Thunderbolts Forum

'12-02-24, 08:27 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient For Iron (& Nickel) Sun theorists, my model (involving a positive core, a negative radiative zone, and a positive convective zone, all generating magnetic fields due to their angular velocities) answers a tough question. The following are given. Under enormous pressures, the elements in the Sun's interior will be partially ionized, as squashing the atoms together forces out electrons, up to the point that equilibrium with the repulsion of the like-charged ions is achieved. (See Aspden, H., 2003: The Physics of Creation, Chapter 8.) Rotating at 2 km/s, these ions will generate magnetic fields, in a solenoidal configuration. Iron and nickel are ferromagnetic, or at the very least paramagnetic, depending on the temperature. Since there should already be a powerful solenoidal field from the rotating ions, paramagnetism in a superheated liquid should be nearly as robust as ferromagnetism in a cooled solid. The Sun's overall solenoidal magnetic field measures 1 Gauss, which is only twice the magnetic field of the Earth. How could the Sun's magnetic field be so weak? The reason for the weak field might be that the field generated by the positive core is not responsible for the Sun's overall field. Rather, its lines of force pass back through the negatively charged radiative zone, which generates a field for the same reasons, but whose polarity is reversed because the charges are opposite. Similarly, the primary lines of force from the outer layer (i.e., the positively charged convective zone) will close through the radiative zone, leaving little detectable field at the surface. Furthermore, the convective zone's updrafts and downdrafts move as fast as the equatorial velocity (~2 km/s), so the surface has merely a tangled web of largely self-defeating fields. Chuh-ching.
'12-02-24, 08:56 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Is Space an Electrical Conductor, or Insulator? * Charles, will you be disappointed to learn that vacuum is an insulator? I asked another group the question above and I added the following. * [Charles] says vacuum is a perfect electrical conductor, but I thought Juergens said it's an insulator. I said air has more vacuum than solids or liquids do and it's mostly an insulator and the tethered satellite tether glowed from electrical current, which it shouldn't have done, if the space around it was more conducting than the wire tether. ... When I told Charles that air is a better insulator than liquids and solids, apparently because there's more space between the molecules, he said it's because oxygen and nitrogen are insulators, but water vapor makes air very conductive. ... Can anyone provide an authoritative source either way? * Bert Hickman provided this reply. - A true vacuum is an excellent insulator. It is used in efficient high voltage capacitors since it is a lossless dielectric and quickly recovers even if overvolted to the point where it arcs over. - However, once charged particles are introduced, a vacuum becomes a very good electrical conductor since any charged particles are easily accelerated by an applied electrical field. And, unlike material dielectrics, or even metallic conductors, there is nothing to slow them down in the vacuum. In the old days, thermionically emitted electrons from a hot cathode could conduct substantial electrical current across the gap to the anode in vacuum tubes. The amount of current that can flow through the vacuum is limited only by the efficiency of emission from the cathode - i.e., how many electrons it emits across its area. - Surprisingly, high power vacuum devices are poised to possibly displace power semiconductors in very high power high voltage applications. Specially designed highly efficient "cold cathode" devices (that use field emission instead of thermionic emission) can deliver 10^5 - 10^6 amperes in special high power microwave and switching tubes... all conducted _across a vacuum_. These new vacuum devices can actually handle voltages and currents associated with high power utility AC transmission systems, with the voltage standoff and conduction currents at megavolt and megampere levels. For example: http://tinyurl.com/7c78t9k http://www.nsrp.org/6-Presentations/Elect/110210_High_Power~ - Many liquid and solid dielectrics are much better insulators (i.e., can withstand higher electrical fields without breaking down) than air. For example, air at sea level will break down at a field of about 30 kV/cm while mineral oil can withstand 130 - 150 kV/cm, and many insulating plastics can withstand a million volts/cm or more. The breakdown mechanisms for gases are significantly different than for liquids and solids. In gases, when free electrons (from background radiation or cosmic rays) gain sufficient kinetic energy, they can ionize neutral gas molecules. This causes exponential growth of secondary electrons that in turn ionize more gas molecules - a process called avalanche breakdown. Gases at lower pressure have longer mean free paths, so free electrons can gain more energy before colliding with the next gas molecules. As a result, rarefied gases are easier to ionize (i.e., they break down at a lower voltage). Eventually, the mean free path becomes so long that electrons reach the other electrode before ionizing additional molecules - this is the "Paschen minimum" for the gas(es). If we continue to reduce the pressure, the gas becomes increasingly difficult to ionize. A very high vacuum is an excellent insulator _unless_ we artificially flood the region with charged particles (as in a heated filament or via field emission). But, I suppose one could also argue that a vacuum that's continually being filled with charged particles is no longer a vacuum... :^) - Bert * The paper Bert linked to is titled High Power Cold Cathode Electron Tubes for Power Electronics Applications by Curtis Birnbach: Advanced Fusion Systems LLC, John Kappenman: Storm Analysis LLC * On pages 2-3 it says: "Arcing: The crystalline structure of semiconductor devices is a non-forgiving insulator. In operation, a semiconductor can be called on to conduct electricity at one moment and to block its flow at the next. All semiconductor materials used in power electronics exhibit the piezo-electric effect. This is the cause of a substantial number of failures and is one of the underlying fundamental limitations of semiconductors. ... An electron tube, on the other hand, incorporates a vacuum in a physical space as the insulator. Vacuum is inherently self-healing, so, even if an arc occurs, it rapidly dissipates and normal operation is restored. In fact, arcing is a normal condition during processing of electron tubes. Many types of tubes, such as magnetrons, klystrons and some power triodes, operate under conditions where arcs occur as a normal part of operation and are shrugged off by the tube."
'12-02-24, 09:17 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Lloyd wrote: An associate, who seems to be an expert, or otherwise well-informed, says a vacuum is a perfect electrical insulator, until ions are introduced. I'm waiting for permission to quote him. Great, but make sure that you ask the right questions, and that you get the terminology straight. If you try to talk about electric currents in space to an electrical engineer who doesn't know anything about plasma, you're liable to talk past each other. I ran into this in my conversations on the topic of tornadoes, where I couldn't even get EEs to understand the concept of ion drift. For example, Wikipedia defines an electric current as a flow of electric charge through a medium. (Notice that a current requires a medium.) The same article goes on to say that since a perfect vacuum contains no charged particles, it normally behaves as a perfect insulator. This is pretty much like saying that a parking lot is not capable of giving people places to park — unless there are cars there, in which case its capacity can be measured by the number of cars that are there. Look up the definition for resistivity. It's the E-field divided by the current density. By that definition, if there isn't any current, the resistivity is infinite. Cool. But look what happens when you start talking about a vacuum. No charged particles = no current = infinite resistivity. With that kind of reasoning, you could take a copper cable that didn't have any current flowing through it, and measure the current flowing through it, and get zero, and conclude that the resistivity was infinite. Then, if you hook it up to something and get some juice in there, all of a sudden the resistivity drops way down. Is that good logic? I don't think so. The fact of the matter is that real-world electrical engineering just doesn't have a concept for electric currents in free space. Read the Wikipedia article on vacuum tubes. It never even mentions the resistivity of the vacuum itself. It just talks about the rate of thermionic emission once the electrodes heat up. In other words, EEs have a vacuous concept of electric currents in vacuums — they don't know how to focus on the question being asked. So here's a good question. Suppose that you have a container that measures 1 km on all sides, and you vacuum out all of the gas. Suppose the top and bottom of the container are charged plates, one positive and the other negative, and that the sides are perfect insulators. Suppose that you take a copper cable that is 1/2 km long, and (somehow) suspend it in the middle of the container, so it's 1/4 km from each plate, but not touching. Now apply 1 MV of potential to the plates. Where will the current flow? Through the free space into one end of the wire, through the wire, and then out the other end to the other plate? Or will the current avoid the wire altogether? Any EE who paid attention in school will tell you that the ends of the wire will focus the electric lines of force on themselves, so any electrons emitted from the negative plate will follow those lines to the tip of the wire. From there, they will flow through the wire to the other end, where they will flow through the remaining free space to the positive plate. But ask the EE to prove it, and to make mention of the vacuum permittivity versus the permittivity of the copper cable. Really what we're talking about is not at all what an EE would call an electric current. It's really drift velocity in free space, given an E-field, and the charge-to-mass ratio. And if the charges are "flowing" simply because they were ejected from an explosion, there isn't even an E-field there. Now the EE wonders why you think that EM is even a factor. Nevertheless, moving electric charges generate magnetic fields, and the particles will exhibit electrodynamic behaviors (such as z-pinches). Ampere never specified that the charges have to be moving because of E-fields. The magnetic fields are generated by the motion of the charged particles, even if the electromotive force is not electric.
'12-02-24, 09:57 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient I didn't see this before I made my earlier post. No worries — I'll easily admit that I'm wrong, but I still don't understand. Bert Hickman wrote: A true vacuum is an excellent insulator. It is used in efficient high voltage capacitors since it is a lossless dielectric and quickly recovers even if overvolted to the point where it arcs over. - However, once charged particles are introduced, a vacuum becomes a very good electrical conductor since any charged particles are easily accelerated by an applied electrical field. [...] A very high vacuum is an excellent insulator _unless_ we artificially flood the region with charged particles (as in a heated filament or via field emission). But, I suppose one could also argue that a vacuum that's continually being filled with charged particles is no longer a vacuum... What charged particles are introduced? Does he mean that there have to be positive ions floating around inside the tube for the electrons to skip across? If so, why aren't the ions attracted to the negative electrode, eliminating the effect? It sounds like he's saying that it's an insulator, unless there are a bunch of electrons flowing through there, in which case there is an electric current, and then it becomes an excellent conductor. Like the parking lot that gains the ability to hold cars when all of the cars pull in. Bert Hickman wrote: Gases at lower pressure have longer mean free paths, so free electrons can gain more energy before colliding with the next gas molecules. As a result, rarefied gases are easier to ionize (i.e., they break down at a lower voltage). Eventually, the mean free path becomes so long that electrons reach the other electrode before ionizing additional molecules - this is the "Paschen minimum" for the gas(es). If we continue to reduce the pressure, the gas becomes increasingly difficult to ionize. The gas becomes difficult to ionize because there aren't enough molecules there to show ionization. But that's not the point. To nail this down, we need to find a plot of current density versus pressure, all of the way down to a vacuum. Searching... Anyway, thanks for the effort in helping to track this down. I'd like to know the answer to this, even if I'm wrong (yet again...).
'12-02-24, 11:26 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Here's a tutorial from Georgia State University: Microscopic View of Ohm's Law Carl Rod Nave wrote: The current density (electric current per unit area, J=I/A) can be expressed in terms of the free electron density as: The number of atoms per unit volume (and the number free electrons for atoms like copper that have one free electron per atom) is: From the standard form of Ohm's law and resistance in terms of resistivity: The next step is to relate the drift velocity to the electron speed, which can be approximated by the Fermi speed: The drift speed can be expressed in terms of the accelerating electric field E, the electron mass, and the characteristic time between collisions. The conductivity of the material can be expressed in terms of the Fermi speed and the mean free path of an electron in the metal. In other words, the raw speed of the electron is given just by the charge-to-mass ratio, while the net speed is the raw speed minus the time lost to collisions, which is a function of the mean free path. The net speed of the electrons times the number of electrons equals the current density. I conclude from this that a perfect vacuum, with an infinite mean free path, and therefore no time lost to collisions, means no resistance, and therefore, perfect conductivity. What am I missing?
'12-02-24, 13:44 Michael V	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient What am I missing? EVERYTHING
'12-02-24, 13:59 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient * Charles, I overlooked your earlier post before about the Sun's magnetic field. It sounds good off-hand. Thumbs up. Air as Electrical Insulator * Regarding my statement about air as an electrical insulator you had said: The fact that air is an insulator comes not from the amount of free space between the molecules, but rather, from the dielectric nature of nitrogen and oxygen. Even though air is a gas, the mean free path is measured in micrometers, and an electron trying to make its way through that maze is going to bounce off a lot of unreceptive molecules before finally getting where it wants to be. … [On] humid days, you'll never develop any static electricity. This is because water vapor is a better conductor than nitrogen or oxygen, and even though it only constitutes 1% of the air at 100% relative humidity, and therefore does not alter the amount of "free space" in the air between molecules, the resistance of the air goes down dramatically. * Bert later replied to that too: This is a popular misconception. Water vapor is a strong free-electron absorber - it actually makes moist air more difficult to break down than dry air. Both oxygen and water vapor are "electronegative" gases - they tend to "capture" free electrons during collisions, removing them from the avalanche breakdown process. Moist air removes electrons faster than dry air, so a slightly higher applied voltage is necessary to cause dielectric breakdown. - Humid air does tend to make the surfaces of dielectric materials more conductive by adding a thin layer of water molecules to the surface. The effectiveness of various electrostatic charging processes (rubbing, material separation) is reduced by the presence of this thin layer and, as a result, the potentials developed by these charging processes is reduced versus those done in dry air. Many antistatic surface treatments are merely wetting agents (such as dilute soap!) that facilitates the formation of a partially-conductive film of water on the dielectric surface. Vacuum as Insulator * Bert's previous link included the statement: "An electron tube, on the other hand, incorporates a vacuum in a physical space as the insulator." So, it seems to me that, if industry uses electron tubes because they are better insulators than other products, then vacuum must be an insulator. * Nonetheless, I think I understand your reasoning, since it may be fairly easy to make a vacuum conductive by adding ions to it. But maybe adding the ions isn't usually so easy. Resistivity of Vacuum * There's a discussion about resistivity of vacuum at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archi~, which may discuss some of your concerns. I'll quote a small part of it, though it may not answer your questions. - I don't think the resistivity will be infinite even in the absence of carriers, because beyond a certain field strength the vacuum itself will become a carrier: electron-positron pairs will be created out of the void and split apart, going in opposite directions and producing a net current. This phenomenon is a consequence of quantum electrodynamics. Looie496 (talk) 05:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC) - Looie, that which you talk about is called the dielectric strength. It's not the samething as resistivity. You are right. Vacuum's dielectric stregth is not infinite. A simple back of envelop calculation (Or better yet, a dimentional analysis) gives the vacuum dielectric strength E ~ (m^2c^3)/eh ~ 10^18V/m which is 9 to 10 orders of magnitude higher than the dielectric strength of any material. Dauto (talk) 17:57, 16 April 2009 (UTC) Mean Free Path Now you say: [T]he raw speed of the electron is given just by the charge-to-mass ratio, while the net speed is the raw speed minus the time lost to collisions, which is a function of the mean free path. The net speed of the electrons times the number of electrons equals the current density. I conclude from this that a perfect vacuum, with an infinite mean free path, and therefore no time lost to collisions, means no resistance, and therefore, perfect conductivity. What am I missing? * Don't the electric, magnetic and gravitational fields need to be considered in the calculation? At least it seems to me that they would be involved in determining if an electric current can flow or not. When you mention current density vs. pressure for vacuum, what kind of pressure do you mean there?
'12-02-24, 14:39 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Lloyd wrote: Don't the electric, magnetic and gravitational fields need to be considered in the calculation? Yes — all factors have to be taken into account to get a real estimate. Lloyd wrote: When you mention current density vs. pressure for vacuum, what kind of pressure do you mean there? By "pressure" I mean the pressure of the gas. Given the same electric field, as the pressure of the gas goes down, so does the density, and hence the electrical resistance. Therefore, the current density will increase.
'12-02-24, 17:30 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Sunspot Filaments * I really like this video linked from Michael M's site. It shows sunspot penumbra filaments flowing downward, I think: http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/images/dot_ar8704_20sep99~. Do you think those filaments are the same as the granules? They look to me like they're somewhat different phenomena. I don't see any granules turning into filaments at the boundary between the two, or vice-versa. * I just wanted to post this before I lose track of it.
'12-02-25, 01:49 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Lloyd wrote: Do you think those filaments are the same as the granules? They look to me like they're somewhat different phenomena. I don't see any granules turning into filaments at the boundary between the two, or vice-versa. The penumbral filaments are electric currents following the solenoidal magnetic lines of force of the sunspot, which dive back down into the photosphere. The solenoid itself can only be created by a rotating electric current. Since Doppler data don't show any appreciable rotation in the plasma itself, the rotation can only be the flow of electrons through the near-perfect conductivity of the superheated plasma. Hence the electrons rotate around the edge of the sunspot shaft as they ascend. At the photosphere, the solenoidal lines splay outward and then dive back down into the photosphere, and the rotating current gets split into filaments that follow the B-field lines. They generate their own magnetic fields as they go, and these have been detected, so there's no question that there is a current inside these filaments, and that it is electrons moving from the sunspot outward and back into the photosphere. The fact that the filaments and granules totally ignore each other proves that the granules are not in want of electrons, or they'd be the outer footpoints of the penumbral filaments. So the granules are neutrally charged thermal bubbles. I'm in the process of ratcheting up the specificity of my model of the convective zone in general, and of the photosphere in particular. Overall, my model has the core of the Sun positively charged, with the radiative zone being negative, and the convective zone being positive. There is no evidence against this model, and there are too many things that can only be explained by it (such as the extremely weak overall solar magnetic field, despite the excellent reasons for it being extremely powerful), so until/if/when any data surface to refute it, I'll continue to build on it. But I'm thinking that the convective zone is a bit more complicated. The lower half of the convective zone has a density greater than liquid hydrogen. This means that all of the hydrogen is compressed to the point that electrons are being expelled, meaning that it is positively charged. A thermal (or electrostatic) bubble rising up through the convective zone and crossing this threshold will gain the ability to get neutralized when the distance between atoms once again allows the presence of electrons. This might mean that there is a huge release of photons in the middle of the convective zone (that we will not see because it's too deep), but which will create an enormous amount of heat. That might be the heat that drives the convection in the granules. The size of the granules suggests that they do not originate in the tachocline as the standard model asserts, but rather, at a much shallower depth. So a distinct heat source in the middle of the convective zone is interesting. Anyway, as the bubbles continue to rise, they cool, and when the pressure drops off at the edge of the photosphere, they cool enough to allow electrons into stable orbits. This, of course, releases another batch of photons, which re-heat the plasma, and the electrons are re-released (as thermionic emissions). Then the nucleons in the granules furl back into the photosphere at supersonic speeds, against the steep pressure gradient, which can only be proof of powerful EM forces. So the plasma diving back down has to be positively charged, which means that there has to be a powerful negative charge underlying the photosphere. It's possible that midway in the convective zone, just above the liquid hydrogen altitude, there is a huge negative charge, attracted to the positive charge in the squashed liquid hydrogen deeper down. This might be the negative charge that attracts positive plasma from spent granules back into the convective zone at supersonic speeds. So my model now has 5 layers: positive core negative radiative zone positive lower half of the convective zone negative layer in the middle of the convective zone positive upper half of the convective zone Above the photosphere you might say that the chromosphere is populated by electrons from the thermionic emissions from the granules, but I'm not sure that this would be a "layer", as the chromosphere is extremely chaotic. My model of sunspots has them as conduits for the flow of electricity from deeper down, toward the positively charged plasma in or below the photosphere. Previously I was thinking that the source of the negative charge was the radiative zone, but now it seems possible that the negative charge could be coming from the middle of the convective zone, just above the liquid hydrogen layer. Regardless, as you noted, the penumbral filaments show no affinity for the granules. To put this all together, we might say that the rising granules are neutrally charged overall, but too hot for the electrons to latch onto the nucleons. In the photosphere, the plasma cools to the point that full neutralization can occur, but this re-heats the plasma, and the electrons are expelled. The electrons rising up through the sunspots will be repelled by the thermionic emissions of the granules, and attracted to the nucleons that are furling back into the convective zone. But most of all, the current in the penumbral filaments is organized and directed by the magnetic lines of force, so they will basically just pierce through the photosphere, while the granules do what they do for their own reasons. I'll update my site, and do new graphics to further explore this.
'12-02-25, 15:29 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient * I like your model, Charles, but I hope to hear from Mozina and Brant before long to see if they know of any modifications that need to be made to it. Mozina's site says the photosphere is neon, so I'm looking for what evidence he has for that. I don't remember Brant mentioning a neon layer, so I'd like to hear the details of both their evidence and others'.
'12-02-25, 16:46 GaryN	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient I'd mentioned neon before as part of my considering fluorescence and not incandescence for the Suns spectra, or some of it anyway. I think it was 25% neon in the photosphere. Strong in the yellow we associate with the Sun. And what are we detecting from the photosphere? Neon, which will go into glow mode if you look at it wrong, is a considerable component. Very pretty.
'12-02-26, 02:07 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient * Thanks, Gary, for the info on neon in the photosphere. Do you have a source that says the percentage of neon there and how that's determined? Wikipedia says: The Sun is composed primarily of the chemical elements hydrogen and helium; they account for 74.9% and 23.8% of the mass of the Sun in the photosphere, respectively.[77] All heavier elements, called metals in astronomy, account for less than 2% of the mass. The most abundant metals are oxygen (roughly 1% of the Sun's mass), carbon (0.3%), neon (0.2%), and iron (0.2%).[78] * That last part of that quote that says "1% of the Sun's mass" must mean "1% of the mass of the photosphere", since the whole paragraph is talking about "the mass of the Sun in the photosphere", according to the first sentence. * Charles, how much of the following is compatible with your model? I haven't found Mozina's source data yet, but here is kind of a summary of his conclusions. A lot of the section on sunspots sounds much like what you've said, except I don't think you mentioned the connection to the Sun's magnetic poles. Solar Surface and Atmosphere [1] http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/model.htm The Photosphere is a fluid neon plasma layer of penumbral filaments. This neon layer conducts heat to the surface and like a discharge lamp, emitting and adsorbing electrons. [2] http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/evidence.htm The Spitzer spacecraft provided images that suggest that the sun has layers of ferrite, calcium, silicon and neon. If no neon were present, the sun would not be visible to the naked eye. Neon keeps it from overheating and going nova, because [1] it acts as a cryogenic refrigerant which is the primary reason a solid surface can form beneath it. [1] Underneath the neon layer is a fluid layer of silicon which insulates the electrical arcs. The fluid silicon plasma OCEAN of the lower photosphere covers the entire ferrite surface of the sun much like the earth's oceans cover most of the earth. There is a crusty plasma layer of calcium underneath the transparent silicon, right along the ferrite surface. [2] Hydrogen is simply the last layer of many layers that cover the metallic sun. Hydrogen and helium are by-products of the electrical activity of the ferrite surface and are abundant only because of the calcium ferrite emissions that are seen in BBSO images. ESO found that the solar wind likely originates in coronal funnels that begin under the photosphere. We can see that the base of these funnels originate with the calcium ferrite interaction near the ferrite surface. The massive movement of ferrite particles within the calcium layer creates these tornado-like coronal funnels. [2] Sunspots Every 11 years, the magnetic poles of the sun move toward the equator and the electromagnetic flow at the equator becomes much stronger, more violent, and more energetic patterns emerge at the ferrite surface and heat up the silicon, which rises in a column, making gaping holes in the neon layer of the photosphere. This increased electrical activity is particularly strong when the magnetic poles lie SLIGHTLY north and south of the equator. This creates highly polarized, oppositely charged surface structures just north and south of the equator. From these magnetically polarized surfaces come HUGE rivers of energy flows which jump from one side of the equator, toward an oppositely charged structure on the other side of the equator. When the magnetic poles are nearly parallel to the equator many more sunspots appear in the photosphere. [1] This produces large electromagnetic flows and large amounts of heat, from eruptions at the ferrite surface, and the silicon plasma under the photosphere rises and pushes through the neon layer of penumbral filaments, forming the visible holes or sunspots in the photosphere. Once the ferrite crust cools down, the silicon plasma stops rising as fast, the neon layer closes the hole and the sunspot disappears.
'12-02-26, 07:07 Michael Mozina	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient CharlesChandler wrote: Lloyd wrote:See how smart I am by listening to all sides?Indeed, we should all take note that Lloyd has been simultaneously prodding along a number of discussions, on a variety of topics, and expending an enormous amount of labor trying to figure out what people are trying to say. Maybe he just selfishly thinks that he's going to learn something, but his inquisitiveness and patience with all of us is exemplary. My compliments. Indeed. One the hallmarks of the mainstream mentality is a strong egotistical desire to crush any and all "opposing ideas", much like the operation of a cult rather than a scientific organization in search of "truth". I think the EU/PC community has been a breath of fresh air in terms of entertaining multiple ideas, talking about their strengths and weaknesses openly and adopting a more scientific approach to figuring out the universe as a whole. I like that. How do "current carrying properties" result in an attractive force? The elements tend to conduct at slightly different rates and they tend to mass separate by the element in the presence of EM fields. The also mass separate in the presence of gravitational fields. The two forces act to create a "layered" system of elements IMO, with the lightest, hottest elements in the corona (hydrogen), helium in the chromosphere, neon in the photosphere, silicon under the neon. The surface itself is about 4800KM under the surface on the neon photosphere IMO. Most of the "atmosphere" is composed of silicon plasma IMO. The photosphere is relatively thin in comparison. What causes the hydrogen-alpha emissions from the photosphere, if it's made of neon? Halpha emissions are tricky IMO. They come from EVERY area of the solar atmosphere and many of them come from coronal loop activity near the surface. They also come from the every layer, as they move up and through the atmosphere toward the corona. IMO the hydrogen production is a byproduct of the HAlpha release taking place in coronal loops. The loops themselves are "Bennett Pinches" that literally pinch free neutron from the plasmas in the loop. Why silicon? Two primary reasons: First off, I personally started with the SERTS data when trying to figure out the solar atmosphere. I simply looked at the elements that were present in that data and I looked at some of the spectral properties of each of the elements as it relates to white light with impurities mixed into the layers. One thing that caught my eye immediately in terms of lighter elements was the presence of NEON in that spectral data. The odd thing was that there was very LITTLE in terms of emissions from neon in the lowest ionization states, but incredible amounts of emissions from the higher ionization states of neon. It was clear from the numbers that I should be "seeing" a lot of neon (and silicon) in the photosphere in order for there to be neon inside of coronal loops that might produce such high ionization states of those two elements. Silicon has VERY different spectral properties than as it relates to it's output in the white light spectrum, even when impurities are introduced. The sunspot activity shows a plasma movement up and through the surface of the photosphere, even while "ropes" form inside the sunspot. That's caused IMO by the HOT silicon plasma below rising up and through the photosphere. It's density prohibits it from going much into the chromosphere, but it's temperature does and will cause the silicon to rise, particularly when "tornadoes" form in the atmosphere (and they do). Lloyd wrote: First I'll address the density and elemental composition issues. You can go to Elementary Composition of the Sun if you want to see all of the calcs, but here's the summary. From the emission lines given off by the photosphere, we know that it is 74% hydrogen and 25% helium. The helioseismic data suggest that the entire convective zone is well-mixed, so we can guess that the whole convective zone has the same composition as the photosphere. First of all, that whole mainstream premise is based upon the ASSUMPTION that all the elements stay "mixed together" and never mass separate in any significant way, even in the presence of POWERFUL EM and POWERFUL gravitational fields. IMO that's the Achilles heal of mainstream theory. The spectral data also shows LARGE amounts HIGHLY IONIZED iron, that simply doesn't jive with a "simple black body" calculation. Ditto for Neon and Silicon and Nickel, etc. From helioseismic data we know that the density of the convective zone averages 7.63 x 1010 kg/km3. From that I calculated the mass of the convective zone, and subtracted it from the total mass of the Sun, to get the mass of everything below the convective zone (i.e., the core + the radiative zone). I then divided that by the volume to get the density, and it worked out to 3.96 x 1012 kg/km3, which is 52 times the density of the convective zone. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0510111 It's not quite that simple IMO. That same heliosiesmology data shows that there is a "stratification subsurface" sitting about about 4800KM under the photosphere. That is the number I have used in relationship to the location of the layer we observe in RD images. Something very interesting took place when NASA released it's first composite images of the sun. Not only did Birkeland's solar model pass that test, it passed that test with FLYING COLORS. The numbers I got from the SDO images are within 32KM of that same 4800KM number I got from Kosovichev's data. Check out that SDO image carefully. They took an iron line composite image and added the chromosphere 304A image. From that they SUBTRACTED out disk of the photosphere. The SINGLE MOST KEY prediction difference between Birkeland's model and the "standard theory" is demonstrated CLEARLY in that image. Instead of the coronal loops starting in the BASE OF THE CHROMOSPHERE or the "transition region", they instead start *UNDER THE PHOTOSPHERE* as Ratcliffe, Kamat, Manuel and myself suggested. That is a KEY prediction between our model and their model. http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/blog.htm http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/all:+mozina/0/1/0/all/0/1 Michael Mozina wrote: I believe the surface is located 4800KM +- 1200KM under the surface of the photosphere, based on Kosovichev's heliosiesmology data, and the first SDO composite images released by NASA. They both arrive at identical numbers. That just can't be a coincidence IMO. Can you elaborate on this? One of the very first questions I was asked (by everyone) was where the "surface" seen in RD images was located in relationship to the photosphere. That naturally lead me to check out the heliosiesmology data and led me to Kosovichev's work and that video you'll find on my website too by the way. That work suggests that mass flows around sunspots were going horizontal at around 4800KM. That's the number I used for YEARS prior to the release of that SDO image you'll find on the blog page of my website and on NASA's website. In order for me to "see" a surface in RD images two things must be true. The (neon) photosphere has to be highly ionized and the base of the coronal loops has to begin UNDER the photosphere. There was already a TRACE/Yokoh image (also on my website) that showed that effect in terms of x-ray absorption properties, but not single instrument in space could show the relationship to the surface of the photosphere and in a single image UNTIL SDO. That composite image says VOLUMES IMO. It's more or less a programmed image that was setup to show the location of the "transition region" in relationship to the chromosphere in perfect detail. What LMSAL expected to see is the based of the loops started INSIDE THE CHROMOSPHERE, or slightly above the chromosphere in the lower corona. Instead it shows that the bases of the loops start UNDER the photosphere. That's why you can see a green ring between the edge of the sun in the iron line composite image (blue,yellow mixture) and the BASE OF THE CHROMOSPHERE. This image did NOT match what LMSAL predicted, but it DOES match Birkeland's model and Kosovichev's predictions to within 32KM if you sit and count the pixels as I have done. That is NOT a coincidence. Michael Mozina wrote: Who is Manuel? Can you provide links to his works? http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space ... index.html http://www.omatumr.com/ http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/all:+mozina/0/1/0/all/0/1 Why do you think that there is a crust? The behaviors of RD images show a LONGEVITY of structure, and pole to pole rotation pattern that is completely UNLIKE the behaviors of the structures of the photosphere. The gold RD image on my website is IMO still one of the best images of a flare process as seen in an RD image. RD and even Doppler images show features that simply don't jive with a "light plasma" behavior. It also would explain the behaviors of active regions. As the volcanic activity spews non ionized materials into the atmosphere, they are immediately ionized by the currents in the atmosphere and form current carrying threads into and through that region. What is the "iron line RD"? Ooops. Sorry for the "lingo". The RD stands for "running difference". Many of the wavelengths that SOHO, STEREO and now SDO can image are most sensitive to emissions from ion ions, specially the higher ionization states like FeIX and FeX. To create an iron line RD image, you take a standard image and subtract an earlier image (say 30 minutes ago) to see what is "different" between them. It ends up working a bit like a poor man's doppler image in this case as photons emitted in the loops bounce off "rigid/persistent features" that last for hours, days, and weeks, even during FLARE events like that gold RD image demonstrates. Michael Mozina wrote: The last time I estimated the average density for Nereid, even with a SMALL neutron core ended up being close to water as I recall. I think there's still the spreadsheet.jpg on the website somewhere. Can you locate those calcs?
'12-02-26, 09:45 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Michael M, 1. This is fun! 2. Thanks so much for the detailed response. 3. It's going to take me a little while to fully process it, as I like to inspect every piece. Usually I learn something when I do, and make mistakes if I don't. And I also want to prepare responses to Lloyd's comments and questions. 4. While I'm working on that, I had one quick question. You're saying that coronal loops are electric arcs. Yet the magnetic fields associated with sunspots are solenoids, and sunspot pairs are solenoids with reversed polarities. It's certainly possible to get field-aligned currents in solenoidal fields, but the more interesting question is what was the more powerful force that generated the solenoids. This requires a rotating current. So the prime mover between sunspot pairs is not opposite electric polarities causing an arc discharge between them, but rotating currents in and below the photosphere that generate solenoidal fields. Are you explicitly addressing that somewhere? 5. One more thing: you say somewhere that silicon is rising up in sunspots, is that correct? My understanding is that the Doppler data show an updraft, while the helioseismic data show a downdraft. I didn't know what to make of the dichotomy there. Are you basing your assertion on the Doppler data? Do you have a dismissal for the helioseismic data? A lot of us are questioning the reliability of helioseismology, especially since what is presented to the public is "modeled" results, not the straight facts. Anyway, the reason why I ask is that my model has an upward current in the sunspots, but does not assign any significance to any movement of the nucleons, so I wanted to know if I need to revisit this. Cheers!