2014-02-24 Brant announces his "Cometary Flare-up" Hypothesis
"Scientist suggests new approach to measuring flow from the sun."A scientist examining the solar wind suggests that our understanding of its structure may need significant reassessment. The plasma particles flowing from the Sun and blasting past the Earth might be configured more as a network of tubes than a river-like stream, according to Joseph Borovsky of Los Alamos National Laboratory's Space Science and Applications group.In a paper in this week's Physical Review Letters, "Contribution of Strong Discontinuities to the Power Spectrum of the Solar Wind," (Physical Review Letters 105, 111102 [2010]), Borovsky challenges the concept that the solar wind is of fairly uniform structure, and therefore, our entire interpretation of spacecraft data may not be correct."For decades we have been interpreting the spectrum of fluctuations in the solar wind as a measurement of turbulence in the wind. However, it turns out that impurities (discontinuities) in plasma dominate the signal. Hence, the spectrum is not a clean measurement of turbulence, and it may not even be a measurement of turbulence," Borovsky said. In simpler terms, perhaps, we couldn't see the forest for the trees."Because we might be misunderstanding the solar wind, we might be misunderstanding its impact on the Earth's environment. Understanding solar wind allows us to understand the initiation and evolution of geomagnetic storms," said Herbert Funsten, chief scientist for the International, Space & Response Division at Los Alamos.Borovosky argues that the discontinuities are part of a structure to the solar wind that looks like spaghetti, with the discontinuities being the boundaries between adjacent noodles (magnetic tubes). In this concept, the wind plasma is structured rather than being homogeneous. He suggests that the spaghetti structure of the solar-wind plasma reflects the "magnetic carpet" on the surface of the Sun, with the spaghetti in the wind being loose strands of the magnetic carpet."We have also argued that the spectrum measured in the wind is a `remnant' of the carpet on the Sun rather than a signature of turbulence in the wind plasma," he says.If you go to the article you can see the structure of the of the current sheet. Its thought that the tubes may extend to the heliosphere but its not sure. However it is my hypothesis that the density of flux tubes is greater at the orbital plane than at the poles. So comet Ison crosses the plane inside the orbit of Earth where the flux tube density is the greatest...This lead to a quick change from low brightness to high brightness. It also may be possible that comets can get hooked up with a flux tube that extends out past earths orbit...The other parameter that may affect how a comet changes in brightness is the current sheet...."The heliospheric current sheet (or HCS) is the boundary of the Sun's magnetic field separating the northern and southern polarity regions which extends out into the solar system. During the solar minimum, the sheet is almost flat and skirt-like. But during solar maximum, it's tilted, wavy and complex."This means that the comet doesn't begin to change energy until it approaches the solar orbital plane.And if my ideas and the orbit are correct then I predict that Ison will dim pretty quickly after perihelion.And so on the long term erosion. Yes I think it occurring actively right now. And I think it is most active when the current sheet lines up the flux tubes with the orbiting body. Mind its not catastrophic like a thunderbolt but over 100's of thousands to millions of years of years it may be eroding the large craters into the shapes we see now.Here is a presentation.The references in the below article are very interesting.Observation of the multifractal spectrum in the heliosphere and the heliosheath by Voyager 1 and 2FROM THE MAGNETIC CARPET TO THE HELIOSPHERE