Thunderbolts Forum

'12-03-19, 18:28 upriver	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient My question to you Charles is how do you explain white light flares? Opacity curves that I have run at the TOPS site indicate photosphere plasma should be semi to transparent to white light flares and appears to be. White light flares are under the photosphere. Whats mechanism supports these brightest of solar surface flares? I believe its a discharge directly from a metal surface. An arc if you will... I made this composite showing how the white light flares are underneath the photosphere... http://www.box.com/shared/833e2lbx10 This was also noticed in the original TRACE calibration paper. CALIBRATED HI LYMAN OBSERVATIONS WITH TRACE Abstract. Since shortly after launch in April 1998, the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) observatory has amassed a collection of H I L (1216 Å) observations of the Sun that have been not only of high spatial and temporal resolution, but also span a duration in time never before achieved. The L images produced by TRACE are, however, composed of not only the desired line emission, but also local ultraviolet continuum and longer wavelength contamination. This contamination has frustrated attempts to interpret TRACE observations in H I L. The Very Advanced Ultraviolet Telescope (VAULT) sounding rocket payload was launched from White Sands Missile range 7 May 1999 at 20:00 UT. The VAULT telescope for this flight was a dedicated H I L imaging spectroheliograph. We use TRACE observations in the 1216 Å and 1600 Å channels along with observations from the VAULT flight to develop a method for removing UV continuum and longer wavelength contamination from TRACE L images. wwwsolar.nrl.navy.mil/rockets/vault/pubs/trace.pdf Thermionic emission can only happen from a metal surface? Is this true??
'12-03-21, 23:25 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Lloyd wrote: When the supergranule rises up through the negative red band, i.e. the Expelled Electrons band, in the middle of the Conductive Zone, would that change the width of the supergranule to the size of granules on the surface? There were some things that were bugging me about the model of granules and supergranules, so I took a much closer look, and did a bunch more work. Mainly it bugged me to just be vaguely saying that there is some mystical sort of energy radiating out of the Radiative Zone (because radiative zones are good like that), after acknowledging that nuclear fusion in the core is not likely, and the core might actually be very cold, if not frozen rock solid. So it was time to nail down the energy source. In my last post, I said, Charles wrote: Now we merely have to consider what would happen if the Sun was losing mass due to ejection of particles in the solar wind. With the loss of mass, the gravitational force is diminished, which reduces the compression, and therefore the charge separation. This allows opposite charges to recombine, with the resultant production of heat and light. The heat helps accelerate particles away in the solar wind, continuing the mass loss, which perpetuates the energy conversion, from electrostatic potential to heat and light. So the potential energy in the Sun is charge separation, and the energy release is charge recombination. But how, exactly, is the energy released, and how does that account for the observed characteristics in the photosphere? I have said previously that when a supergranule reaches the photosphere, the extreme pressure drop-off allows the plasma to cool, enabling electron update, which releases the energy of charge recombination. This is responsible for the light and heat that is radiated away from the Sun. So power output of the Sun is due to charge recombination at the edge. But I also (correctly) acknowledged that without supergranules, the charge recombination in the photosphere would fizzle out. So the prime mover in photospheric release is the supergranules. What then causes the supergranules? If there isn't any fusion in the core, there's nothing to radiate, and no reason for supergranules. There is plenty of potential energy stored in the form of compressive ionization in my model. I said above that mass loss would allow recombination, releasing the potential. But why would the energy release cause supergranules? To find an answer, I applied the "can't not happen" criterion. You don't get steady-state energy release from something that "might" happen, or that "can" happen, or that does happen every so often. It has to be a continuous process. So what is going on continuously inside the Sun, that could result in charge recombination? One given is that there are p-waves traveling constantly through the Sun. We can also expect s-waves at all of the liquid-plasma boundaries. In the following image, the first panel shows the charge structure of the convective zone. The second panel shows s-waves at the liquid density threshold. Charge Separations The significance of the s-waves is that the crests will elevate liquid above the liquid line. This means that hydrogen compressed into a liquid, and ionized by the pressure, gets hoisted up to an altitude where it thins out, and then there is enough room between the atoms to allow electrons back in. In other words, charge recombination becomes possible. In the following image, the first panel shows the crest of a wave turned orange, to denote the arcing that will be going on. The second panel shows a bubble forming due to the heat that is generated. Waves & Bubbles In the next image, the first panel shows the bubble continuing to rise. The second panel shows what happens at the photosphere. Supergranules & Granules I've already presented the proposed dynamics in the photospheric granules. The only thing that I'd like to add, to answer one of your questions, is that there is nothing holding the supergranule down. It rises slowly (~.4 km/s), but at the photosphere, anything that gets into the steep pressure gradient rises far more quickly. So little granular bubbles start popping off the top of the supergranule. The image only shows one, but the photosphere is nothing but granules, so these bubbles compete for the opportunity to burst to the top, with re-ionized plasma diving back down between them, to get de-ionized by electrons in the supergranule. Turbulence on top of the supergranule is what breaks the big bubble (~20,000 km^2) into a bunch of small ones (~1,000 km^2). So then I considered the broader implications of s-waves at the liquid line being the energy release mechanism, and I found something interesting. Whatever release mechanism you propose, it has to be a self-regulating one, because one of the really distinctive characteristics of the Sun is that the output is incredibly consistent. When I first considered how the waves would create bubbles, I thought that the expanding bubble would start pushing down, which would accentuate the next trough. So the energy release should strengthen the waves, and that would tend to create a runaway energy release. But then I realized that bigger waves have longer wavelengths, and the implication of that, within the context of the spherical geometry of the Sun, is that shifting to a longer wavelength pushes the wave out of its resonance frequency. So when the crest of a wave gets de-ionized, and the explosive release of heat pushes the trough down, accentuating the wave, the wave is then subjected to destructive interference because it is outside of its resonance frequency, and the wave is attenuated. Hence the resonance frequency of s-waves at the liquid lines are self-regulating. This might also explain the Sun's 11-year cycle. Overlapping positive and negative feedback loops typically fall into oscillatory patterns. The positive feedback tries to create a runaway reaction, but in so doing, it triggers the attenuation mechanism, so the reaction subsides. So the wave crests causing arc discharges (that create bubbles that accentuate the waves) also brings destructive interference into play. I'm not saying that this balance of positive and negative feedback would have to create this 11-year cycle. I'm just saying that the 11-year cycle has always been problematic, for the fusion, electromagnetic, and thermodynamic models, and that cyclic output is expected in any system that has both positive and negative feedback. In fact, this might help explain another type of star that has a shorter cycle: the Cepheid variables. These are yellow giants (where the yellow color is suggestive of arc discharges as in the Sun's photosphere) which oscillate over a period of days to months. No existing physical model could produce oscillations in that period. With waves traveling around the star in a matter of minutes to hours, oscillations over a period of days to months due to s-waves subjected to both constructive and destructive interference could easily resolve into such cycles. That doesn't prove it, but it's a possibility, and to my knowledge, it's the only physical model that is. Lloyd wrote: You show de-ionization at the top of the photosphere. I assume that's due to attraction of electrons from the chromosphere. Actually, I'm thinking that the supergranule is more or less neutrally charged, having started as a bubble of positive liquid that splashed up into the negative layer, and got de-ionized there. But due to its heat, the electrons aren't sticking to the nucleons. So I'm saying that the supergranule is partially de-ionized, but the plasma doesn't get fully de-ionized until it reaches the photosphere, and the expansion allows it to cool, and hence the nucleons can hold onto electrons. This, of course, releases a new batch of heat. So the nucleons don't hold onto the electrons for long. Lloyd wrote: You show the electric force pulling the remaining ions down, but it looks like they're attracted toward the supergranule, when I think you mean for them to be attracted down to the Expelled Electron band in the middle of the Convective Zone. I think that I was "saying" that they were attracted to the Expulsion Layer in the middle of the Convective Zone, but I drew it as if they are attracted to the supergranule, and the more I think about it, the more I believe that they're attracted to the supergranule. Lloyd wrote: Have you calculated the difference in density and what the force of attraction is both upward and downward from the tops of granules? Not yet. I like to do plenty of sanity checking before bothering with calculations. But I "think" that we're getting this thing chased into a corner. I'm just not sure what data we have to constrain the calcs. I thought a little bit about the speeds and volumes of granules. It "seems" that a granule is roughly 1,000 km wide, with subduction zone about 200 km wide between granules. So we might say that an inner radius of 400 km is coming up, and then there is a 100 km ring around the outside going back down. The area of that downward outer ring would then be roughly half the area of the upward inner portion. But if the difference is all lost to the solar wind, my rough calcs came up about 12 orders of magnitude too high. So something is seriously wrong with this approach. I think that the casual inference that the inner radius of 400 km is coming up and the outer 100 km ring is going down is just not good enough. Perhaps there is helioseismic data on just what is going up and what is going down. With that, we could match up granular dynamics with the solar wind with more confidence. Speaking of the solar wind, the piece that I haven't started working on yet is coronal holes. The granules seem to be pretty consistent across the photosphere. But the volume of the solar wind seems to change dramatically, depending on conditions in the corona. So what's that about? Lloyd wrote: Brant has said that neutral matter constantly enters the heliosphere and goes into the Sun, if I remember right. So, if that's the case, the Sun may be losing less mass than it seems, or may be keeping the same mass, or may be gaining. He and Mathis also say the Sun is receiving aether or photons from the galaxy which are transforming into electrons, which may also be causing an increase in mass. How would that affect your model? My model just sorta says vaguely that extreme temperatures in the photosphere will accelerate particles (nucleons & electrons) outward, hence identifying the source of the solar wind. I'm also convinced that there is mass loss. That's as far as I've gotten. Lloyd wrote: You said: a thermometer stuck into the Sun would show that the interior was extremely cold. Would it be hotter than the top of the photosphere? And didn't you say the bottom of the photosphere would be 1000 degrees cooler than the top? I'm saying that the core should be absolute zero. The liquid hydrogen/helium layer should be cooler than its surroundings, but supergranules should be hotter than their surroundings. I think I said somewhere that the plasma in the photosphere that gets to radiate its heat cools from 6000 K down to 5000 K, but that it's still hotter than the 4000 K below. But I'm not sure where I got those numbers. The "4000 K" number for the plasma below the photosphere is typically inferred from the temperature of sunspots, assuming that they're holes in the photosphere that give us a glimpse of the underlying temperatures. But I question this, as I think that the EM structure of sunspots artificially limits the degrees of freedom of the plasma, thereby reducing the temperature. I'd like to research this some more, as I haven't found the firm foundation yet. Lloyd wrote: Wikipedia gives these figures for the density of the photosphere... In the Dalsgaard density model, 2.0 x 10^-4 kg/m^3 corresponds to 1.000 SR 4.0 x 10^-4 kg/m^3 corresponds to .9996 SR, or just 261 km below the surface (is this Skylab data?) 1.2 x 10^-1 kg/m^3 corresponds to .9931 SR, or 4800 km below the edge of the photosphere But those are Dalsgaard's numbers, which are part of the fusion furnace model. I like Michael M.'s estimate for the depth of the photosphere (4800 km), because that means that the granules, beginning at the bottom of the photosphere, are 5 times deeper than they are wide, which seems intuitively accessible. He cites the sharp increase in limb darkening at 4800 km, while implies that almost all of the density drop-off occurs at the bottom of the photosphere. So the photosphere is like a bunch of flames on top of a much denser fuel source, and within the flames, there isn't an appreciable density difference throughout. The Dalsgaard model doesn't have this aspect, so it does a graceful turn-down at about .97 SR. Chromium6 wrote: This Solar Loops and (filaments) article by Körtvélyessy is also relevant. I don't find the "thermoelement" model to be convincing. It assumes 15 MK in the core, and then says that this will produce 2 kV. That may be true, but it assumes a lot. What produces the 15 MK in the core? And what's he going to do with 2 kV? Thunderstorms on Earth can generate 100 MV. And while there might be a voltage there, how is he going to get any current? If you cool the core, electrons will flow back in. But as long as it stays at 15 MK, it's not going to allow any electrons back in. So that's a resting voltage that isn't going to do any work. upriver wrote: How do you explain white light flares? Opacity curves that I have run at the TOPS site indicate photosphere plasma should be semi to transparent to white light flares and appears to be. White light flares are under the photosphere. What mechanism supports these brightest of solar surface flares? I believe its a discharge directly from a metal surface. An arc if you will... I totally agree that these are arc discharges, but you don't need a solid surface to get an arc. 4000+ K hydrogen plasma will work just fine. But you need a charge separation mechanism, and you need dielectric breakdown. I think that the charge separation mechanism is ionization by compression, where the liquid hydrogen and helium have been ionized by extreme pressure, in the middle of the convective zone. Above the liquid line, there will be a stable accumulation of negative charge, attracted to the positive ions below the liquid line. This negative layer will then ionize the layer above it, making it positive. This won't produce arcs. But in electrostatic layers like this, there are huge voltages involved. If you stuck one end of a wire into the negative layer, and the other into the top of the outermost positive layer, you'd get a heckuva spark. The outer positive charge is repelled by the positive charges below it, and shielded from the negative charges below that. These layers are stable, but if something disturbs them, all hell could break loose. IMO, a little bit of turbulence in the convective zone enables the flow of current, which gets organized into a sunspot, which forms a conduit for the flow of electrons from the negative layer up to the top of the positive layer. This could be a steady-state affair, with the current flowing up through the sunspot, and out through the penumbral filaments into the top of the convective zone. But just before a flare, there is often a "sudden disappearance" of the coronal loops, meaning that the current stopped flowing, and stopped generating the magnetic fields forming the loops. Then ba-boom! I think that the current stopped flowing through the lighter plasma at the top of the convective zone, and started flowing into denser plasma deeper down. When the current achieved dielectric breakdown, an arc discharge occurred. Because it occurred below the photosphere, where the plasma is more dense, the heat generated by the arc had an explosive effect. Only in this way could the overlying plasma be ejected in a CME. After the flare, we see the coronal loops come back even stronger. This is because the superheated discharge channel invites a new surge of current (like a secondary stroke in lightning), which generates much more powerful magnetic fields. So the "magnetic reconnection" theory is fully busted, because it can't explain why the most powerful magnetic fields are present after the flare, which supposedly released all of the pent-up magnetic energy. The only way to get the magnetic fields that are observed is with electric currents, where the flare is an arc discharge, and where the flare invites more current that generates new magnetic fields. upriver wrote: I made this composite showing how the white light flares are underneath the photosphere... I don't really know what I'm looking at here. Are you calling attention to what looks like a streamer of some kind shooting out? upriver wrote: Thermionic emission can only happen from a metal surface? I thought that it can happen from anything that has electrons, and that gets too hot to hold onto them.
'12-03-24, 11:11 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient * Charles, the s-waves sound reasonable offhand. So does the self-regulating feedback loop you envision. You said: "the more I think about it, the more I believe that [the ions in the tops of Granules are] attracted to the supergranule." But why would the positive ions from the Photosphere be attracted to the positive or neutral Supergranule? CC Solar Convection Model * Here is your model. * You have 4 oppositely charged layers of the Sun that you're focusing on. The top layer you call the Upper Convective Zone of Hydrogen Plasma, which I think is the Photosphere. Below that is a layer of Expelled Electrons. Then the Lower Convective Zone of Liquid Hydrogen and below that the Radiative Zone of negatively charged Iron etc. * You previously had the charge layers rotating at a high enough velocity that their opposing magnetic fields would prevent them from de-ionizing. Does that still hold? Otherwise, what keeps the Expelled Electrons layer from neutralizing the bottom of the Hydrogen Plasma layer (= Photosphere)? Isn't that what the ions would be attracted to, rather than the Supergranules? And wouldn't the Expelled Electrons be getting constantly replenished by the hydrogen that comes back down from the Granule tops and gets too compressed at those lower depths (5,000 km) to retain their electrons? * That Hydrogen Plasma layer is a 5,000 km deep cauldron of successive bubbles (granules) of hydrogen, helium and 1% other ions bubbling up at 2 km/s and whooshing down at 5 km/s. There would be nothing sitting still in there. * Have you estimated roughtly how thick the Expelled Electrons layer might be below that Hydrogen Plasma? How compressed can electrons get under the weight of 5,000 km of Hydrogen Plasma? It seems like there should be something more substantial than electrons to form such a negative layer, like something similar to the Iron layer of the Radiation Zone. Here are Brant's images. * I added the blue, green and read lines to mark the apparent layer boundaries. I suppose one of them is the top of the Photosphere. If the red one is the top, then what Brant marked as presumably a white-light flare would be coming from within or below the Photosphere. Hopefully, he will let us know what he means here. * This is a similar image.
'12-03-24, 20:37 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Lloyd wrote: Why would the positive ions from the Photosphere be attracted to the positive or neutral Supergranule? The supergranule would be negative or neutral. Either way, the positive ions would be attracted to it. The more powerful negative charge is still in the "expulsion zone" midway down into the convective zone. Lloyd wrote: The top layer you call the Upper Convective Zone of Hydrogen Plasma, which I think is the Photosphere. Actually, the negatively charged "expulsion zone" is midway through the convective zone. Since the convective zone is 200,000 km deep, the expulsion zone is at the 100,000 km mark (just above the liquid hydrogen line). So the granules in the photosphere are 100,000 km away from the expulsion zone. Lloyd wrote: You previously had the charge layers rotating at a high enough velocity that their opposing magnetic fields would prevent them from de-ionizing. Does that still hold? I'm shying away from that now. I changed the write-up on my site to reflect the theoretical shift. I still like the natural tokamak construct for its ability to accomplish an initial compression of matter. So it's important in the transition from a collapsing dust cloud to a proto-star. But I don't think that a natural tokamak could complete the process on its own. With equatorial velocities in the range of 2 km/s, the magnetic fields will not be strong enough to accomplish the kind of consolidation that we see in the Sun. So I'm thinking that the natural tokamak helps get a bunch of matter together, and can compress the matter more than gravity could have. But when the force of gravity becomes great enough to ionize the core, then you get electrostatic layering that pulls things together much more forcefully. In short, I think that electrodynamics helps with the initial aggregation, but the final compression that actually produces a mature star is due to gravitational and electrostatic forces. Lloyd wrote: What keeps the Expelled Electrons layer from neutralizing the bottom of the Hydrogen Plasma layer (= Photosphere)? Isn't that what the ions would be attracted to, rather than the Supergranules? And wouldn't the Expelled Electrons be getting constantly replenished by the hydrogen that comes back down from the Granule tops and gets too compressed at those lower depths (5,000 km) to retain their electrons? The hydrogen below the liquid line is ionized by compression. The expelled electrons will congregate above the liquid line, attracted to the positive ions below, but not able to flow downward to neutralize the charge, because of the density. Electrons can only exist as free particles, or in specific shells around nucleons. If the nucleons have been pressed too close together, the electron shells fail, and the electrons are expelled. So there might be a huge voltage there, between the positive ions and the free electrons, and no apparent insulator keeping them separate, so you'd think that they'd recombine, but the density won't allow it. Once there are two charged layers (the positive ions that got compressed, and the electrons that got forced out), a third layer of positive charge can form on top of the negative charge. This will be attracted to the negative charge in the expulsion zone, but repelled by the positive charge below it. So it can get close to the expulsion, but only so close. At some point, the positive ions achieve an equilibrium, where the attraction to the negative charges and the repulsion from the positive charges balances out. So again, there might be a huge voltage between the expulsion zone and the overlying positive double-layer. But under the circumstances, there won't be any drift. And the negative charges in the expulsion zone will be stable, as they are attracted to positive ions below and above them, but with no net force. I know it's confusing, but that's the way electrostatic layering works. I learned about all of this stuff studying supercell thunderstorms, where "screening layers" (as they're called in geophysics) get established. For example, the top of a thunderstorm is positively charged. As a consequence, a layer of negative charges builds up in the stratosphere above it. If the potentials in the anvil get discharged by an anvil-to-ground lightning strike, it leaves the negative layer with nothing to keep pulling down on it. Then the net force is upward, toward the positively charged ionosphere, and a secondary discharge occurs, involving the negative charges returning upward toward the ionosphere. This is known as a blue jet. Lloyd wrote: Have you estimated roughly how thick the Expelled Electrons layer might be below that Hydrogen Plasma? How compressed can electrons get under the weight of 5,000 km of Hydrogen Plasma? I don't know how to estimate the thickness of the Expulsion Zone. The stronger the charge in the liquid hydrogen layer, the more compact the Expulsion Zone would be, limited only be internal repulsion of like charges in its own layer. Lloyd wrote: It seems like there should be something more substantial than electrons to form such a negative layer, like something similar to the Iron layer of the Radiation Zone. The Expulsion Zone wouldn't be pure electrons — it would be plasma with an excess of electrons. So every hydrogen atom would be neutral, because it would have grabbed one of the free electrons. Then there would be a bunch more free electrons floating around inbetween the hydrogen atoms. Hence the density of the plasma would be more or less whatever the hydrostatic pressure dictates, and then there would also be free electrons in the ample space between the atoms.
'12-03-26, 03:08 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Lloyd wrote: Why would the positive ions from the Photosphere be attracted to the positive or neutral Supergranule? Charles replied: The supergranule would be negative or neutral. Either way, the positive ions would be attracted to it. The more powerful negative charge is still in the "expulsion zone" midway down into the convective zone. * The supergranule forms in the bottom of the positive convective zone, then floats up through the middle Electrons Expulsion layer and gets neutralized or negatively charged? * As big as the supergranules are, it seems that the Electrons Expulsion layer might not exist, because a constant upward movement of supergranules might absorb all the electrons expelled from the compressed hydrogen. Why wouldn't the entire hydrogen plasma layer below the photosphere be negative supergranules or a whole negative layer? * The supergranules start out as liquid hydrogen just above the radiation zone, then cross the liquid/plasma boundary and become plasma? Why wouldn't the supergranules form above the hydrogen liquid/plasma boundary, with the heat coming up from the radiation zone through the liquid hydrogen layer? * So my main point is that it seems that the 100,000 km thick hydrogen plasma layer under the photosphere could be negative, while the 5,000 km thick photosphere remains positive, and the ions from the photosphere are then attracted back to the negative hydrogen plasma layer below after dissipating heat and charge.
'12-03-26, 16:28 Reality Check	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Hi CharlesChandler, I noticed that Michael Mozina has posted in this thread about his idea on seeing 4800 km below the photosphere in SDO images. I should point out that this is physically impossible. The photosphere is the region of the Sun where light escapes. By definition you cannot see below it because that would still be the photosphere! The actual numbers are that less than 1 photon a year leaves the Sun from a depth of 3000 km. In addition the SDO image that he usually talks about is a public relations image that was processed to look pretty. That introduced an artifact (a partial green line) that Michael Mozina imagines to be the transition region that is actual actually above the photosphere. The team that processed the image confirmed that it was a processing artifact. I can link to the JREF posts that pointed out this if you are interested.
'12-03-27, 03:05 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient * RC, did you see this SDO image of the Sun? http://scs-inc.us/Other/QuickDisclosure/2ndParty/Images/Cha~ * "Limb darkening" in this image occurs nearly 5,000 km below the photosphere. Brant said THEMIS viewed the Sun via IR and UV light, at least some of the time, and some of those frequencies penetrated the photosphere. Apparently, SDO and others have also used such frequencies, at least some of the time.
'12-03-27, 10:39 Reality Check	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Lloyd wrote: * RC, did you see this SDO image of the Sun? http://scs-inc.us/Other/QuickDisclosure/2ndParty/Images/Cha~ * "Limb darkening" in this image occurs nearly 5,000 km below the photosphere. Brant said THEMIS viewed the Sun via IR and UV light, at least some of the time, and some of those frequencies penetrated the photosphere. Apparently, SDO and others have also used such frequencies, at least some of the time. Yes - that is the SDO publicity relations image that Michael Mozina has been touting. The SDO team stated two years ago that "green line" in the image is a processing artifact: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=5895794#post5~. It is not limb darkening. Brant would be wrong to state that any light "penetrated the photosphere" as in got through the photosphere because that it impossible by definition. If you look at the physics then you get less than 1 photon per year from 3000 km below the surface of the Sun (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=5861174#post5~). A good paper on using limb darkening to look deep into the photosphere is "How deep can we see into the Sun?" (1989), Thomas R. Ayres. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1989SoPh..124...15A
'12-03-27, 13:43 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient * RC, quoting the Randi forum isn't impressive by itself. You need to quote there what is so impressive to you, if you want to impress folks here. * As for the paper you mention, feel free to quote relevant parts of it too. I'm inclined to accept Brant's authority over that of conventional scientists, because he works directly with spectroscopy, sonoluminescence etc and he's knowledgeable about aetherometry, which does a lot of experimentation as well, according to him and quotes I've read. * Your participation in this discussion may be helpful for improving Charles' theory. Have you read the papers on his website? And have you read Miles Mathis' site?
'12-03-28, 10:14 Reality Check	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Lloyd wrote: * RC, quoting the Randi forum isn't impressive by itself. You need to quote there what is so impressive to you, if you want to impress folks here. Lloyd, I am not here to impress folks here. The JREF forum science section just happens to have a number of knowlegable posters who have addrressed the physics of the photosphere before. If you want I can post the entire argument but the gist is: the opacity of the solar plasma means that a source of light is blocked by a factor of about 1/e per 50 kilometers of plasma (this depends on the wavelength). But the stupidity of trying to analyze a PR image should be obvious to anyone. Lloyd wrote: * As for the paper you mention, feel free to quote relevant parts of it too. I'm inclined to accept Brant's authority over that of conventional scientists, because he works directly with spectroscopy... In that case, I hope that it is not Brant who is advocating that light can escape from 4800 km under the surface of the Sun. He should know that the opacity of the solar plasma means that any light source is partially blocked (opacity) and that the blocking is cumulative, i.e. that 1/e above is for each 50 km and roughly (0.37)^96 for a light source 4800 km below the surface of the Sun. This is a factor of about 10^-42!The JREF calculation is that a light source the intensity of the Sun at 3000 km below the surface of the Sun would emit one photon per 4 years from the surface. I suspect that Brant just quoted Michael Mozina without thinking critically about what was said.
'12-03-28, 13:26 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient * RC, do you consider insulting people to be scientific? Why is it stupid to analyze a PR image? Does PR mean press release? Do scientists typically use their worst images for PRs? How can one determine if the scientists were correct who claimed that the limb darkening in the image is an artifact of image processing, if one doesn't analyze it? Is it proper science to always take conventional scientists at their word and not examine what they say or do closely? * I read through part of one of the Randi forum links you posted and I mostly saw insulting going on, so I gave up looking for rational discussion there. * I'm not at all convinced that the photosphere is opaque, because the THEMIS running difference images showed features somewhere on the Sun that appear to remain intact for days or longer. And it's hard to imagine any fairly high-resolution feature image in or above the photosphere remaining intact that long. So I believe Michael and Brant are probably right in concluding that the features are below the photosphere, rather than above it. * You can argue all you like about the photosphere being totally opaque to all EM radiation, but, until those THEMIS images, and probably SDO images as well by now, are proved to be features above the photosphere, I'm VERY STRONGLY inclined to suppose that they're features on the Sun's surface below the photosphere. Brant actually has stated that the surface is about 2,000 km below the top of the photosphere, but I don't know how he estimated that offhand. Anyway, I suspect that nothing can trump those THEMIS running difference images.
'12-03-28, 17:39 Goldminer	Re: Reality Check for Reality Check! Reality Check wrote: Lloyd wrote:* It is not limb darkening. Brant would be wrong to state that any light "penetrated the photosphere" as in got through the photosphere because that it impossible by definition. If you look at the physics then you get less than 1 photon per year from 3000 km below the surface of the Sun (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=5861174#post5~). Reality Check for Reality Check! 1. Any time one presents a supposed argument such as "because that it impossible by definition," the skeptical mind immediately goes critical! Nature, otherwise known as reality, does what she does; Nature does what she does regardless of the semantics of some dead brained "observer!" "Because that it impossible by definition" can only logically refer to the meaning of some word or words in a sentence. It can never be an argument for or against what nature can or cannot do! Even Red Necks and Pollacks understand that! 2. "If you look at the physics then you get less than 1 photon per year from 3000 km below the surface of the Sun." Who is kidding whom with this one? Some how some earth or satellite bound equipment can measure "one photon?" "per year?" Um . . . over how much area? Like the earth, or some satellite is going to wait around for a year in one spot to see "one photon" arrive from somewhere on the Sun? Like that particular "photon," arriving from below the photosphere, is going to be purple, just to distinguish it from all the other "photons" coming from the Sun? If you aren't drinking the Koolaid, your Popsicles are full of it!
'12-03-30, 00:25 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Lloyd wrote: The supergranule forms in the bottom of the positive convective zone, then floats up through the middle Electrons Expulsion layer and gets neutralized or negatively charged? I'm currently of the opinion that the supergranule forms in the middle of the convective zone, due to s-waves in the surface of the liquid hydrogen we can expect at that level. Lloyd wrote: Why wouldn't the supergranules form [...] with the heat coming up from the radiation zone through the liquid hydrogen layer? That assumes that the radiative zone is radiating. It's called the "radiative zone" because in the fusion furnace model, the heat source is the core, and then all of that heat radiates outward. But what if there is no fusion furnace? Then the radiative zone isn't radiating anything. This is why I went looking for other possible heat sources to drive the supergranules, and eventually settled on s-waves at the liquid line. Lloyd wrote: So my main point is that it seems that the 100,000 km thick hydrogen plasma layer under the photosphere could be negative, while the 5,000 km thick photosphere remains positive, and the ions from the photosphere are then attracted back to the negative hydrogen plasma layer below after dissipating heat and charge. The more I think about this, the more I like it. So the bottom half of the convective zone would be positive liquid hydrogen (and helium), which is ionized by compression, while the top half would be negative plasma, which bears the electrons expelled from the liquids. At the photospheric density drop-off, the plasma cools, allowing electron uptake, which releases photons, and heat. The heat results in thermionic emissions, shooting electrons off into the chromosphere, and leaving the plasma positively charged. As such, the plasma is pulled back into the convective zone, attracted to the negative charges there. That sounds reasonable. I'll think about it some more, and then I'll update the images and text on my site to incorporate this. Thanks! Reality Check wrote: The SDO team stated two years ago that "green line" in the image is a processing artifact. Duly noted. I removed the image and related text from my site. Lloyd wrote: Do scientists typically use their worst images for PRs? Here's my take on this, for what it's worth. It's not a "bad" image. The put a certain amount of work into it, and when it was looking pretty, they released it. They were in a hurry, because SDO had just gone online, and they wanted to get something out. Whoops, the equipment wasn't fine-tuned yet, and the alignment of the filters didn't quite match up. To reveal features above the photosphere, they severely suppress the photosphere, because it is so much brighter. If the suppression threshold isn't calibrated properly, you get a false line there. It could have been above the photosphere, or below. Either way, you'd think that you were seeing solar structure that just isn't there. I don't disagree at all with second-guessing scientists, especially in the way raw data are processed, as some of the biggest mistakes in science come from the way data are collected. But this one is sounding like just an artifact. Lloyd wrote: I read through part of one of the Randi forum links you posted and I mostly saw insulting going on, so I gave up looking for rational discussion there. They're good like that. They're not skeptics — they're elitists. They're only skeptical of anybody who disagrees with the mainstream. Lloyd wrote: The THEMIS running difference images showed features somewhere on the Sun that appear to remain intact for days or longer. And it's hard to imagine any fairly high-resolution feature image in or above the photosphere remaining intact that long. So I believe Michael and Brant are probably right in concluding that the features are below the photosphere, rather than above it. I'm inclined to agree with this, at least in the sense that the iron lines are passing through the photosphere, not being absorbed because the hydrogen can't accept such wavelengths. But I'd still like to know what those structures are. They look like 3D terrain features, but we have to remember that what we're seeing is concentrations of iron line emissions. So there was more iron there. It doesn't mean that there is an iron surface. In other words, in the Earth's atmosphere, a cloud might have a distinct boundary. But this doesn't mean that everything inside is water. It just means that inside is 1% water, and outside is 0%. So the RD images might be showing 1% iron in a hydrogen mixture, and if we filter out all of the other wavelengths, we see this 3D structure that looks solid, but really isn't. So for me, the interpretation is still open. This is definitely telling us something. As a matter of fact, it's screaming at us. But what is it saying...
'12-03-30, 03:00 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient * Interesting, but I don't have time to comment now. Catching a bus home to Illinois for Dad's funeral. He's 90 and died at home working, which is probably the way he'd have wanted it.
'12-03-30, 04:21 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient I'm sorry to hear that. My dad passed away at the age of 78. He should have had more miles left, but a rare cancer got him. Anyway, all of our thoughts are with you and your family during these trying times. We'll hear from you when you get back.