the current filament), they must either race ahead of the sun (in the filaments nearly axial field) , or fall behind (where the azimuthal field carries the planet around the sun, at the expense of motion along the filament).
Here is the best part: Notice from the work of Homann (mentioned in the first post), the perihelion point in Earth's orbit, is when Earth is most "trailing" the sun. This "fits" with the orbits I am describing.
Now a challenge: I'll take for granted that some of you think I'm a loony. I'll merely ask you to consider what happens in Donald Scott's filament model, if we consider that the charged objects are not all free to spiral down the filament axis, but are somehow bound together. That is, what happens when a charged particle, racing down Scott's filament, at a radius where the field is is nearly axial, gets pulled in (by some force, gravitational or electrostatic, to an object at the center of the filament) to a radius where the field is more azimuthal.
Very simply: If you think of the sun as "parked" in space, with planets circling it, you will never understand orbits. Once you accept that planets and the sun are traveling down one of Donald Scott's filaments, you have half the picture. Just add the fact the planets are bound to the sun (and then are forced to either move in and out from the filament axis, or circle at a constant radius), and you have everything you need to map solar system orbits in their entirety.
seasmith
Re: on the motion of bodies in an orbit
~ Celeste wrote:
We can also have charged objects traveling down that filament, that move away from, and towards the filament axis. They find themselves traveling rapidly down the filament axis, where the field is more axial, and when they are at a radius where the field is more azimuthal, they spiral more around the filament. From the perspective of the central object, these are inclined AND elliptical orbits.
Don't forget, the "filament axis" (proscribed by the sun), is itself also spiraling in its progression. The sum of the system's composite motions then generate the dual barycentric foci for ellipses, and geometries of hyperbolic conic sections (hence the Bessel functions that Dr. Scott is using as mathematical basis of his model).
Even in EU style models where gravity is described as purely a 'reciprocal' of magneto-dielectric forces, it is generally acknowledged that electric and gravitic components assume a different equilibrium, dependent on mass/charge and distance from barycenters. We see the mid-plane gas giants with vastly different eccentricities than Mercury or Pluto. Interlopers, or stray bodies, caught up in Scott's 'vortex current' / 'field-aligned current' should eventually achieve some system equilibrium (within parameters).
That is possibly the case with Pluto, or even Venus.
paladin17
Re: on the motion of bodies in an orbit
This is an interesting topic. And I thank you for bringing up some interesting data. However, I have a couple of comments.
First of all, I understand this "filament" was seen only going through Earth, not the whole system (or at least the Sun). So maybe it is just some kind of plasma current due to the Earth's magnetospheric activity. Maybe it is localized and does not span too far away. Secondly, what about precession of the perihelion? The rates of this process are not big, but measurable. The Earth's perihelion, for example, turns approximately 1 degree every 300 years (so the full turn takes about 110 kyr). Maybe is can cause some interesting effects in this context.
celeste
Re: on the motion of bodies in an orbit
paladin17 wrote:
First of all, I understand this "filament" was seen only going through Earth, not the whole system (or at least the Sun). So maybe it is just some kind of plasma current due to the Earth's magnetospheric activity. Maybe it is localized and does not span too far away.
If you notice,in the bottom half of figure 4 (a), http://epsppd.epfl.ch/Roma/pdf/P4_053.pdf , the Earth is not centered in the filament, but lies out from the surface. Which is the same thing we found at a larger scale, for our whole solar system, shown here http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/6192 ... pheres.jpg and talked about here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17833816 The solar system is not centered in the filamentary cloud,but "skimming the surface". The fact that main axis of the "dusty filament" runs right on past the Earth, makes it unlikely that Earth's magnetosphere is in any way causing the filament, correct?
celeste
Re: on the motion of bodies in an orbit
seasmith wrote: Interlopers, or stray bodies, caught up in Scott's 'vortex current' / 'field-aligned current' should eventually achieve some system equilibrium (within parameters).
That is possibly the case with Pluto, or even Venus.
Seasmith, Yes, that is where Scott's model really helps. If you start with that "crazy" idea that Venus was hurled into the inner solar system in recent history, and now orbits in a nearly circular orbit according to the Titius-Bode law, that is two separate problems. Wal Thornhill addressed how we could get to a circular orbit from a more elliptical one, but that did not help to explain how we ended up with that particular orbital radius. That comes only from the balance of gravity and the magnetic forces of Scott's filaments. In the mainstream gravity only model, if Venus was in fact flung into the inner solar system, its orbital radius was determined by the mass and velocity of Venus at its creation. Quite odd that now Venus should appear to obey any law of planetary orbital spacing. Now consider: You've seen it argued, that Venus' high temperature was an "artifact" of its fairly recent creation. On the other hand, if Venus came spiraling in across the magnetic field of our solar system filament, and is now in a stable orbit, along the magnetic field direction, that means it must have radiated energy until it traveled along field lines exactly. This is a mechanism not only to explain the temperature of Venus, but its orbit. Venus was not "coincidentally" created with enough mass to orbit according to the same Titius-Bode law with other planets. It radiated energy (and lost mass), until it was able to follow the field lines exactly (gravitational orbit of Venus around sun was the same as magnetic spiraling of Venus down solar system filament).
CharlesChandler
Re: on the motion of bodies in an orbit
This is a really cool thread. I hope that this can serve as a collection point for the wide variety of facts and theories on this topic. Somehow, this stuff is screaming something fundamental to us. But what is it saying???
I don't have much to offer, since I haven't studied this topic much, but I'd just like to mention that I'm brewing an idea that might have something to do with orbital stabilization, though it's electrostatic instead of electrodynamic. Essentially, the idea is that planets are negatively charged bodies with positively charged atmospheres. As such, they are like Debye cells, except on a really big scale. And like Debye cells, there is a slight repulsion between them. The cells are net-neutral, but the positively charged atmospheres on the near side of the planets produce the repulsion, due to the inverse square law. And this repulsion supplies the reason for planets that neither merge nor exit the solar system altogether. So they are gravitationally bound to the Sun, but electrostatically buffered from each other.
At first glance, this would seem to predict that planets would tend to be equidistant from each other, leaving no excuse for Bode's law. But remember that I said that the planets are gravitationally bound but electrostatically buffered. Well, the further you get from the Sun, the less the gravitational binding. Thus the electrostatic repulsion would be more significant, and might result in planets ejecting competitors from the solar system. What we should expect is then a more densely populated inner solar system, and a more sparsely populated outer solar system, which is consistent with Bode's law.
But that's too vague to fully account for the quantization in Bode's law, so there has to be more to it than that.
For book-keeping purposes, the paper I'm working on is at Axial and Orbital Rotations. I'll "try" to keep up with this thread, and integrate info/theories into a review-style article, for reference purposes. It's sooooo difficult to follow a long line of reasoning when the pieces are scattered throughout posts in a forum, so I like to try to assemble the pieces into articles, to whatever extent is possible. (It's just that writing such articles is really time-consuming, so usually I just wish that I could see all of the logic laid out in one place.)
I hope that this can serve as a collection point for the wide variety of facts and theories on this topic. Somehow, this stuff is screaming something fundamental to us. But what is it saying???
