Thunderbolts Forum

'12-06-29, 09:08 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Discussion #8 - Part 3 LK5: CC, does a solid surface below the photosphere seem plausible to you? [LK: No reply as yet.] LK6: CC, I asked last time, "if E.D. [electric discharges] are widespread over a rigid surface [below the photosphere], could they be involved in granule formation, such as by being the heat source?" MM: Keep in mind that I'm suggesting that 99 percent of all loops form close to the solid surface and remain UNDER the photosphere and release all their heat UNDER the surface of the photosphere. CC: That begs the question of what creates the charge separation. MM: The "separation" that Birkeland achieved was caused by the interior magnetic field, and the effect of that field on the flow of current. The current tended to flow along the magnetic field lines. CC: But the Sun's overall magnetic field is only 1 Gauss. Would we expect discharges on the surface of the Earth with ½ Gauss of magnetic field? Or have as many discharges? Are you saying that there is much more field under the surface? MM: Keep in mind that the field doesn't generate any kinetic energy; it simply directs that kinetic energy. It doesn't necessarily have to be all that powerful to simply direct the current along specific paths. Once the current starts to form into threads, the thread[s] themselves gain density and substance and create more powerful field around them. The interior field is more like a "traffic director" that gets the flow of current to follow specific routes. The interior is releasing charged particles constantly. They simply "flow" along specific paths that are related to the filamentation process. The interior field simply provides a series of magnetic "lanes" for the traffic (electrons) to start to flow into. Once the lanes become crowded with electrons, the field around the electron flow becomes more important than the original 'lane' field. The interior fields just set up the original flow lines and then the current takes over from there. CC: OK, then you still have to establish an electromotive force. MM: The ULTIMATE force comes from the core. The lanes of energy end up creat[ing] charge separated areas on the crust, as those electrons flow up and through the surface or back down through the surface on their way to the core again. The effect of the electron lanes flowing through the crust is what creates charge separated areas on the surface. CC: I'm visualizing electron jets burrowing [up?] through the crust, and then looping back down to the crust, because in the process of machining their way through the crust, that didn't distribute the charges evenly. [Do you mean] something like that? MM: Yes, that's pretty much as I see it too. Keep in mind that the core is constantly releasing protons and electrons and some of those electrons are going to be attracted to the heliosphere. There are many kinds of different current patterns to consider and they interact at times. Dark filament eruption CME's are a good example of a current pathway that gets diverted toward the heliosphere. CC: If you have both electron & proton jets burrowing through the crust, you could have loops as a consequence of charge recombination. I played around with a model like that about a year ago, as [it] was the topic of a T'bolts thread. MM: Keep playing. If you find the link to that conversation, please email me a link. I'd love to read it. CC: [See:] The Sun: Nuclear Fusion & Electric Reconnection: http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1~ - But to separate the positive and negative jets, I thought that it would take relativistic speeds, such that the magnetic pressure between oppositely charged streams would keep them separate. MM: Thanks. I just bookmarked it. Let me read through it and I'll see if I can add anything to the conversation.** - Keep in mind that you may have positively and negatively charged areas of the heliosphere that are caused by different types of charged particles buffeting the heliosphere from different directions. That might affect the attraction and flow patterns of the current. LK7: MM & CC, it seems that the existence of neutronium is still entirely speculative, since pulsars seem likely to be electrical effects, rather than rotating beams, and CC's model of plasmoid black holes (PBH) seems to be the best theory of superdense matter, which also relies on electrical [and magnetic] effects. Also, the sunspot cycle seems to be a result of the Sun's movement around the gravitational balance point between it and the planets (as discussed in one of my emails), rather than anything in the Sun's core. If the Sun needs a superdense core, heavier than Osmium, what is it needed for? And would CC's PBH model satisfy those needs? MM: I'm not emotionally attached to any interior solar model, just the one that fits the evidence the best. The primary advantage of a heavy core IMO, particularly a spinning/rotating core, is that it would help to explain the 22 year solar magnetic field cycle. Over that timeline a core can rotate on the Z axis in relationship to the outer surface and generate twister like filaments on the interior of the sun. As the core rotates to near 90 degrees in relationship to the outer surface, those twisters create 'active regions' near the equator. As it rotates toward the 90 degree point the active regions get closer to the equator. As it continues to rotate the active regions form further away from the equator, creating a "butterfly" effect in terms of active region creation. That's the PRIMARY advantage of a heavier core IMO. - Brant's model could address the solar cycle data with the use of an external AC type field that changes polarity over time. LK: But I think the Sun's revolution around the solar system's barycenter seems to explain the solar cycle. Doesn't it? - [Do you mean] an AC field from the galaxy center? MM: A couple of rotating black holes in the core of the galaxy with opposite charges might do something like that. I'm not sure how to use the barycenter information to explain the butterfly effect of active region creation. As we move toward the solar maximum the active regions form closer and closer to the equator, and their polarity tends to be one directional. As the cycle progresses, the active regions tend to flip their polarity and they form further away from the equator as the sun moves toward its "quiet" phase. I'm not sure how to explain that butterfly process with a barycenter approach, but I haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about it. CC: I looked at that briefly, but please refresh my memory. Is that saying that the cycle matches the solar cycle exactly? If so, that can't be a coincidence. LK: Yeah, the revolution of the Sun and the planets around the barycenter is supposedly something like 11.2 years, if I remember right. CC: Frankly, my model can't make any sense of that, except impulsively, I might blurt out that my model has a steady current flowing out of the Sun, and if the Sun is shifting around within a larger charge field, it might modulat[e] the current. LK: CC, are you familiar with the barycenter? Like the Earth and Moon's barycenter is somewhat inside the Earth, but not at its center. But the solar system's barycenter is outside the Sun a few thousand km. CC: My understanding is that, while the planets rotate around the Sun, the Sun also shifts in response to the force of gravity. As the position of the planets isn't perfectly symmetrical, the net effect is that the Sun moves, in an orbit of its own. The center of that orbit is the barycenter. Is that correct? LK: Yeah, and it's a few thousand km outside the Sun, a point around which the Sun revolves, like Earth does around its barycenter. MM: It occurs to me that I haven't really thought about that barycenter in terms of the Z-axis. I've always thought more in terms of it rotating [revolving?] around on an x-y plane. I suspect I need to revisit that idea a bit.** It's probably not that simple, and that might help explain the butterfly patterns of active region progression over time. I'll have to spend some time on that idea. [See:] Sunspot butterfly diagram: http://cbdakota.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/solar-cycle-24-and~ CC: The problem that I have with a core that rotates on its Z-axis is just the Newtonian forces that it would take to overcome the gyroscope effect. You have an extremely rapid rotation, as I recall, so these forces would be enormous. LK: I heard lately that gyroscopic forces would not prevent a liquid body from having more than one axis. It would just mix things up inside. Same might apply to plasma. Eh? CC: Like if the centrifugal forces are generating a sort of convection, or something? Perhaps. LK: CC, if the barycenter doesn't explain it, what about what MM said above about 2 PBHs in the Sun's core, one positive and one negative? I mean plasmoid black holes. CC: In my conception of a PBH, relativistic velocities generate magnetic fields capable of plasma confinement, and if you throw in some spins, you get collisions powerful enough for fusion. But you need relativistic velocities. I used to have a PBH in my solar model, but I took it out because I couldn't justify the speeds. [LK: If a PBH can form somewhere where relativistic speeds can occur, would anything prevent star formation around the PBH?] LK8: Solar Fusion - Is it possible that photon intensity can affect fusion or fission? The intensity on and in the Sun must be extreme. Do intensity measurements determine the number of photons emitted per second per area from a surface? If so, how do the numbers detected from the Sun compare with those from other sources? I'm wondering if the UV and IR intensities are greater than that of visible light on the Sun. And would extreme light intensity be able to produce fusion? MM: Based on the Rhessi images, I'd say that only a massive electrical discharge through the plasma is powerful enough to generate fusion. I don't think photons have that kind of energy, even in bulk. My guess is that the region near the core is the area of greatest concentrated discharge energy. Manuel's neutron core would necessarily whip up all kinds of EM disturbances at it spins. Any other core may do something similar. IMO the area directly around the core experiences a constant discharge process and that is what generates fusion reactions in the interior, not gravity alone.
'12-07-12, 08:28 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Discussion #9 - Part 1 From Monday, July 9 LK1: What should we focus on to make the best progress toward a complete consensus Electric Sun model? (My idea is to first see if we, esp. CC, can find a way to incorporate the rigid iron surface and the silicon and neon layers into CC's model. Then, if that doesn't work, we could see if BC's antenna model could satisfy all of CC's data. And, if that doesn't work either, we could see if there's really something to MM's neutronium model. I expect that it'll take at least a few weeks to do the first step, fitting MM's and BC's data to CC's model. Do yous agree or have even better ideas?) CC: BTW, as concerns silicon and neon in the photosphere, my model disagrees (thinking that the photosphere, and perhaps the convective zone in general, is hydrogen & helium), but the structural aspects of my model are not tied to specific elements per se. I "think" that the bulk abundance data are telling us that hydrogen & helium dominate the photosphere, and by extension, whatever is involved in the convection in the granules & supergranules. I'm thinking that the supergranules originate from 125 Mm below the photosphere, and that there isn't any convection below that. Anyway, this suggests to me that at the very least, the upper 125 Mm is "probably" hydrogen & helium. But my electrostatic layering model, with the steady outflow of electrons, with the ohmic heating that generates the blackbody radiation that is the principal power output from the Sun, isn't element-specific per se. I'm just trying to take as much advantage as possible of all of the available data. - As concerns the hypothesized rigid iron surface, I think that my biggest question is why we don't see a helioseismic echo from this. - As concerns the antenna model, wouldn't we be able to detect the RFs in satellites? BC: I think you mean: why don't we see radiation from the sun that is characteristic of an antenna. I am thinking that it is a receiving antenna. CC: OK, I can see theoretically how a liquid metal could receive RF energy, and convert it into BB radiation. But how much RF energy? BC: The surface is partially liquid. Just below the surface is solid all the way to the hollow center. So the model of RF energy reception that everyone thinks of is not based on the ideas of Aetherometry, i.e. that photons are actually local productions and that the bulk of "RF energy" is actually mass less longitudinal waves. [See:] "What is a photon? And how and why are photons massless?" http://www.aetherometry.com/publications/direct/JAethRes/JA~ [For] In depth discussion [See:] http://www.encyclopedianomadica.org/English/photon.php - How much RF energy? Its like a circuit with [a] limitless supply of energy that can supply any element in the circuit. We are talking about the energy of the universe. It does help to be tuned to the proper frequency. CC: I was going to ask why our spaceships don't burn up, being made of metal, which should pick up this RF energy, but what if the wavelength is really long, and you need something as big as the Sun for it to resonate? BC: Yes. CC: For that matter, the standing waves in the Sun, at a small percentage of the Sun's surface, are still bigger than the Earth, and much, much bigger than anything we could ever build. BC: I imagine that there is a wavelength that is a single cycle for the length of the universe. CC: How would that resonate in something so much smaller, such as in the Sun? Don't the harmonics have to match the physical dimensions? BC: Because they exist in every wavelength from long to shortest. However you will have preferential frequencies like a resonance. CC: The "shortest" wavelengths would be detectable by human-made objects, such as spaceships. So if the wavelengths are that short, there isn't much power there, or we'd know about it. But there isn't a theoretical limit to the amount of power that could be in longer wavelengths. BC: Yes, I'm sure there is, but would we ever see that limit? CC: On a related topic, some have speculated that the Schumann resonances are not just waves bouncing off the ionosphere, but rather, are waves that are circling the globe. We know that EM waves in gases with density gradients are deflected in the direction of the greater density (i.e., a "mirage"). Up in the ionosphere, there is still a density gradient, as the atmosphere continues to thin out, and the circumference of the Earth is very long. Hence it's at least theoretically possible that the slight mirage effect matches the curvature, resulting in waves that just keep going round & round. The wavelengths that are even multiples of the circumference will then resonate. The power source could be anything, like another planet the same size. Furthermore, a passive antenna both sends and receives, though it only "sends" at its harmonic frequencies, if you want to think about it like that. Anyway, I'll have to think about that some more. BC: Think of the area between the earth's surface and the ionosphere as a waveguide. There is a specific frequency that will be one wavelength and fit perfectly in the waveguide. That is the Schumann Resonance of 7. something [7.8] hertz. The layers of the earth's atmosphere are basically double plasma layers; i.e, they have fairly sharp boundaries. The Earth is at a constant negative 4 million volts, sometimes even higher. I think the earth gets its power the same way the sun does. It's hollow and acts like a giant antenna. LK2: MM suggested that E.D.s produce neutrons and I found a link on that below. Could E.D.s near the solid iron surface produce enough neutrons to account for the electrons and protons leaving the Sun each day? If so, you wouldn't need a neutronium core. LK2A) http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/03/nuclear-lightening/ says "new data show that up to 5000 neutrons per cubic meter are produced every second by lightning strikes [on Earth]." It's from "Strong Flux of Low-Energy Neutrons Produced by Thunderstorms" at http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v108/i12/e125001. Since lightning has a cross-section of about 1 cm^2, or more, and since 1 m^3 is 1 cm^2 x 10^6 cm, or x 10,000 m, the average lightning bolt must be about 1 m^3, or more, so it would produce only about 5,000 to 20,000 neutrons. Is that correct? Does 5,000 n/m^3 mean per cubic meter of lightning, or per cubic meter of something else? CC: That's a significant find. All I knew previously was that terrestrial lightning produces soft (and sometimes hard) x-rays, and occasionally, some gamma rays. The electrons have been estimated to achieve 1/10 the speed of light inside the 2500 K discharge channels. From that I extrapolated that a discharge inside the Sun, being several orders of magnitude larger, should get the electrons moving at over 9/10 the speed of light. At such speeds, when the electrons get to the ends of the channels and slam into high-density plasma, the instantaneous increase in temperature and pressure "might" be capable of fusion, and "might" is a stronger word than most models can rightfully use. Note that I'm saying that the only plasma confinement responsible for the fusion is simply the inertial forces of the plasma itself — when instantaneously heated to millions of K, it fuses before it gets the chance to expand. Anyway, if there is evidence of fusion in terrestrial lightning, then it simply can't not happen in the Sun. So this is worth investigating. BC: The only thing that determines the electron speed is the electric field across them. The larger the field the higher the speed... LK2B) Since the Sun loses 1.3 ×10^36 particles per second, and since the Sun's surface area is 6.1 × 10^12 km^2, if the particles came only from neutrons produced by E.D., there would have to be 1.3 ×10^36 / 6.1 × 10^12 = …................. 2.1 x 10^23 n/km^2/sec, or 2.1 x 10^23 / 5,000 = 4.2 x 10^19 m^3 of E.D. per km2/sec; since there are 10^9 m^3/km^3, 5,000 km above 1 km^2 would have …... 5,000 x 10^9 m^3 = 5.0 x 10^12 m^3/km^2 within a height of 5,000 km. 4.2 x 10^19 / 5.0 x 10^12 = ~ 10^7 too few cubic meters of E.D. neutrons. Would the more powerful solar E.D.s produce 10^7 more neutrons / m^3? If so, then it appears that all of the electrons and protons could be produced by E.D. at the rigid surface via neutrons. LK2C) Is this relevant? This site http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-excess-electrons-ar~ says: a typical lightning bolt with 10 C of charge … Using the conversion factors, 1 electron = 1.6 x 10^-19 Coulombs [has] 10 C / 1.6 x 10^-19 = 6.24 x 10^19 [excess] electrons. LK2D) What percent of the protons leaving the Sun are part of CMEs? Answer seems to be 2.7%, as follows. Solar wind mass is ~5 billion tonnes per hour X 24 = 120 billion tonnes per day = 120 × 10^12 kg per day The average CME mass is 1.6 × 10^12 kg X 2 per day = 3.2 ×10^12 kg per day; 3.2 / 120 = 2.7% CC: These numbers look correct. But the solar wind isn't just protons. It's usually considered to be net neutral. That, of course, asks more questions than it answers. How does net neutral matter get accelerated above the solar escape velocity? Wikipedia suggests that electrons move faster than protons, and then the electric force drags the protons along. But that's gibberish. If that was true, you could propel you can with a baseball tied to a rubber band. Just throw the baseball ahead of the car. Since it's lighter, it will move freely, and then it will drag the heavier car along with it. Hey, I'm rich!!!!! I just solved the energy crisis. BC: Net neutral assumes a perfect balance. Sounds like fantasy to me. One electron off and its no longer neutral. CC: I agree. Actually, I think that it's a lot more charge than that. But I'm still scratching my head over the solar wind. If the heliosphere is positively charged, I can understand electrons leaving the Sun. If a CME expels a bunch of positive plasma, I can understand a surge in the number of electrons leaving the Sun. But I can't understand a steady stream of atoms leaving the Sun. BC: It's almost like you want to posit something else is dragging them along. If the sun was emitting a large concentration of "aether" in a form typically what we call " kinetic" energy that was able to act upon the particles no matter what their polarity. I don't know otherwise. Because it has to be some sort of ambipolar force. I think there have been some experiments showing protons being dragged with electrons, but I don't think it was enough to account for the solar wind. CC: I agree. BC: Crazy sun. Need to read some more recent papers to see if I can glean some more about the features of the sun. CC: Me too. Hey, BTW, I started reading up on BB [blackbody] radiation. I listened to what you said, that BB radiation only comes from solids, and that gases and plasmas emit spectral lines. But then we've got this 5525 K BB radiation coming from the Sun, and other stars produce it at up to 10,000 K. Of course, it seems that in terms of BB [Big Bang?] theory, these temps are extrapolated from ones that have been measured in solids. But I got to thinking that maybe plasma could produce BB [blackbody?], if it was highly ionized. The thinking is that ionized plasma will have Coulomb forces that will lock the atoms in place, sorta the same way that covalent bonding in a solid defines the degrees of freedom in the crystal lattice, and therefore establishes the resonance frequency. BC: As far as I can tell that is not the case. Take iron 15 on the sun. That is 15 electrons removed. That would be considered highly ionized! - The only parameter that seems to change the shape of the emission curve/line is pressure. CC: Higher pressure shifts the bell curve to higher frequencies? BC: It has a tendency to broaden the curve into a continuum. Higher frequencies come from higher ionization levels. As you get hotter you get more into UV and soft X-rays. When you remove that inner orbital electron you get x-rays. CC: Then let me go back a step. At 5525 K, not much is going to be solid. So what could cause 5525 K BB radiation? BC: Correct. But for iron it is not yet ionized. It's just really melted. Only at the base of the loops, where you have a loop exiting the surface, do you have ionized iron due to thermionic activity. Iron [has] 7 x 11,000= 77,000 degree for first ionization. CC: OK, so at the base of the coronal loops you have the temps, but why doesn't this produce spectral lines, instead of BB radiation? BC: If you look at the footprint with the correct filter/slit combination that [is] what you find - Iron 15. It's only when you look at the bulk (mostly) of the sun that you get the BB spectrum. I have to remember what I did in that exploration. Something to do with a BB spectrum at the limb [The limb is the edge of the image of the Sun, or any body.]. CC: Limb darkening is another interesting topic. The stuff I read said that the limb is 4600 K, and straight-on is 5600 K or so. BC: Yes. There are some anomalies, when taking temperatures at the limb. CC: This is easy enough to understand in principle, that the interior of the Sun is hotter than the photosphere, for whatever reason. But then if you look at the optical depth, it no longer makes sense IMO. Some people are setting optical unity at as little as 300 km. BC: I set optical unity at the depth of a white light flare. That also is IR [infrared light] unity. CC: How deep is that? BC: It seems to be around 400 or so miles. CC: What if the plasma is ionized? Am I correct in thinking that fully ionized plasma is transparent in all but the wavelengths (i.e., gamma rays) that interact with heavy atoms? The reasoning is that without electrons to absorb and re-emit photons, the photons just pass straight through. BC: Pretty much. It's called absorption; they have spectrums based on this idea. - I believe this to be [an] image of the solar surface. The reason we can see through the photosphere is because of the brightness and the wavelength of the light [from WLFs?]. There are acknowledged problems with the opacity tables, which indicate what you are supposed to see under what plasma conditions. I played around with the TOPS opacity database and found some conditions that would allow one to see under the photosphere. [See:] http://trace.lmsal.com/POD/images/arcade_9_nov_2000.gif CC: Well, here's how I got all kinda confused. If [they] say that the optical depth is as low as 300 km (or even 700 km like what you're saying), it doesn't make sense that we see a difference of 1000 K entirely within that distance. In other words, limb darkening is telling us that from the top to no deeper than optical unity we're seeing the entire temperature difference. But how could we get that much of a temperature difference in such a small distance? - I'm starting to think of the photosphere as being definable in two different ways, which might have nothing to do with each other. First, we have the "convection" in the granules. (I qualify "convection" because the supersonic speeds indicate the presence of other forces.) BC: Electric fields! You can go from neutral to full ionized in centimeters [within electric fields]. CC: OK, and electric fields can remove degrees of freedom, and hence reduce temperatures. OK. BC: YES!! Very powerful! Trapping in say a Penning trap: "Penning traps are devices for the storage of charged particles using a homogeneous static magnetic field and a spatially inhomogeneous static electric field. This kind of trap is particularly well suited to precision measurements of properties of ions and stable subatomic particles which have a non-zero electric charge." CC: Which just makes me even more confused. We measure temperature in such circumstances as the degree of ionization, assuming that the only reason an atom would be missing 1 or more electrons is simple atomic motion. Yet in an electric field, the atom could be missing the electron because of the "electric field". So we misinterpret the temp data. - Furthermore, we look at the BB temp, and we extrapolate the temperature. You didn't confirm my thoughts on pressurized plasma producing BB radiation due to Coulomb forces, but, until I actually understand BB theory, and what could produce this smear of frequencies, I'm still wondering if the Sun's BB radiation isn't from a pressurized plasma deep below the photosphere (> 5000 km?). This should be way below the optical depth, but then again, in a powerful electric field, the plasma could be more transparent than expected. - Am I right in thinking that failure to take electric fields into account throws EVERYTHING off? BC: Electric fields are not used for cooling. Lasers are used for cooling. - I believe the BB emission is related to the mean free path of the ion. SO, when you have a material, [See:] Continuum Emission of an arc plasma. http://alexandria.tue.nl/repository/freearticles/588768.pdf - [And see:] Pressure vs continuum for single bubble cavitation. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7029/fig_tab/nat~ CC: So, if you have a pressurized plasma, squashed down to close [to] the liquid density, while it's plasma because it's ionized, would it produce BB radiation, even without the crystal lattice of a solid? BC: Based on interpolation of existing data, I think that would be correct. Wait a minute. Liquids have a different spectrum, because they have more degrees of freedom than a solid. CC: OK, but the kind of "liquid" that I'm talking about wouldn't have that — a supercritical ionized plasma doesn't have molecular degrees of freedom. Anyway, I'm not saying that this proves that electric fields are present. But nothing is making sense, unless they are. Note that this might be naivete' on my part, but anyway. If the overlying plasma is transparent, because it's ionized due to the electric field, then the optical depth is much greater, and we're seeing way down into the Sun, where pressures have built up to the point that near supercritical plasma is generating BB radiation at temps well out of range for solids, but easily possible for plasma, though we shouldn't be seeing anything from that depth, due to absorption. BC: OK. I think that would hold. - That thought was what first prompted [my] investigation into BB. The problem that I ran into is that that depth is like a few thousand miles at least. So I used the idea of the white light flare as a locator.. CC: So you're saying that we know for sure that white light flares are only visible, if they're above 400 miles? BC: No. I'm saying that WLF's are visible. So, using that as a marker, I placed the solid surface of the sun at about 400 miles, based on satellite data for the location of WLF's from HINODE and TRACE. CC: So WLF's occur at a typical depth (i.e., 400 miles)? BC: Yes. And it seems pretty consistent. That was the only thing that I could find that seemed usable as a marker. CC: That's a really interesting tidbit. Clearly that's telling us something about the density and electric fields. You mentioned that before, but I didn't realize how specific the info was.
'12-07-12, 08:28 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Discussion #9 - Part 2 LK: [Arriving Late:] You guys sure know a lot about this subject, i.e. the Sun. CC: I'm new to this BB [blackbody] radiation thing, but it seems to be a goldmine of questions that are tough to answer, and I'm intrigued with my consideration that the only way to answer them is to inject a powerful electric field into the mix. LK: [What you said {in the post above} about: ionized plasma will have Coulomb forces that will lock the atoms in place, sorta the same way that covalent bonding in a solid defines the degrees of freedom in the crystal lattice] reminded me of our former discussion of tornadoes. I had quoted Thomas, or whatever his name was, about the energy at the tops of tornadoes penetrating all the way to the ground and digging up the ground. Now I'm wondering if that's a case of loss [or shortage] of degrees of freedom. I don't know anything about those degrees of freedom to speak of. CC: It's just different types of atomic motion. In a molecule, the atoms can rotate, and they can vibrate, and the entire molecule can translate from one location to another. In plasma, it's all just translational motion, as you don't get the rotation or vibration. LK: So does a solid have no degrees of freedom? CC: It still has limited translational motion, as atoms bounce around within the limits of the covalent bonding. And I'm saying that plasma might be capable of the same high-frequency vibrations, even without the covalent bonds, if the atoms are packed tightly together, and the Coulomb forces between like-charged atoms are the walls that the atoms are bouncing off of. LK: I meant other than vibration, which I guess is heat. - That might be why I was now asking about tornadoes. Aren't they full of plasma? Or is it not ionized enough? CC: It's plasma alright. Otherwise there would be nothing to alter the behavior of the vortex, and you'd get something more like what fluid dynamics would predict — like the vortex flaring out at the base, and with a very low amount of energy on the ground. The electric force is the only other force present, and if the air flowing into the tornado is charged, it will induce an opposite charge in the ground. That's what gets the tornado to bind so tightly to the ground, greatly increasing its destructive power. Then there is an electric current inside the tornado, which neutralizes the charge in the air. This is actually a bad thing, because it releases the air from the ground, providing an outlet, and enabling a continuous inflow. Without the neutralization, the air would stick to the ground, and nothing at all would happen. But once an outlet is created by the neutralizing electric current, a steady flow of air toward the neutralization point gets established, and that air is what does the damage. - Peter Thomson found a lot of interesting tidbits, including as I recall an instance where the tornado dug a trench in the ground, a couple of feet deep, several feet wide, and about ½ mile long. I think that the air was so charged it started lofting dirt into itself. LK: Does that last paragraph of yours answer my statement of wonder about degrees of freedom in a tornado? CC: No, I don't think so. I don't think I understand the question. But you pushed the tornado button, and then I start babbling about it. LK: I'm sure your readers don't mind your babbling intelligibly. So what do you think about the degrees of freedom in the tornado plasmas? Something? CC: Thermalization is very important in tornadoes, and is often not fully appreciated. At an atmospheric scale, updrafts and downdrafts are always indications that there have been heat exchanges. A simple low pressure inside the cloud wouldn't reach all of the way down to the ground and scoop up air, lofting it over a mile. There have to be heat sources within the tornado in order to get the updraft. Ohmic heating from the electric current inside the tornado appears to be the most powerful heat source. Second is latent heating from the condensation of water molecules. Third is frictional heating at the ground, which is the thermal consequence of all of the (destructive) "work" that the tornado does. In terms of atomic and molecular degrees of freedom, the condensation of water molecules cools them, as liquids have less freedom than gases, and the equal but opposite heating assists the updraft. LK: Ok. I thought maybe the tornado might act like a solid to transmit energy from the heights to the depths, the way I was previously understanding Thompson. CC: Thomson had some powerful magnetic fields generated by the motion of the air around the center. The magnetic fields helped to organize the flow into a reinforced sheath. While this is true, it "should" be a weak force, and it doesn't explain the concentration of energy at the ground level. Anyway... LK: Ok. I guess there's no point in belaboring this, if it's a false lead. [I probably didn't word the question well either. I could have asked if the limits of motion in plasma make it act like a solid.] - How about the next question below or something like that? LK2E) Here's a comparison of CC's and MM's models regarding excess solar protons and electrons. PROTON & ELECTRON FLOWS from the Sun MM's model --- CC's model plas Ne layer --- plas H layer (photosphere) plas Si layer --- plas H layer sol Fe layer --- liq H layer ====== CC's source of upward proton flow to heliosphere via CMEs plas Fe layer --- plas Ni/Fe layer sol n-core --- liq Os core ======= MM's source of upward proton flow to heliosphere LK3: In Discussion #1, MM said: Above the ... core is superheated, pressurized plasma up to just under the rigid crust ... under the surface of the photosphere. LK3A: What's your evidence that it would be superheated and how hot do you mean just under the rigid crust? LK3B: How thick do you think the rigid crust is and what's your evidence? LK4: Michael and Brant, can yous make a list of the main evidence that there is a solid iron surface under the photosphere? 1.1: On running difference and running average satellite images, patterns persist 1.2: Black body radiation spectra are typical of solids 1.3: See Brant's explanation of coronal loops with hyper-velocity blobs, coronal rain and solar moss 1.4: Iron abundance and ionization levels may mean there's a lot of iron 1.4: Solar density measurement suggests iron interior 1.5: Helioseismic p-wave and shadow data 1.6: LK5: Can yous, MM & BC, make a similar list of main evidence for a plasma silicon sub-photosphere with extensive E.D. solar loops? (May we call them solar loops or sub-photosphere loops, instead of coronal loops?) (Is it possible that they're not always loops? Or do the conditions above the iron surface restrict E.D. forms to loops?) 2.1: Si spectral data? 2.2: LK6: And can yous make a similar list of main evidence for a plasma neon photosphere? 3.1: Ne+3 and Ne+4 spectral data 3.2: LK7: Charles, can you make an alternate solar granules model that incorporates extensive sub-photosphere E.D. in plasma silicon as the heat source for the granules in a plasma neon photosphere? If not, what facts do you think prevent that? CC: Structurally, my model would still have granules, regardless of the elements. My only reason for thinking that the photosphere is 75% hydrogen and 25% helium is just the spectral data. I "think" that Michael has legitimate reasons for calling the data into question, at least in the sense that other elements might be present in greater quantities than the mainstream interpretation, but I'm still not convinced that the other elements dominate. LK: I was impressed with his statement about neon being very hard to ionize, which I think was one of his reasons for thinking that neon is very abundant in the photosphere. I guess noble gases are hard to ionize. Right? I might be mixed up on that. They're hard to combine with more than one of themselves or other elements anyway. CC: The inner electrons of any element are harder to remove. In the noble gases, the shells are full, so you're right — they're inert. LK: I was hoping MM would be able to answer my question about E.D. on the Sun possibly being able to supply enough neutrons to then supply electrons and protons for the outward flows of each. CC: I saw the numbers you scratched up on the solar wind, which begs very interesting questions, and calls my CME thing into question, or at least makes the context a lot more complicated. LK: Yes, I thought it might influence your CME idea, but I thought the CMEs might still have an influence like you theorized. CC: Perhaps. But it was good to see the numbers compared. The solar wind is much more powerful [than CMEs alone]. This means that if we prioritized our efforts, we should want to know what causes the solar wind first. And there I truly have no idea. There doesn't seem to be a force capable of accelerating both electrons and protons in the same direction, above the escape velocity of the Sun. So this is a big mystery. I'm still wondering how the estimates for the mass of the solar wind are done. The reason is that, if it's like anything else, you have to question the data (or at least the interpretation thereof) until you understand what you actually have. Sometimes data that don't make sense have to be reinterpreted, to get rid of false assumptions. My understanding is that among other tactics, a solar wind experiment was set up on the Moon at one point, assuming that magnetic fields wouldn't be a factor, and when the experiment was pointed toward the Sun, they were definitely getting 400 km/s protons & electrons impacting the collection surface. Within my model, I'd have an easy time believing that in "neutral" plasma, the protons are going one way (toward the Sun) and the electrons in the other (away from the Sun), but I think that the data refute this, and out in our neighborhood, everything is flowing outward. So I'm stumped. BC: [Returning after a break:] I agree. That's why I've gone to this other force thing. I don't think [that] even EU has given a straight answer on this one. I don't think they can say with a straight face that their (the) model with its polarized electrodes can say why there are oppositely charged particles going in the same direction. CC: Yes, they'll have the same problem, for the same reasons. [LK: I wonder if neutrons produced from E.D.s, as in White Light Flares, near the rigid iron surface could account for the solar wind, as well as the granules and supergranules. It seems that the neutrons would quickly decay into electrons and protons, which would not combine because of their rapid motion in the same direction, where their magnetic fields would prevent attraction. - MM implied that most of the E.D.s would be loops. The loops begin by rising up vertically, then they get attracted to another somewhat distant point on the surface and, after arching back downward, descend vertically. If many neutrons are freed during ascent, those may become the solar wind. If neutrons are freed during arching and descent, they may combine into hydrogen etc, which may form granules according to CC's model.]
'12-07-17, 08:05 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Discussion #10 - Part 1 BC: Brant Callahan; CC: Charles Chandler; LK: Lloyd Kinder; MM: Michael Mozina LK1A: In the last discussion CC suggested that the source of the solar wind needs to be determined now. Since MM said E.D.s [electric discharges] produce neutrons, I found a website that agrees. See below at LK1B. My guess now is that neutrons produced from E.D.s, as in White Light Flares or loops, near the rigid iron surface, could account for the solar wind, as well as the granules and supergranules. It seems that the neutrons would quickly decay into electrons and protons, which would not combine because of their rapid motion in the same direction, as their opposing magnetic fields would prevent attraction. MM: I agree 100 percent. Keep in mind that the bulk of the hydrogen (protons and electrons) is released in the "small" but intense discharges near the surface. Few of the coronal loops would ever reach the surface of the photosphere. They just happen to be the ones that are large enough to escape the photosphere and produce white light flares. I've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating that hydrogen flows upward from the surface and traverses all the layers. The other key aspect is that the photosphere itself must be experiencing a large glow mode discharge and the neon (and other elements) in that layer have to be highly energized, to at least a plus four ionization state. That energy state is what makes the photosphere layer relatively transparent to iron ion wavelengths. The currents have to start at or near the surface and they have to traverse all the plasma layers. LK: In questions below I ask for your evidence for the rigid iron layer, the silicon layer and the neon layer, which I added a few possible answers to. BC: I would say that the coronal loops are evidence for an iron surface. I have never gotten a straight answer for the existence of the iron in coronal loops and arcades. Not only that, I would say that the footprints of the loops is evidence for a rigid iron surface. - Do you guys have the Arc Cathode paper that I sent you? Look for the section that talks about ions leaving the cathode, heading towards the "wall" of the vessel. [- It says: D. Plasma Expansion and Ion Acceleration A further astonishing fact of arc spots is the high kinetic energy of ions leaving the cathodic plasma cloud toward the walls and the anode [21], [22] (i.e., in a direction seemingly opposite to the general electric field in gas discharges; the ion part of the arc current is negative). A simple theory discloses an explanation [23], [24] that may be considered as sufficiently convincing: The ions are accelerated by three forces: 1) the pressure gradient within the cathodic plasma; 2) the electron-ion friction; and 3) the electric field, which has the opposite direction in the plasma expansion zone, forming a potential hump near the cathode spot. Electrons are accelerated by the dominating pressure gradient also, but are slowed down by friction and the electric field. Thus, the electrical resistance of the expanding plasma is negative, doubtless a further strange property of arc spots. However, at high currents and in gas environments where a kind of constricted dense plasma column develops, this curiosity disappears, the field retains its normal direction. The generation of multiple charged ions in the dense cathodic plasma by thermal and pressure ionization (under nonideal conditions, e.g., in explosions) and freezing of this composition during plasma expansion was investigated, particularly by Brown, Anders, and others (for instance, [25]).] MM: Not sure I've seen that paper, but Birkeland reported "soot" that collected on the sides of his chamber and describe a "sputtering" process. I'll look for the paper again. LK1B: MM implied that most of the E.D.s would be loops. The loops begin by rising up vertically, then they get attracted to another somewhat distant point on the surface and, after arching back downward, descend vertically. If many neutrons are freed during ascent, those may become the solar wind. If neutrons are freed during arching and descent, they may combine into hydrogen etc, which may form granules according to CC's model. - Shall we discuss this or other possible sources for the solar wind? Could E.D.s near the solid iron surface produce enough neutrons, to account for the electrons and protons leaving the Sun each day? [If so, you wouldn't need a neutronium core.] LK1C: http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/03/nuclear-lightening/ says "new data show that up to 5000 neutrons per cubic meter are produced every second by lightning strikes [on Earth]." It's from "Strong Flux of Low-Energy Neutrons Produced by Thunderstorms" at http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v108/i12/e125001. Since lightning has a cross-section of about 1 cm^2 or more, and since 1 m^3 is 1 cm^2 x 10^6 cm, or x 10,000 m, the average lightning bolt must be about 1 m3, or more, so it would produce only about 5,000 to 20,000 neutrons. Is that correct? Does 5,000 n/m^3 mean per cubic meter of lightning, or per cubic meter of something else? LK1D: Michael and Brant, can you make a list of the main evidence that there is a solid iron surface under the photosphere? Do yous agree with the following up to 2.5? And do you have anything to add after that? MM: [See:] ANOMALOUSLY WEAK SOLAR CONVECTION: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.3173.pdf. - If you haven't seen the last helioseismology studies, I highly suggest you read them. I suggest we start with that particular evidence, since it's pretty much the key issue behind the whole solar debate IMO. One of the cornerstones of standard theory is related to the rate of convection. Without a high rate of convection flowing up from below, the heavier elements like Iron and Nickel would tend to "mass separate". Iron and other heavy elements would sink to the core and pretty much snuff out the mainstream fusion process, that is supposed to take place there. I'm sure they have some work-arounds to the fusion issue, but the mass separation issue is directly tied to the rate of convection. The last study based on SDO high resolution images would suggest that any mass flows are *much* smaller than predicted, about 1 percent of predicted value. The primary difference between a mass separated version and "mixed plasma" model is directly related to that convection process. Without a higher upward particle flow, there's no way for the mainstream solar model to work properly. It has significant implications to almost every aspect of solar theory too, not just helioseismology and its assumed densities, but also to just about every other aspect of solar theory. The lack of a high volume convection process pretty much precludes the light and heavy plasmas remaining "mixed". They would instead begin to mass separate by the atom[ic] weight and ionization potential of each element. CC: I agree that this [weak convection?] is a major breakthrough. But I'll tell you what they're going to do, in order to account for the lack of convection in the convective zone. They'll just alter their energy transport mechanism. Fusion in the core, with EM radiation through the "radiative zone", and now, that propagation of EM waves has to continue on through the "convective zone." MM: That will not fix their solar flare fiasco. They *desperately need* the convection process to explain magnetic field generation for solar flare and coronal heating. Without convection, not only do they lose any right to talk about a mixing of elements, they have lost their energy source for magnetic field generation. Nothing like having to restart from scratch! I think (I can't be 100 percent sure) that the damage to their solar atmospheric models is actually more catastrophic to them than their loss of a "mixing" mechanism. I think they might have a work-around for the mass separation problem they have, but without strong magnetic fields to 'reconnect', their solar flare theories bite the dust. CC: Good point. BC: My prediction is that they will find the surface rotating at the bulk rate. LK: Can you explain bulk rate? BC: How do they determine the rotation rate of the sun? The 27 day period. I think they will find this is the correct rotation rate and it will match a solid object. MM: I don't think so. I think they'll find [an] upward mass flow composed mostly of electrons headed out into space. I doubt that convection has anything to do with mass separation or lack thereof to begin with, and therefore I have no specific investment in any particular outcome. BC: Let me say it another way. I think they will find the sun rotates as a solid sphere. LK1.1: On running difference and running average satellite images, patterns persist MM: This is really a major problem for them in SDO images. Not only do the patterns persist, they persist across the whole [solar] sphere for hours, days and weeks in extreme cases. They have no particular mechanism to explain such persistence in the discharge/reconnection processes that generate these iron ion wavelengths. In order to have that kind of uniformity of rigidly persisting features, you need something more dense than the photosphere and 'rigid/persistent' current flows. Discharges around and near a rigid surface would produce those kinds of effects. We would need to be able to see through the atmosphere at these wavelengths, which is what requires such a high ionization state to exist in the neon layer [i.e. the photosphere]. Photoionization effects would preclude us from observing all the small loops near the surface if the neon was not in a highly excited energy state. The other aspect of persistence is the angular nature of that persistence. It's not like plasma to remain rigid in the first place, but it's really unusual that 'angular' features would also end up as "persistent" in plasma. Rounded off patterns are more typical… of sunspot activity, and the movement of the plasma is really quite visible in RD images of sunspots. - The other key piece of information I'm looking for in SDO images is relate to the "shock waves" described on my website. Those shock waves can occur under the surface of the photosphere as well as on the surface of the photosphere. The shock wave deflection patterns tend to depend on the physical structures near the surface, in very specific types of flares. The flare in question has to kick out material in a relatively horizontal direction from very close to the surface. That can happen in "Mount St. Helen[s]" types of events, where material blows in a directional fashion, rather than directly upwards. It can also be caused by very specific circuit overload flare events close to the surface. The density of the atmosphere near the solid surface is much greater IMO than near the chromosphere. In many of the SOHO images, there were relatively clear (to me at least) angular features related to several of these shock wave events. I selected the "best" one I could find and put it on my website. I'm "predicting" that SDO will show me similar features, but thus far I've seen only one potential event and it's too near the limb for my tastes. I can't be "sure' of what I'm seeing in that image. I do however expect to see several such events before this cycle is past it's peak (solar maximum). IMO that 'should be' the final piece of evidence that demonstrates a rigid surface. - Keep in mind that "rigid" can also be something "more dense" and it would still be ok by me. I do however have *strong* feelings about the fact that a solid surface offers more advantages, as it relates to sunquakes, active region formation (volcanic eruption) and several other features I'm seeing in solar images. BC: [See a:] Beautiful image of the photosphere in Lyman Alpha: http://holykaw.alltop.com/incredible-photograph-of-sun LK1.2: Solar blackbody radiation spectra are typical of solids MM: This is damaging to them no doubt, but they don't see it that way. They just lump it all together into one 'opaque" surface and ignore the difficulties entirely. I've tried that angle a number of times without a lot of success. That loss of convection however is going to haunt them. They *need* convection to keep that iron near the surface of the photosphere. BC has *carefully* and *clearly* explained the problem to them on at least two different forums and they didn't give it a second thought. FYI BC knows *far* more about the optical implications on their 'blackbody" claims than I do. I absolutely agree with his assessment, but I've seen the mainstream ignore it entirely. BC: They [mainstream scientists] fall back on optical thickness to produce a blackbody. You would really have to be an optical expert to convey the full meaning of the optical problem. Thanks [MM] for that vote of confidence. LK: By the way, you guys, I asked before, if sunspots occur over volcanoes on the surface, how can the sunspots move gradually from mid-latitudes toward the equator over a rigid surface? Or don't individual sunspots do that? MM: Sunspots are formed above the rising plumes of the [solar] volcano[es]. The heat released into the silicon atmosphere near the surface ends up generating rising plumes of silicon plasma that rise up and through the surface of the photosphere and [its] neon layer. Because it's a heat transfer process, far above the volcanic event, it's possible/probable for sunspots to move and change shape over time. They aren't 'fixed' per se. The "butterfly effect" that I think you're describing is actually caused by more than one sunspot or active region. The active regions and volcanic events slowly move from being concentrated in the north and south, to being concentrated just north and south of the equator. The sun's surface is *extremely* volcanic. It's not like the Earth where it erupts infrequently. Eruptions of various sizes and shapes are the "norm" on the [solid iron] solar surface and the surface is relatively thin IMO and constantly changing. [LK: I would imagine that electric fields on the Sun's iron surface determine where the volcanoes form, just as they do on Jupiter's moon, Io. Volcanoes on Io have been found to move many miles over time and that's apparently because the electric fields move about and form volcanic features wherever the fields are strong enough.] BC: I would refer to the Arc Cathode paper that I sent. It contains a section describing the behaviour of Arc spots. LK: What does it say briefly about arc spots that's similar to sunspots? BC: How the cathode spot is a coherent structure designed to reduce entropy of the electrode to minimum energy. It starts out at a place where there is a high point on the [cathode] surface. It begins as a small emission of electrons from the elevated temp solar surface. As a plasma is created from the surface, ions begin to bombard the surface raising the temperature even higher, leading to a discharge, i.e. coronal loop. It['s] actually called thermionic emission. This is for coronal loops which protrude through sunspots. Sunspots are basically a sign that there is a discharge event happening on the surface. I think that a really interesting thing is the butterfly pattern to the discharge over time at the equator. Why is there a constant discharge at the equator? There has to be a circuit. LK: How is the circuit fed? That question may be for later. MM: Birkeland also achieved his "best" results when he "roughed up' the surface and created pits and high points on the surface. He discovered and described that same process and talks about the need to make the surface less smooth. LK1.3: See Brant's explanation of coronal loops with hyper-velocity blobs, coronal rain and solar moss MM: The surface spews non-ionized material into the atmosphere, which are pretty much instantaneously ionized [there] above "active regions". Some of those "blobs" are composed of heavy elements near the surface (like iron) that have been ionized in the loops. As the loops short circuit and are disrupted, they spew that heavy material into the atmosphere and it 'rains' back down to the surface again. In fact that gold RD LMSAL image shows just such a process taking place shortly after the flare occurs. [LK: Where is that image, Michael?] LK1.4a: Iron abundance and ionization levels may mean there's a lot of iron MM: It's concentrated all throughout the atmosphere in coronal loops in fact. Not only is there a lot of it, a lot of it is being highly ionized all over the place. The 'levels' completely depend on that convection process I mentioned earlier. Without that convection process, their theory is dead in the water in terms of explaining how iron would even be located *anywhere* near the surface of the photosphere. LK1.4b: Solar density measurement suggests iron interior MM: [See:] A pulsar inside the sun? http://www.springerlink.com/content/j549440457107v36/?MUD=MP Is the sun a pulsar? Evidence of an iron core: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k26825872rv64411/ - Charles, I know you're not a big fan of neutron star theories in general but there are some studies that would be consistent with a rapidly spinning core of some type; it could even be iron.. Keep in mind that even if there is a rapidly spinning core, it wouldn't preclude Brant's idea from also being applicable. There could be *many* ways that energy exchanges take place between the sun and the galaxy it sits in. Like I've said, I'm not attached to any particular interior model or energy exchange mechanism. I just think that there [unfinished thought]…. LK: Will you be supplying references eventually? MM: For which part? See above for links related to a rapidly spinning core. LK: Oh. Okay. BC: I have a tendency to use the EU model of the pulsar. But I don't think that even the EU model is precise enough to provide the required spectrum of pulses. A pulsar is an object that [often] spins at Millisecond rate. CC: Supposedly, pulsars rotate around their axes, and then the axes rotate, as much as one in 1/1000 of a second. That begs the question of what would overpower the gyroscope effect, and what would preserve the rotation. BC: Good question!!! They are objects that kinda defy any sort of imagined laws of physics. CC: Maybe the objects do not defy physics, but the models definitely do. I'm not saying that I fully understand "neutron stars", and my "natural tokamak" idea might be naive, but at least I'm trying to develop a physical model. BC: Yes. The EU model supposes that it is a discharge between two planetary bodies or objects, but then if you do the calcs you wind up with the wrong distances. How can you have a plasma oscillator in those conditions? But it fits better than a rotating massive body. CC: I agree with both points. My problem with the EU model is that I don't see how you can get dielectric breakdown and recharging on that spatial scale but within the millisecond time frame. The arc discharges themselves on that scale should last way longer than a millisecond. BC: Yep! Electricity moves 1 foot per nanosecond (in a wire). So that would be 1000 ft in the best of conditions. Plasma will be slower. LK1.5: Helioseismic p-wave and shadow data [LK: No comments were made on this point.]
'12-07-17, 08:06 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Discussion #10 - Part 2 LK2: Can yous, MM & BC, make a similar list of main evidence for a plasma silicon sub-photosphere with extensive E.D. solar loops? (May we call them solar loops or sub-photosphere loops, instead of coronal loops?) (Is it possible that they're not always loops? Or do the conditions above the iron surface restrict E.D. forms to loops?) LK2.1: Si spectral data? [LK: No comments were made.] LK3: And can yous make a similar list of main evidence for a plasma neon photosphere? LK3.1: Ne+3 and Ne+4 spectral data MM: I would classify that as a "true prediction" of this model at this point it time. I make this prediction as to the ionization state observed in the photosphere without any supporting evidence that I might cite at this moment in time. The only neon ion images of the sun that I've seen thus far were from Neon in the +7 and +8 ionization states. Most of the light at these wavelengths seemed to be concentrated inside and around the coronal loops rather than the surface of the photosphere [which is] as I would expect. The ionization state of neon in the photosphere that is "required" in this solar model is directly related to the ability to see (or not [see]) a surface that is located under a neon plasma layer in the atmosphere. It also relates to the photoionization process and the energy states of the iron ion wavelengths. In order for these wavelengths to pass through the photosphere and be seen in SDO images, the atmosphere must necessarily be in a very high energy state. If the neon were mostly non-ionized (as we would expect in the standard model), then these wavelengths would typically be absorbed in a matter of meters. They certainly wouldn't traverse thousands of kilometers. There is in fact a requirement in terms of ionization states for this model to work properly. LK: Have you already supplied a reference for that? MM: I can (and I think I did) cite the SERTS data that shows an inordinate amount of silicon and neon plasma in a highly ionized state. If not, I'll provide one later tonight. … One of the peculiar things about the SERTS spectral data is the amount of *highly* (very high) ionized Neon in that spectrum. According to their model, Neon is a *minor* element, making up a *miniscule* percentage of the solar atmosphere. Even in an electrically active environment it's hard to imagine how so much Neon could show up in such high energy states with such a small amount of total neon in the solar atmosphere. It simply didn't add up. Once I realized that the majority of the Neon in the atmosphere was ionized, typically *highly* ionized, I realized that there was a lot more of it than was predicted in standard theory. The question then becomes "where is it located"? The "brightest" layer in the atmosphere makes the most sense to me. Once I started looking at the periodic table and arranging elements including neon, hydrogen and helium, I could fully explain the layering taking place at the photosphere, chromosphere, [and] corona boundaries. The amount of Silicon was also difficult to explain, until I embraced a layering scheme and then it all made sense. The electrical discharges traverse large areas of the solar atmosphere, including the silicon and neon layers. They pull parts of the plasma with them. That's also why the Neon images from a +7 and +8 ionization state track with the coronal loops, but there were many fewer of them compared to iron ion images. I will see [if] I can find that Neon image later tonight as well. BC: MM. Could you layer the plasma by potential? Assuming [that] the surface below the photosphere is 0 volts, the photosphere is .6 volts because it['s] at 6000K with the voltage going up as you reach the corona at 100 volts(1.5million K)? MM: Hmm. I recall playing with numbers at one point, but I'll have to go hunting for them now. The surface itself is close to 600 million volts, according to Birkeland, and I simply used his numbers. I recall having density 'question' I couldn't really answer. BC: Using spectral physics, I would place the photosphere at a potential of about .6 volts relative to the surface below. Maybe the surface below is at a potential of 600 million volts relative to something else. CC: The heliosphere is what Birkeland was talking about. Alfven put the potential between the Sun & heliosphere at 1.6 GV. Those numbers are very easy to believe, as the potential from the top of a thunderstorm on Earth down to the ground can exceed 100 MV, as you guys know. LK: What about thunderstorms on the Sun? [Kidding.] BC: Just like the earth you have a constant potential and momentary potential. The plasma filaments like lightning, coronal loops and flux tubes support momentary high current flows. LK: MM, you're saying that Ne VII and Ne VIII are seen at loops. Is non-ionized Neon not seen in spectra? MM: Yes, the highly ionized neon tracked to the coronal loop activity. The amount of non-ionized neon in the spectra is nearly zip. All the higher energy spectra however show the presence of Neon in a higher energy state. If there were no current traversing the atmosphere, I would expect the reverse to be true with little or no Neon at the higher state either. LK7: Charles, can you make an alternate solar granules model that incorporates extensive sub-photosphere E.D. in plasma silicon as the heat source for the granules in a plasma neon photosphere? If not, what facts do you think prevent that? [From Discussion #9:] CC: Structurally, my model would still have granules, regardless of the elements. My only reason for thinking that the photosphere is 75% hydrogen and 25% helium is just the spectral data. I "think" that Michael has legitimate reasons for calling the data into question, at least in the sense that other elements might be present in greater quantities than the mainstream interpretation, but I'm still not convinced that the other elements dominate. MM: Keep in mind that mainstream theory *requires* fast convection. Without it their abundance figures go right out the window and anything goes in terms of solar content. The arrangement of elements would necessarily be more like a standard body in this solar system. The heavier elements would tend to concentrate near the core. - … I will answer the remaining questions later after dinner and see If can round up some links to the SERTS data and the Neon solar images I'm thinking about. BC: An interesting question with respect to spectral data is how deep can you see into a plasma. In other words if you have a plasma and it has layers, how thick does the layer have to be before you can't see the spectrum from the layer below. Usually they quote some opacity figure from some set of table[s], but we know that in extreme conditions the tables are not right. CC: I'm thinking that the BB [blackbody] radiation is coming from at least 4000 km below the edge. I'm thinking that the granules, being 1000 km wide, probably originate from 4x deeper, just judging from the width of the granules, and the way the size of bubbles is a function of depth. (As they rise, smaller bubbles merge into larger ones that encounter less friction.) So at a depth of 4000 km, there is a density ledge, above which we have these extremely low density cathode tufts. As you have said, such low density plasma should only produce spectral lines, and appears in fact to be the source of the absorption lines. Hence the BB radiation has to be coming from below the low density cathode tufts. It seems possible that at the density drop-off 4000 km below the outer edge (what others would call the "surface"), the BB radiation can pass through the thin plasma above. So optical depth is 4000+ km? This is insane by conventional standards, but as MM [Michael] is pointing out, if the overlying plasma is highly ionized, it is impervious to photo-ionization, and therefore absorption. BC: I think you would be talking about magnetic bubbles? OK. So not bubbles. Plasma "flows"? CC: No, I'm talking about granules, which I consider to be cathode tufts (i.e., positive plasma clinging to a negative electrode). BC: I agree that the plasma conditions are conducive to visibility to the "surface" due to high ionization rates. Especially with 171 nm Iron XIV at high brightness. Why is there so much interest in iron with the iron opacity project? [See:] The Iron Project - The Opacity Project: http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/topbase/TheIP.html CC: How far below the edge of the photosphere is the iron surface? The reason why I ask is that if it is very far at all, there should be a very distinct helioseismic echo. BC: 400 miles? Right where the edge of the upper convection layer is? CC: In other words, at the bottom of the granules? And do you agree that, unlike the Dalsgaard model, which has the density sloping on a straight line down to nothing from .98 SR to 1.0 SR [solar radius], that there is actually a ledge, where the plasma is dense right up to a shear drop-off, and the granules are extremely thin? BC: Where the photosphere plasma ends and the density increases? Just below the lower ends of the granules? CC: I'm trying to clean up my terminology, and I'd like to know what you think. The photosphere is defined by the optical depth, but as I think you agree, that's a really contentious issue. Then we have these granules, and I'm beginning to believe that the granules and the optical depth might be two different things. At the very least, I think the optical depth is actually far greater. BC: Yes. I agree. Optical depth does not define anything, if you have a solid or dense surface. The photosphere ends at the optical depth by definition, which happens to be the same place as the sudden density increase. CC: OK, then we agree on that. I['m] going with 4000 km, just on the basis of my quick-n-dirty guess, that granules 1000 km wouldn't originate from a depth of only 300 km, or whatever they're saying these days. It doesn't really have theoretical significance. BC: Yes. I would adjust my model to reflect the length of the granules. I base my depth on the location of white light flares seen by SOHO. CC: That's a good point. I haven't fully processed that yet. In general, it seems that flares can occur above, at, below, or way below the edge of the photosphere. Why do white light flares prefer 400 miles below? BC: My supposition is that it is because it is the solid surface. But to be sure, we should look for the deepest flare to ever occur. If they have a constant depth then we can say that this is the surface depth. LK: Why does MM have a different depth below the photosphere? BC: Something to be resolved!! We maybe need to focus on this one point next discussion until its sorted. LK: Brant, what was interesting to you about this image? BC: The clarity. LK: What do you think this image is showing? Sunspots and granules or supergranules? BC: I like the 3 dimensionality of it. It shows the surface of the photosphere is not flat. Sunspots are not flat. CC: Brant, I have a question pertaining to my model. I have a steady stream of electrons coming up from below, through something like 20,000 km of positively charged plasma. I'm thinking that the updrafts in the granules are nuclei being drug along by the electron stream, but when the nuclei get to the edge, they shed off to the sides and fall back into the Sun, while the electrons continue on out into the interplanetary medium. The bright centers of the granules seem to support this. What I'm wondering is whether or not a more specific type of data could prove it. For example, we can't see that electron stream, but would we expect there to be more synchrotron radiation if there was an electron stream centered on the granules? The problem with that is that I don't see how we would measure it. Looking straight-on, we wouldn't see the synchrotron radiation, and looking at the limb we wouldn't have a way of knowing whether it was radiation from the distant granule or from things going on in the foreground in the corona. BC: [See:] Microwave spike bursts from the sun and stars. This is evidence of cyclotron radiation from coronal loops. Cyclotron rad is characteristic of the gyro motion of particles in a [Birkeland?] filament. As far as synchrotron goes, there is also sync rad in the solar spectrum. - [See:] Title: Evidence for cyclotron maser emission from the sun and stars Authors: Dulk, G. A. & Winglee, R. M. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1987SoPh..113..187D - [See also:] Synchrotron Radiation in the Sun's Radio Spectrum. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1956ApJ...124..601K CC: I'm wondering if there is anything different pertaining to the dimensions of the granules. As I'm thinking this through, there are questions that keep popping up. For example, if there is a steady stream of electrons, why does it never get pinched into a discharge channel? The characteristics of this electron stream would seem to better match the behaviors of spicules, but they're in-between granules, whereas my model (so far) would put the spicules at the center of the granules. Then again, maybe spicules aren't electrons going out, but positive ions coming in. BC: [See:] RHESSI Science nuggets. Reconnection in coronal loops: http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/nuggets/?page=article&~ LK: Brant, MM suggested toward the beginning of this discussion that ANOMALOUSLY WEAK SOLAR CONVECTION is evidence for the rigid iron surface. Do you know if I'm inferring rightly? How would that be suggestive of rigidness of the solar surface? BC: That was the impression that I got. I pretty much agree. I think that helioseismology is looking at electric currents flowing through the iron shell. LK: I don't see the connection yet. Weak solar convection implies electric currents through a rigid iron surface how? How is that implied? He supplied a link on that. Will that answer my question? BC: I don't know what MM thinks about the iron shell idea. But in my thinking, that's what helioseismology is. Slower convection supports the idea of an iron shell better than a plasma. Does that make sense? [LK: I think I can see that a solid surface just below a shallow photosphere would have a weaker convection than a deep plasma below the photosphere. Would it be like a shallow layer of water in a warm skillet versus a deep amount of water in a hot pot?]
'12-07-24, 08:01 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Discussion #11 - Part 1 Source of Solar Wind LK1: What do you all think is the source of the solar wind? We discussed it briefly last time, but I'm not sure what you all think about that. Include Hydrostatic Pressure CC: I haven't really voiced an opinion on this so far, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about hydrostatic pressure, and the bottom line is that on the limb of the Sun, gravity is an insufficient force to prevent evaporation and the ultimate dispersal of gases. (I call them gases because if they were charged, the electric forces would dominate. Matter in the solar atmosphere might be hot enough to be plasma, but large parcels of matter that are neutrally charged might behave as a gas, ignoring [or unaffected by?] the 1.6 GV electric field.) Anyway, at 6000+ K, the matter will disperse. So that needs to be taken into account. There are other factors, such as electron drag in the steady discharge. But it's possible that simple hydrostatic pressure needs to be in the mix. - Note that when talking about hydrostatic pressure, we get away from concepts like escape velocity and particle speed. The mass loss due to simple hydrostatic pressure might be substantial, but the speeds of the particles might be very slow, and well below the escape velocity. But that doesn't matter. The pressure will just continue to push outwards, despite gravity, because it isn't as strong as the inertia forces in high temp plasma. Also note that we might have a particle detector that registers extremely high-velocity particles. But this might not necessarily be indicative of the net outflow due to hydrostatic pressure, as the high-velocity particles might have been motivated by something else. Indeed, particle speeds fluctuate dramatically in the solar wind, and it would be easy for there to be multiple factors in there that would be hard to isolate. But we can identify the effects of hydrostatic pressure, and estimate the mass loss, and compare that to the actual, and if it matches, we can think of that as the baseline. Higher velocities indicate other factors [to be added]. Loops Are Non-stationary and Non-uniformly Heated BC: From the TRACE website. Near the bottom. "If the temperature does not vary much along a loop, and lies around 1 million degrees along most of its length, the gas should sag into the bottom of the loops under the influence of gravity. Consequently, the gas density should decrease by a factor of almost three every 50,000 km; the emission (which scales as the square of the density) should drop by that factor every 25,000 km. The right-hand bar in the lower image on the left shows how radidly the emission should have dropped off in the case of such simple gravitational stratification; the observed situation is closer to the intensity profile in the left-hand bar, for which the scale height has been doubled. Clearly, the emission drops off much more slowly than expected from a simple static model. The assumptions that are generally made that solar coronal loops are essentially stationary (evolving slow[ly] compared to the time they can adjust to a new situation) and that they are uniformly heated have been demonstrated to be fundamentally untenable: many loops evolve very rapidly, and none of them is heated uniformly!" - [at] http://trace.lmsal.com/POD/TRACEpodarchive4.html and http://trace.lmsal.com/POD/T171_990809_230034_bar_clip.gif. Constant Discharge MM: I believe that the cathode sun is in a constant state of discharge toward the heliosphere. CC: Let's pick this up just below, after Brant's [next] comment, as I think it's relevant to what both of us are saying. Brant's Referenced Cathode Spot Paper LK2a: Should we analyze all or part of Brant's Cathode Spot paper? MM said via email: [Re] "Brant's Cathode paper … I highly recommend that we all read it. It essentially explains how the sun works IMO". If we do want to analyze it, what parts should we analyze? Here are the parts: II. CATHODE PROCESSES; III. TF (thermo-field) ELECTRON EMISSION; IV. CATHODE SPOTS: BASIC PHYSICS; V. THEORETICAL MODELS OF ARC SPOTS; VI. SOME SPECIAL PROBLEMS; A. Thermal Runaway; B. Motion of Arc Spots; C. Craters; D. Plasma Expansion and Ion Acceleration; E. Substructure of Arc Spots; F. Thermodynamics of the Arc Spot; VII. CONCLUSION BC: [From last discussion:] [In] the Arc Cathode paper that I sent you ... Look for the section that talks about ions leaving the cathode, heading towards the "wall" of the vessel. [Here's the relevant paragraph, I think:] D. Plasma Expansion and Ion Acceleration - A further astonishing fact of arc spots is the high kinetic energy of ions leaving the cathodic plasma cloud toward the walls and the anode [21], [22] (i.e., in a direction seemingly opposite to the general electric field in gas discharges; the ion part of the arc current is negative). A simple theory discloses an explanation [23], [24] that may be considered as sufficiently convincing: The ions are accelerated by three forces: 1) the pressure gradient within the cathodic plasma; 2) the electron-ion friction; and 3) the electric field, which has the opposite direction in the plasma expansion zone, forming a potential hump near the cathode spot. Electrons are accelerated by the dominating pressure gradient also, but are slowed down by friction and the electric field. Thus, the electrical resistance of the expanding plasma is negative, doubtless a further strange property of arc spots. However, at high currents and in gas environments where a kind of constricted dense plasma column develops, this curiosity disappears, the field retains its normal direction. The generation of multiple charged ions in the dense cathodic plasma by thermal and pressure ionization (under nonideal conditions, e.g., in explosions) and freezing of this composition during plasma expansion was investigated, particularly by Brown, Anders, and others (for instance, [25]).] LK2b: Brant, what did you want us to understand from that paragraph? Cathode Mechanism BC: That here is a mechanism for the solar wind that is pretty well studied, based on lab experiments, if you use the cathode model. You don't have to invent anything except for a power source, but I don't think I invented that either. I just looked at the physics of antennas from a different direction. [BC suspects that antennas produce electrons from a universal aether and the charge of the electrons account for many of the Sun's features, apparently including the solar wind.] CC: I'm still not sure about the antenna thing, but I totally agree that the paper in question is relevant. There is a steady discharge going on, and as the paper mentioned, there is electron drag, and there is a lot of hydrostatic pressure. Birkeland's Model MM: It's noteworthy IMO that Birkeland actually recreated almost every important high energy feature we observe in atmospheric activity from the sun using his cathode model. Whereas science has come a long way in the past 100 years, Birkeland and his team were pretty much pioneers on cathode behaviors. He noticed during his experiments that 'soot' stuck to the walls of his experiments after a time. This led him to conduct a whole series of experiments involving sputtering effects (not really called that back then) and many of the features that Brant's paper explains in some detail. Note that we have 100 years of technological gains compared to Birkeland and his team. If you do go through his published works, you'll find many of the cathode paper points in Birkeland's work too. He basically just [kept] increasing the complexity of his experiments until he had created: electrical discharge type flares; "jets"; pencil-sized cathode rays; coronal loop activity; and pretty much every important high energy observation seen in satellite imagery today. His "predictions" about the composition of the solar wind was something he actually learned from those experiments. He noted and recorded both types of particles were emitted from his cathode [positive and negative?], and he explained all the mathematics associated with their travel path. Coronal Loops Not from Magnetic Field CC: I'm agreeing more and more with this, especially as concerns the solar wind [and] soot thing. But I think that we should be careful to make sure that we only attribute relevance when there is substantial similitude – [i.e. that] things look the same, and for all of the same reasons. As concerns his "reproduction" of coronal loops, an extremely powerful magnetic field inducing a current isn't correct IMO. In the Sun, I think that there is an extremely weak magnetic field, and a powerful electric field. The electron drift in that field then experiences a Lorentz force, inducing rotation of charged particles, whose B fields resolve into a solenoidal configuration. So in coronal loops, we're not seeing the Sun's magnetic field per se; we're seeing the sunspot's [magnetic?] field, which is an artifact of the Sun's electric field, and the electron drift that developed a spiral [forming each sunspot], because of the Sun's weak magnetic field. - Also, I don't think that coronal loops are a good general model for the Sun, as they are the rare exception, and exceptions make bad rules. Our most fundamental understanding of the Sun has to be framed in the context of granules, helmet streamers, and the like, as these are always present. As concerns the streamers, we should be careful to remember that the energy in them is extremely weak compared to the photosphere. They can only be seen if the Sun is totally eclipsed. So while they might reveal an extraordinary amount of information about the relationship of the Sun to the heliosphere [like showing that the Sun acts as a cathode], they are not significant power sources. So when the mainstream says that magnetic reconnection in the corona is beaming heat down to the photosphere, that just isn't correct, because there isn't much energy there. [LK: MM's evidence seems to show that coronal loops are constantly occurring below the photosphere though and are not a rare exception there, so maybe they are a significant power source. Hmm?] Weak Convection Falsifies Alfven's and the Standard Convection Model MM: Keep in mind that the convection process is now in doubt [much less energetic than predicted], opening up serious questions about what's producing that atmospheric energy. Birkeland envisioned a "transmutation of elements" took place inside the sun. He mentioned a number of fissionable elements by name. Keep in mind that his model predates any knowledge of fusion, but his model is inclusive of fusion. [color=#FF0000][LK: Where does he include fusion in his model?] [color=#000000]MM: Keep in mind that Alfven's solar flare theories are falsified (or power drained) by those convection measurements. If those [recently measured] convection rates stand, that pretty much eliminates Alfven's solar theory (and standard solar theory) [about convection] from serious consideration. Unlike in Birkeland's cathode model, Alfven's coronal loops are powered by the convection process in the solar atmosphere. Juergen's model is still standing, as is Birkeland's model, but anything that "requires" high convection speed is pretty much hanging by a thread at this point. There still need to be further helioseismology studies to confirm these slow rates, but that would be lethal to Alfven's solar theory and mainstream solar theory. -- Pinched Neutrons -- - I think it's highly likely that the sun is simply creating a lot of free electrons and protons as it pinches neutrons from plasma and they decay into current. That's essentially the "current source" of the sun IMO. It's just highly energetic compared to anything else around it. It therefore interacts with the heliosphere and the currents that buffer the heliosphere. Birkeland's model is not dependent upon an external energy source, but it doesn't eliminate such a feature either. Even if Brant is correct about standing waves being converted to energy inside the sun, it's releasing the bulk of the energy under the surface of the sun. That means that neutrino counts should pretty much [be] consistent with mainstream theory, regardless of whether it's a mostly internal, or mostly wireless, energy source. CC: I totally don't understand this. "Pinching neutrons from plasma" then produces protons & electrons? It would only "produce" them after having used them to make neutrons. LK: I posted a link last time and a quote from it about E.D. producing 5,000 neutrons per cubic meter on Earth. CC: I agree, that discharges can create fusion. (Personally, I think that it's relativistic collisions in the stepped leaders, not z-pinching, but that's a different issue.) But MM is creating a current by taking protons & electrons, fusing them together, and then waiting for the neutronium to decay. Huh? LK: MM said he's not totally confident in neutronium and attributes much of the neutron production to E.D., I think. MM: The early z-machine experiments noticed something odd in the data output; - [See:] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-pinch [which says in part:] "ZETA won the race, and by the summer of 1957 it was producing bursts of neutrons on every run. Although the scientists working on the device, and similar ones in the US and UK, were careful to point out that it was not proven, the results were nevertheless released with great fanfare as the first successful step on the path to commercial fusion energy. However, further study soon demonstrated that the measurements were misleading, and none of the machines were near fusion levels. Interest in pinch devices faded, although ZETA and its cousin Sceptre would serve for many years as experimental devices." - The pinch in the plasma filaments acts to release free neutrons, and it's still unclear if the process can produce a type [of] limited fusion process. CC: That doesn't sound to me like "pinching". Rather, it sounds like atom smashing — [i.e.] fission. MM: It's not really altogether clear *what* is occurring, but neutrons are definitely released by such events. CC: I agree about the neutron count, and my compliments to you, Manuel, et al. on that work. MM: Keep in mind that neutrons outside of an atom aren't all that stable. They tend to decay into protons and electrons in about 10 minutes. These neutrons are being released all throughout the solar atmosphere in coronal loops large and small. LK: And if the neutrons are accelerated, the resulting protons and electrons won't combine. Ain't that right? CC: I agree. To combine into a neutron, they have to be forced together under extreme pressure. Relativistic collisions in low pressure don't create fusion; they create fission. MM: Keep in mind that the "current patterns" are formed far under the surface of the sun, and the atmosphere is really a current carrying environment, and a very high energy environment at that. LK: Charles, wouldn't the neutrons be coming from breaking up atoms rather than fusion? CC: They could be coming either from atom smashing in relativistic collisions, or from fusion in high-pressure collisions. Their association with arc discharges establishes the context, though attributing it to fusion in z-pinched discharges isn't correct IMO. The reason is that those are electrons inside the discharge channels, not positive ions. Due to the mass difference, electrons do almost all of the moving in an arc discharge. They're not going to get [anything] pinching [or combining] into anything. And the positive ions get evacuated from the channel, by hydrostatic pressure and collisions with electrons. So I think that the fusion is occurring at the ends of the discharge channels, where the electrons slam into high-density plasma, and the instantaneous increase in temperature and pressure does the job. LK: Yeah, I'm agreeing that the neutrons are likely not from fusion, but fission. Neutrons also come from radioactive decay. Right? CC: Right — radioactive decay is fission. But unless you have a lot of uranium, that isn't going to happen a lot. Lighter elements need atom smashing to accomplish fission. [LK: Electrical environments change the radioactive decay rate, so elements that are non-radioactive on Earth may be so on the Sun, or the opposite may be the case.] - Can chemical reactions produce neutrons? CC: That gets into the whole transmutation thing, including cold fusion and whatnot. I don't know much about that. Perhaps MM does. My understanding is that the basic principles of fusion and fission are always the same, but that even at standard temperature and pressure, you can get random events that accomplish a little bit of fusion and/or fission. I "think" that I'm correct in saying that it's rare, and in extremely small quantities. So to think that it's a form of energy that could be harnessed, or that we could start manufacturing elements of choice with transmutation, is not correct. Michael? Fusion in Solar Loops MM: The term Transmutation of elements is kind of an old concept related mostly to trying to turn Lead into Gold (alchemy). It's mostly associated with fission, and in fact Birkeland cites fissionable elements as elements that are likely to exist in the sun. He predated the whole fusion revolution, unfortunately, so it's hard to make a lot of guesses, but I suspect he would have embraced the idea of fusion as well. He did tend to believe that the sun was internally powered, but I don't think he was emotionally attached to fission. - In terms of 'what happens" in pinch processes, much depends on the materials available, and the energy states involved. In most instance[s] there will be some amount of neutron emission processes that are not likely to be related to fission (due to a lack of heavy elements in the solar atmosphere for instance), but could very well be related to fusion, both hydrogen fusion and even CNO fusion is possible/probable in the solar atmosphere, but only inside coronal loops. That's the only place with enough energy to fuse anything together or pinch enough neutrons from plasma in the atmosphere that later decay into electrons and protons. LK: MM, I guess you mean E.D. pinches neutrons out of atoms? BC: Z-pinch does produce neutrons and it is fusion. Think of it like a magnetic containment vessel that squishes atoms together. Not only that, there is a school of thought that says that z-pinches squeeze so hard that they make atoms or particles out of aether. - [See:] Cosmic ray spectrum above 10^15 eV (a new approach) - ADS: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2005ICRC....3..137P MM: [See:] CNO fusion in the solar atmosphere? http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512633. - In all likelihood the bulk of the "transmutation" process in the solar atmosphere is fusion related. Hydrogen is constantly being fused into helium and even heavier fusion processes take place IMO. They all take place inside the discharge loops, because that is the only place in the solar atmosphere with enough energy to pull it off. IMO the discharge filament is the core energy release mechanism, both internally and externally. The core however could contain a lot of heavier elements too, meaning that fission is more likely to occur on the inside of the sun [below the photosphere] than in the outside atmosphere. It is however possible for pieces of the surface and for magma coming up through volcanic events to contain radioactive materials that could also end up inside coronal loops. I suspect that is rare actually. - I'm kinda fond of a fission based core model too, but I can't justify the observed neutrino measurements based on a fission core. A fission process should produce a different kind of electron anti-neutrino and we simply don't observe that. Keep in mind however that, if neutrinos do in fact oscillate, there may be a "favorite state" that they eventually settle into that has little or nothing to do with the original form. [LK: They have been found to oscillate, but in the opposite way to what the mainstream predicted. So your fission-based core idea is even less likely than before that recent discovery.] - Regarding your statement that fusion is likely most common on the Sun, Charles said it's just electrons that do most of the moving in discharge channels and they don't have enough energy to fuse anything, except at the ends of the channels. What about that? MM: As the electrons flow through the ions, they "pinch' the ions together into very tightly wound filaments. The ions can start to collide at very high speeds, and the whole thing is being heated to tens of millions of degrees by the current. There is more than enough 'net energy" to generate fusion inside coronal loops. - It's also true that the atmosphere of the sun needs to have a "stable" and reliable source of Helium since it is constantly losing Helium ions to the solar wind process. IMO the silicon plasma is simply released into the atmosphere from the surface during the erosion process. Hydrogen, Helium and Neon (along with Oxygen and Nitrogen) are "created" in coronal loop activity. Plasmas tend to expel Oxygen from any plasma. Nitrogen is a by product of the CNO process, whereas Oxygen can be released from the surface in the erosion process and it can be created in fusion processes inside coronal loops. Oxygen can be fused with Helium to create Neon too. Neon is so heavy however that tends to "stick" to the sun, or is carried back to the sun more efficiently than lighter elements like Hydrogen and Helium. Hydrogen and Helium are definitely by products of the coronal loop process. It's freeing up neutrons, and generating fusion inside those discharge channels. IMO that happens on the inside as well as on the outside of the sun. LK: Do you have access to data or studies that say how fast the ions can move together so as to fuse? CC: I'd like more info on that too. I think MM is describing a process that I haven't heard about before, or [am] otherwise considering. It sounds less like Amperian magnetic field pinching, and more like rotating electrons circling around entrapped positive ions and tightening the noose, essentially creating fusion with electron pressure. Is that correct? BC: Basically, yes. Fusion is overcoming the Coulomb Barrier. So, whether you push the ions together fast or slow, you must overcome the repulsion of like charges. CC: My understanding of fusion in tokamaks is that only positive ions are present inside the chamber. The magnetic pressure increases the ion density. Theoretically, you could get fusion just with magnetic pressure, though it's hard to get right up to the theoretical limits for the magnetic field density. So the fusion that actually occurs has as much to do with ion spins in the conflicting poloidal and toroidal fields. At least that's my understanding. Bottom line: I didn't think that there were any electrons in there at all. Is that correct? Regardless, is it electron pressure that is accomplishing fusion in the z-machine? MM: I don't think that is correct actually. I would think that there must be electrons generating the magnetic containment. I think the key issue here is "power". We need a *lot* of power to explain the filament pinch effect. Alfven compares them to 'Bennett Pinches" in plasma. The ions collide in these processes at very high speeds and temperatures. FYI, I think I need to research Lerner's work in this area. I think (not sure) he's working with heavier plasma and he's enjoying some success now. - [See:] Eric Lerner & Dense Plasma Research http://www.lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/index.php?option=~ - [See also:] Dense Plasma Research http://www.lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/index.php?option=~ CC: You understand, of course, that the magnetic fields that pinch electrons will expel positive ions, right? So the wagon circling concept has to involve enough electrons that positive ions can't escape, despite powerful forces encouraging them to do so. [color=#000000]MM: In terms of how it works in *atmospheric plasma*, it works like an ordinary plasma ball. The electrons that flow through the ions generate a magnetic field around the ions that acts to "pinch" them into tightly wound filaments. The greater the current, the higher the temperatures and the more collisions that occur. The bulk of the collisions are between electrons and ions as the electrons traverse the ion conductor, but as the ions get close together, they can also start to collide. That ultimately destabilizes the filament and causes the circuit to erupt in a giant solar flare. [LK: That should probably be explained in more detail.] CC: Positive and negative charges moving in the same direction generate magnetic fields that spin in opposite directions. Positive ions generate fields by the right-hand rule, and electrons generate left-hand rule fields. Because the lines of force are going in opposite directions, this constitutes magnetic pressure, and this will separate opposite charges. - In the following demonstration, they show that in two parallel wires, if the current is flowing in the same direction through both wires, the wires are pulled together by the magnetic pinch effect. But if the current is flowing in opposite directions, you get the opposite effect: the wires are pushed apart. It's for the same reason, and the force is the same either way. But one way it's a pinch and the other way it's a push, depending on the polarity. [See:] http://techtv.mit.edu/tags/441-physics/videos/813-mit-physi~. - So you have to observe the polarity of the electric charges and magnetic fields. And if the particles are moving in the same direction, as we would assume if there have been collisions between them, the opposing magnetic fields will separate opposite charges. MM: Likewise, two current-carrying threads, with current moving in the same direction, will attract and form into a single thread, if possible. The fact they repel when moving in opposite direction is what prevents short circuits from occurring all the time in the solar atmosphere. It works pretty much the same way, only in this case the "wires" can actually move and touch and join into a single "conductor". The net effect is to evacuate the areas around the threads and pinch the ions into a dense stream. Keep in mind that ions are moving, not just the electrons, and the ion and electron temperatures can vary by a whole order of magnitude or more. CC: Are the ions & electrons moving in the same direction, or in opposite directions? BC: It depends on the type of filament. Some have electrons doing the gyro radius cyclotron thing and others are dominated by force-free parallel currents. I'm trying to find the correct paper right now. I did a lot of studying with CLUSTER observations. It turns out that filaments, when they first form, they are of the standard right hand rule current-carrying filament. Then, once a "reconnection" event has taken place, [it acts] like an inductor that drives the energy stored in the plasma back into the filament as a parallel current flow. - The paper below has a section that talks about the dynamics of plasma filaments, reconnections, Birkeland currents. [See:] Evolution of the Plasma Universe: I. Double Radio Galaxies, Quasars, and Extragalactic Jets, A. L. Peratt, IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. Vol. PS-14, N.6, pp.639-660, December 1986.(1.7M) http://plasmauniverse.info/downloadsCosmo/Peratt86TPS-I.pdf. [url]http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CF8QFjAG&url=[url]http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiger.latrobe.edu.au%2Fsuperdarn2008%2FprocCD%2Fpresentations%2F1053.pdf&ei=BwEOUNW8COTS2QXF1IDIAQ&usg=AFQjCNFlpIwWK_OmO4cn3FcwW2WmhAhGAA&sig2=T48Xi8c6N9eixB4wqWdo7Q[/url]. Electrons from Antennas LK: Brant, I have a question below about antennas producing electrons. It seems that should be easy to determine, i.e. if antennas produce electrons. Do you know if it's been tested and how many electrons are produced? BC: Well an antenna ([which is a] piece of wire) will output a signal if you look at it on a scope [oscilloscope]. So I "know" that the scope looks at the number of electrons [that] go into the input. So by inference I know the number of electrons that come out of the wire. Now, if I have a transmitter, I can influence the signal that shows up on the scope by changing what the transmitter puts out. So something is coming out of my wire antenna (connected to the output of an amplifier). And the scope is showing something that is being received by my piece of wire. So … for ease of conversation we call them electrons coming out of a wire that is influenced by [an] EM signal. - I use an aether theory to get the signal from antenna A to antenna B. [I.e.,] Longitudinal waves. From there it is transformed into "electrons" that come out of the wire. Loop Currents and Ion Flow MM: Brant is right. It "depends" on the current and the ion flow. CC: I'll read the paper, and perhaps we can discuss it next time. Regardless, there is going to be a big difference in behaviors, depending on which way the opposite charges are flowing. If they are flowing in opposite directions, they will actually get pinched together, but then there will also be a ton of ohmic heating, and charge recombination, and the heat will disperse the plasma. So that isn't a stable configuration. If the opposite charges are traveling in the same direction, they'll get split into parallel streams by the magnetic pressure. LK: CC, those electrons and protons that decay from accelerated neutrons in E.D.s would surely be moving in the same direction. Right? CC: They will both have [the] net direction of the neutron from which they decayed. If it was moving fast, they'll then generate opposing magnetic fields that will split the particles apart. LK: CC, [regarding transmutation that you discussed above as an insignificant energy source] I read Kervran's book, Biological Transmutation, a long time ago, and some sequel info by him and others, and it's apparent that transmutation is common in biological systems and does occur in other processes as well, but much less commonly. Carbon monoxide poisoning is usually a result of N2 being transmuted to CO via heating. These kinds of transmutation don't seem to produce free neutrons, though. Another example is calcium in egg shells can be transmuted from silicon in mica, I believe. I have some good info on transmutation in several threads on the TB forum. MM: It seems "likely" to me that the sun produces most of its own energy, but 'shares" energy with the rest of the galaxy by converting some of that EM field energy into current internally. Suns tend to be "wired together' to some degree as well, by external plasma filaments. CC: There isn't any evidence of electric currents in plasma filaments connecting galaxies, etc., and if the current is dense enough to do the kinds of things some EU proponents claim it can do, such filaments would be the brightest things in the night sky. MM: [See:] Coronal loop come up through the photosphere: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/dailymov/2012/07/19/201~. - Because Juergen's model isn't a wireless transfer model, it's likely to require a large magnetic field to carry all that current into the sun, and its unlikely to create the correct neutrino counts from the sun. More importantly however, the current would need to 'flow into" the solar atmosphere, making it very unlikely we'd observe whole loops rising up and through the photosphere. A cathode model however works just that way, and in fact Birkeland even filmed these kinds of discharge processes. In short the movement of the loops, the lack of an powerful external EM field and the number of neutrinos do favor an energy release process that is *inside* the sun, not mostly in the solar atmosphere. LK: If Brant is right about antennas producing electrons, wouldn't that be easy to verify? MM: I think there is some likelihood of a wireless transfer of energy. I actually happen to think it's more likely to occur if the sun does have a rapidly spinning heavy core. That type of process would tend to convert/twist what he's calling 'scalar waves" as it rotates, and that may in effect "redirect" those waves coming from the core of our galaxy. If you take a look at the crab nebula over a long period, it kick[s] out obvious plasma waves that flow out from the core. IMO that is likely to create a series of moving EM waves on [very long] wavelengths we can't even measure at this point. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a rotating core cause some of those EM waves to be redirected inside the core. In effect the spinning plasma creates its own EM fields that start to interact with the larger galaxy EM fields. I do think his idea has merit, even if there is a rapidly rotating core, and may particularly [have merit] in that case. I doubt that all the energy of the sun comes directly from it. I do think that stars in a galaxy are "wired together" in some fashion. I don't see large enough magnetic fields inside the solar system to justify Juergen's concepts related to current flowing through the plasma itself. A"wireless" transfer of energy seems more likely IMO. [LK: Sounds like MM thinks stars can transmit energy to each other via longitudinal waves, whereas I think BC has only suggested that this longitudinal wave energy is transmitted from galactic centers, much like Miles Mathis' theory.]
'12-07-24, 08:36 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Discussion #11 - Part 2 Brant's Referenced Cathode Spot Paper LK: I copied Brant's entire Cathode Spots paper without the illustrations etc here: http://sci2.lefora.com/2012/07/19/1-43/. - And I found some illustrations of cathode spots. Here are two from: http://www.shm-cz.cz/en/technical-information/pvd-technolog~ called "cathode spot movement" and "cathode spot schema". MM: The [solar] surface erosion process due to the high electrical activity is quite visible in the LMSAL Gold RD image right after the flare takes place. Along the bottom left corner there's a series of surface erosion features that change the light reflection patterns of those areas of the surface in a matter of minutes. LK: Here's another cathode spot image from: http://bangaloreplasmatek.com/plasma.html. - See: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042207X1~. Fig. 4. Schematic illustration and static images of the cathode spots motion under different magnetic field intensities: (a, a′) TMF = 0 G (b, b′) TMF = 15 G (c, c′) TMF = 30 G. - See also: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S025789720~. Fig. 7. Photographs of arc discharges showing the bending trajectory of the cathode spot produced plasma flux (a–d), straight-line macroparticle trajectories (c), and a luminescent spot on the anode (d). [color=#FF0000]LK2c: Does the luminescent spot on the anode mean that light can come from the anode parts of the Sun too? BC: I would say yes under high current conditions. MM: Light can come from ions as well as electrons. The bulk of the light that we observe in iron ion wavelengths is directly related to the ion temperatures inside the filaments. The filaments reach millions of degree[s] and they absolutely emit light that we observe [in] SDO, Trace, SOHO, etc images. The bulk of that heat is resistance to the current through the loop. According to Birkeland, the sun operates at about 600 million volts. [I think CC says above that it's more likely actually about 1,600 million volts.] Depths of the Photosphere and Subphotosphere LK3: Should we try to resolve all 3 of your different estimates of the depths of the photosphere and the subphotosphere? Looks like you all agree that the photosphere is probably 500-700 km thick. MM and CC think the subphotosphere is about 4,000 km thick. What do you think, Brant? And can everyone briefly state what you base your conclusions on? BC: By subphotosphere I imagine they are saying that there is a plasma below the photosphere layer? LK: I call the plasma layer below the photosphere the subphotosphere. It's just above the proposed iron shell surface. CC: The photosphere, by definition, is the plasma down to the optical depth. But as we have discussed elsewhere, optical depth is a very contentious thing. Some scientists place the optical depth at 300 km. But that is pulling opacity figures from a gas table. Ionized plasma is a lot more transparent. BC: Yes. there is a reason why you cant see below this place termed "opacity 1", when I think you should be able to see further into the plasma given the conditions. It's because there is a sudden change in opacity that I don't think is related to plasma. At approximately 400 or so miles the opacity below the photosphere jumps up more than can be accounted for by plasma under those conditions. LK: Do you mean a sudden change in opacity at the bottom of the photosphere? If the opacity jumps up, does that mean it gets harder to see through? BC: Yes. Think fully opaque. LK: But then how do the satellite images at certain wavelengths show the iron surface? BC: Ah yes. So this harkens back to the days of yore, when a man was a man. LK: And were roses roses too? BC: Aye. And TRACE, twas but a newborn EUV satellite. The paper has the only composite limb image that I have found that was taken for calibration purposes. This image shows I believe the layers of the sun as they correctly are, not as the solar scientists present them. [See:] Handy Et Al 1998 - Here is the link: CALIBRATED HI LYMAN OBSERVATIONS WITH TRACE- B.N Handy 1999: http://wwwsolar.nrl.navy.mil/rockets/vault/pubs/trace.pdf. I made those other composite images after reading this paper. The color image came from some other paper that will be a pain to track down, but I know it's in one of my posts on the web! . https://www.box.com/files#/files/0/f/40333942/1/f_445736324 CC: So I'm not starting with opacity. Rather, my starting point is the dynamics of the granules. As these are definitely behaving like Raleigh-Benard convection cells, and as such cells are typically 4 times taller than they are wide, and since the granules are 1000 km wide, I'm saying that the granules should be something like 4000 km deep. Next I make the assumption that the heat source driving the convection is at the base [or bottoms] of the granules. This would be the black-body radiation. (So that forces me to contend that the optical depth, in the presence of thin, highly ionized plasma, is actually at least 4000 km.) Then I assert that the black-body radiation is coming from ion motion in high-pressure plasma 4000 km below the edge of the Sun. -- Blackbody Studies Led to Quantum Mechanics Nonsense -- - This defies the quantum mechanical theory of black-body radiation, but that's another issue. Essentially, astronomers couldn't figure out how the original black-body theory could extend to explain 10,000 K curves from out in space. The reason is that nothing is solid at that temperature, and to get plasma under enough pressure that the atoms would vibrate at the [required?] speed would beg the question as to why the overlying plasma didn't absorb the radiation. So they just invented quantum mechanics to come up with some mumbo-jumbo that would hide the fact that they couldn't understand what was going on. The thing that they didn't consider is that the overlying plasma is fully ionized [with all electrons removed?], and therefore transparent. The reason why they couldn't get there is that they couldn't understand what would preserve a charge separation in the near-perfect conductivity of 10,000 K plasma. This, in fact, can only be accomplished with relativistic velocities in a z-pinch (which I think are present in some exotic stars, but not in the Sun), or with compressive ionization (which is present in the Sun). LK: So that's how QM came about. Eh? CC: Yes, black-body theory was one of the original motivations for the development of some sort of new framework, which eventually came to be known as quantum mechanics. Curiously, though BB radiation is a continuous curve, QM got impregnated with other assumptions concerning the quantized nature of photons, which are actually somewhat more reasonable, as many photons originate from electrons dropping to lower shells. LK: Could we say contaminated or something, instead of impregnated? CC: QM is, in my opinion, just a container into which they throw everything that doesn't make sense. Then they have this abstract, nonsensical terminology for everything, and that makes it look like all of this stuff is addressed by a theory. But it's not a theory in the sense that it has explanatory power, because it doesn't make sense, and it's not a theory in the sense that it has predictive capability, because QM never actually predicted anything that could be independently confirmed. So it's not a theory. BC: Yep! CC: Brant, I think I've aired my interpretation of BB theory and optical depth before, and we've discussed it, but do you have any new comments? You're the expert on this, and I'm the new guy, but interesting things can happen when somebody is learning something new. So don't let the assertive tone make you think that I actually think I'm an expert or anything. I just [try] to explicitly state my "understanding" in the hopes that flaws would be more obvious. BC: I think blackbody [spectroscopy] is simpler than they make it out to be. … CC is correct in that the more you compress a plasma, the more it looks like a BB curve [i.e. blackbody curve]. The true BB curve come[s] from a perfect solid absorber, if that makes sense. If you have a solid black ball that absorbs 99.9999999[%] of energy that impinges upon it, the spectral curve that you measure gets closer and closer to a perfect BB curve. Whether this [is] a quantum mechanical effect with springs and oscillator and such, I don't know. It's just a handy description. I first really started question[ing] the assumption made by BB physics, when I read this paper here: Blackbody Radiation and the Loss of Universality: Implications for Planck's Formulation and Boltzman's Constant - Pierre-Marie Robitaille: http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2009/PP-19-02.PDF LK: Where can I find a good image of a perfect BB curve? BC: Look at the one that they claim is the measurement of the CMB.You can find pretty good ones, if you search google images. LK: Yeah, I see plenty of curves there, but it'll take a while to find the perfect one. But I haven't tried one for the CMB yet. CC: Here's the solar BB curve: http://scs-inc.us/Other/QuickDisclosure/2ndParty/Images/Cha~ BC: We are just talking about comparing theoretical with measured. You won't find a perfect measured BB curve. 99% of the ones that you find are perfect because they are theoretical. Make sense? LK: Theoretically, it does. CC: Just to be clear, I'm thinking that a supercritical fluid can emit the same radiation as a solid, while the solid emits that frequency because of the degrees of freedom within the constraints of covalent bonding, [and] the high-pressure plasma does the same thing within the constraints of Coulomb forces. - OK, I'm satisfied that what I'm using for BB theory might be just a handy analogy. But until I find something that actually refutes it, I'll leave it in place. The implication is that the source of the BB radiation is actually pretty deep in the Sun (4,000 km). This sits nicely with the observed limb darkening also. Some would have it that the outermost edge of the photosphere, which is 4,600 K, and the 6,400 K BB radiation, is a temperature difference that occurs entirely within 300 km. Then, per standard sunspot theory, just 700 km below, the temperature drops back down to as low as 3,000 K. I don't see how such temperature differences could occur. BC: I have read how the Temperature at the limb just under the photosphere [is] 10,000K. LK: In the standard model, or whose? CC: In the "standard" model. So I'm thinking that the heat source is the high-pressure plasma 4,000 km below, and it's running at 6,400 K, which is the BB temperature we get, viewing the Sun straight-on, and then the temp drops to 4,600 K at the limb, just because of the inverse square law. LK: You mentioned 3,000 K in sunspots. Don't you accept that as indicative of the temperature below the photosphere? CC: That's a different issue, but no, I think that the heat source is ohmic heating through the topmost 20,000 km of the Sun, which includes 4,000 km involved in the granules, and another 16,000 km below that. Sunspots appear to be 10,000 - 20,000 km deep, so we should be seeing directly into the heat source. So I'm thinking that the EM structure of the sunspot is getting the discharge to rotate around the edge of the sunspot, and this is depriving the umbra of the ohmic heating that plasma would ordinarily get at [that] depth. BC: Look at the base of coronal funnels or coronal loops, which go through sun spots: Coronal Funnels: Solar Wind Origin Regions: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid~. - Have you read this? CC? The Solar Photosphere: Evidence for Condensed Matter: http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2007/PP-08-12.PDF. CC: Not yet. I'll read it before next week. LK: Brant, how condensed a matter is it talking about? - CC, does your site have any images of the limb darkening? CC: [See:] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/20~. Neon Photosphere and Silicon Subphotosphere LK4a: I thought MM made good points last time about why there should be mass-separated layers of silicon and neon; i.e. arcs should not show Si or Ne, if these elements aren't abundant in those layers. (I assume that arcs below the photosphere show Si without Ne, while those in and above the photosphere show Ne as well. Is that right? If so, are your sources on that on your website or somewhere, MM?) MM: It likely works the way you describe it, but our technology isn't that sophisticated IMO. We can't pick out individual loops like that. We can see a full "spectrum" and we can isolate certain regions, but unfortunately the technology just isn't that good yet. LK: MM, I didn't mean to suggest that individual loops can be analyzed, especially below the photosphere. I meant that I was guessing that light from below the photosphere shows little or no neon in its spectrum. What about that? BC: See … papers [below]. CC: I don't know much about this. I'm certainly not questioning the presence of silicon and neon. But there are certainly powerful H-alpha lines there too, and I'm not sure why MM is excluding hydrogen from the photosphere. LK: I think he thinks the H and He are mass separating upward through the photosphere, while the Ne mass separates to that layer, the photosphere itself. CC: I thought that he had all of the H & He in the corona, but maybe I'm wrong. LK: No, he says it starts lower and "floats" up there through the lower layers, I believe. CC: I think you're right. He's saying that it's being produced. So OK, it would be produced inside the Sun, and then bubble up, eventually stabilizing in the corona. Still, does he have neon dominating the photosphere? I'm not sure of the exact nature of the contentions. LK: I think he only means that neon is the main permanent resident of the photosphere. I don't know if he's stated how much of each there is, when you include the transients, H and He etc that are passing through the photosphere. The survey at the end of this document says something. BC: Here is the data for elemental abundances and how they measure it. You can make your own conclusions: RELATIVE ELEMENTAL ABUNDANCES OF THE QUIET SOLAR CORONA AS DETERMINED BY SERTS: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/papers/falcoda/coronal_ab~. - Neon is not observed in the visible portion of the spectrum. Neon IV thru VIII are observed in the UV. [Here's a quote from:] The Detectability of Neon Fluorescence and Measurement of the Solar Photospheric Neon Abundance: "Faced with the prospect of coronal Ne fractionation by a process that is not yet firmly identified or understood, it is not clear that the neon content of any region of the solar outer atmosphere will be the same as that of the deeper layers." [This is from:] http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-4357/665/2/L175/fulltext/218~. LK4b: Does anyone know of studies of spectra from lab arcs in such atmospheres of Ne or Si? Here's solar Ne VII, VIII: https://www.google.com/search?q=solar+ne+vii+viii&oe=ut~. Survey LK5: Here's a survey to see what you guys think is the probability of each of your electric sun hypotheses. If you like, please write ... your estimate of the percent probability that the statement is true, i.e. a number between 0 and 100 inclusive. If you want to discuss any of these points, let's do it below the survey, rather than within it. Okay? _1. The Sun is positively charged. B: 0% C: 0% M: 0% _2. The photosphere is a cathode. B: 100% Underneath the photosphere is the cathode C: ? (depends [on] definitions of photosphere, & cathode — overall, the Sun emits electrons) M: The (solid) surface is a cathode. The atmosphere is a current carrying environment. _3. The layers above and below the photosphere are negatively charged. B: 100% particles gain energy as they leave the sun. C: 100% M: They are standard double layers IMO. _4. The photosphere is 400 miles deep, the maximum depth of white light flares. B: 100% C: 0% (BB radiation has to be coming from higher-pressure plasma, so optical depth is much greater, 4000 km?) M: The neon layer is approximately 500-700 KM. The Silicon layer is approximately 4000KM. _5. The photosphere is at least 50% Neon, with mostly H and He bubbling up through it. B: 50% Can't say for sure. MM is better at that one. C: 50% (ditto) M: It's closer to 80-90% _6. The subphotosphere plasma layer is mostly Silicon, with H and He bubbling up through it too. B: 0% C: 50% M: 100% _7. The subphotosphere is between 4,000 and 20,000 km thick. B: … C: 90% M: The plasma atmosphere is 4800KM thick. The subphotosphere (area below neon is approximately 4100-4200KM thick) _8. A layer of mostly solid iron lies below the subphotosphere. B: 70% C: 0% M: 100% _9. Large electric discharges occur constantly over the iron surface. B: 100% C: 0% M: 100% _10. They are less than 1,000 km apart on average. B: 100% Solar moss. C: 0% M: 100% (I agree with the solar moss comment). _11. The solid iron shell is less than 1,000 km thick. B: 0% C: 0% M: 0% (More like 3000+) _12. Below the solid iron shell is iron in a plasma state. B: 0% C: 0% M: 75% _13. Or the solid iron shell is over 100,000 km thick. B: 100% C: 0% M: 15% (I don't think it's that thick) _14. Or H and He plasma underlie the photosphere about 200,000 km deep. B: 0% C: 50% M: 0% I think the plasma layers are double layered on the inside too, and mass separated by atomic weight with the heaviest elements closest to the shell, the the lightest elements near the core. It works much like that water bubble in space video I posted earlier. _15a. The Sun's core is hollow. B: 100% C: 0% M: 50% (It wouldn't technically be hollow, just high temp plasma). _15b. Or the core is superdense. B: 0% C: 100% M: 50% There could be a dense core, but I'm not certain. _16. The source of the solar wind electrons and protons is accelerated neutrons from electric discharges near the solid iron surface. B: 70% as well as TF emission from the surrounding surface. C: 0% M: 50% The electrons traverse the surface, whereas the protons tend to start as pinched neutrons from surface discharges that decay into protons, electrons and a neutrinos. The cathode (electron) flow however starts under the photosphere IMO. _17a. The source of the electric current is s-waves near the bottom of the (silicon?) subphotosphere. B: 0% C: 5% (that's 5% of the heat appears to come from deep in the convective zone, the rest from the top 20,000 km) M: 0% _17b. Or the source is longitudinal aether antenna waves from the galactic center. B: 90% C: 0% M: 50% While some energy may originate this way, some likely comes from inside the sun too. IMO all suns are electrical generators. _18. The solar cycle is caused by the Sun orbiting the solar system's barycenter at a few thousand km. B: 50% C: 50% M: 50% _19. Sunspots are caused by updrafts from volcanoes on the solid iron surface. B: 75% C: 0% M: 75%-100% The electrical discharges above the volcanic active and the ionization process in the atmosphere contributes to the heat source IMO. _20. Most solar features are cathode arcs, spots etc. B: 100% C: 100% M: 75% Most of them are "circuit disruption/circuit overload" type flares. Some flares are caused by dark filament eruptions.
'12-08-02, 10:32 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Discussion #12 - Part 1 LK1: BC, I didn't realize until the last discussion that you had the solid Fe layer immediately below the photosphere. I thought in your TB thread last year you had said there was a thick plasma layer below the photosphere and above the iron crust. What evidence do you see for the Fe layer being right below the 600 km thick photosphere, besides the maximum depth you've seen of white light flares? BC: The Iron layer is at the same depth as the White light flares. That doesnt say anything about the density of the plasma. If the plasma gets denser as you go from the photosphere to the surface then that is the case. Right now the photosphere is 10^-6 per cc. so how much denser can it get at a solid surface that is 400 to 600 miles away? Its just like any cathode where you have a slight increase in density of the plasma due to vaporized metals near the surface. Like the hyper velocity blobs falling from the coronal loops as coronal rain. LK: BC, what does this mean: "the photosphere is 10^-6 per cc."? Is that kgm per cc? Had you seen MM's evidence of greater photosphere depth before, that he just mentioned under LK2a? BC: I have seen helioseismological flow studies before. This paper talks about the Origin of the Solar Wind. It mentions coronal funnels and shows good diagrams as to the position of each element. Solar wind origin in coronal funnels and correlation heights of the sources of solar ultraviolet emission http://www.mps.mpg.de/meetings/ccmag/dokumente/presentation~ LK: So you don't think that means the plasma [atmosphere] layer is over 4,000 km deep under the photosphere, as MM seemed to say? BC:I am open to convincing evidence. LK2a: MM, what do you base your estimate on: of a plasma Si layer thickness of ~4,000 km below the photosphere? MM: See: Heliosiesmology studies show that something unusual happens at 4800 KM http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1641599.stm My first estimates in terms of the location of the rigid surface came primarily from the work of Dr. Kosovichev from Stanford. It turns out that the sunspot effect is a relatively shallow phenomenon. If you follow the link below and scroll to near the bottom, there are two graphs showing the mass flows around sunspots. At around 4800KM all the flows go from a downward directional travel path to a nearly horizontal directional path. Not only is the 4800KM figure a location where the sound speed changes rapidly, it also interferes with the flow of plasma. Scroll down to near the bottom of the page to the helioseismology graphs: http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/blog.htm - A later paper confirmed the sound speed transition process centered around .997 in the solar atmosphere. He refers to it as a "stratification subsurface" in his paper and describes its changes over time. Great paper! - Changes in the subsurface stratification of the Sun with the 11-year activity cycle LK: Sounds like you have strong evidence of the depth being over 4,000 km. MM: I thought it was strong as well, but the real icing on the cake came with the first light SDO images. SDO was the first satellite capable of locating the surface of the photosphere in relationship to the base of the heliosphere, and in relationship to the iron ion images in full disk images along the limb. They must certainly have calibrated their 'new baby' to take the first images of all the various lines from the sun in the 'proper' alignment with one another. In fact they did just that: http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/images/sdo/447006main_ful~ Solar atmosphere - The first image is the raw unprocessed image from NASA that shows the "cropping' of the photosphere from the heliosphere (orange band) and puts that in proper relation to the iron ion wavelengths. The second image is a small section (southern pole) of the original image that has been increased in size to show the relationships a bit better. The orange heliosphere is sitting 4800KM above the iron ion line images, just as Kosovichev's work predicted it would be located. There is absolutely no way that could possibly be a coincidence. As I recall from counting pixels, it worked out to within 12 KM to Kosovichev's 4800 figure. That's actually well within the margin of error, and within the subsurface stratification distance changes that Kosovichev observed as well. CC: I agree, that there is an important boundary of some sort, 4000~4800 km below the limb. I'm going on the dynamics of granules, where we can expect the Raleigh-Benard convection cells to be roughly 4 times deeper than they are wide. Since they are 1000 km wide, they are roughly 4000 deep. In thermodynamics, there just isn't a way to get those specific behaviors otherwise. But I disagree, like many, that the SDO "first light" images are legitimate data. "They must certainly have calibrated their 'new baby'" is pretty much a self-defeating argument. It was the first image they put together, and they were in a hurry to go to press with it. Later they adjusted the calibration. You are merely discrediting your argument by insisting that you have found revealing information in this hurried press release. MM: It wouldn't make any sense at all to *not* attempt to make a "best guess" at how all the wavelengths align to each other *before* launch. They needed to set the default settings to "something", and it would only make sense to get it as close to correct as possible. The first light images were most likely 'pre-planned' in terms of what they wanted to show. I see no reason why this would *not* be as close to correctly set as possible. I would also say that it would suggest to me that they were pretty much right on target too because there is no other way it could have come out to the same number as I got from Kosovichev's work if that were a fluke. CC: If it was so close to being correct, why did they recalibrate it later, and retroactively claim that the "first light" images were inaccurate? I realize that we could get into a he-said-she-said argument here, but the underlying issue is just that we have to make sure we're using reliable data in our assessments. MM: First of all, "how much" change did they make? You seem to be jumping to the conclusion that they *massively* changed things. I don't recall them ever suggesting such a thing and I don't see much evidence of that in the Solarsoft libraries. CC: So where are images that show the same boundary, other than the "first light" images? MM: If I create them, how do you know *I* haven't fiddled with them? I simply like the one NASA provided. No matter what changes I make to the images, I've made them. The original image however is based upon a series of preprogrammed alignments that are certainly "in the ballpark", within 12KM in fact. BC: This is what happened with the TRACE calibration images. They claimed that the mirror was incorrectly aligned and because of that there was a layer that was showing up where it was not supposed to be based on the correct solar model. That's what my whole argument was on the JREF forum. So now they supply processing software that fixes the image for you. Based on a solar model not on what the machine sees. MM: That's the whole problem in a nutshell. Any 'tinkering' they do is now a "tune up" to a solar model "prediction", it's not based upon their math and their physics, and engineering skills. The "fudge factors" are alignment fixes that include what they "think' they should be observing, not what the designers and engineers claimed the equipment would do and see. CC: OK, I didn't know that you were explicitly accusing them of doctoring all subsequent data, to hide the embarrassing facts. You might be right. MM: I'm not accusing them of anything in particular except being unable to be sure where things should be "tuned" after the fact. I tend to trust the engineers that built the equipment in the first place to have properly aligned it. I see no evidence that they "blew it' in the first light images, in fact I see evidence that they were "quite good" at their first shot. BC: No. They are not intentionally doctoring anything. If they used a different model then they wouldnt have to change anything. They saw something unexpected and said "our equipment must be flawed." I agree with MM. They are good engineers. And they returned an unexpected result. MM: That's exactly how I see it. CC: OK. But I still don't see this as proof of an iron surface. I see it as (contentious) evidence of a major increase in the density of iron atoms. This could simply be an increase in the density of everything, but when you're filtering for just iron lines, you see much denser iron lines. That doesn't prove that it's all iron, much less that the iron is in the solid state. MM: First of all, why iron in all those coronal loops? Why not *any* other element? Where is all that iron actually coming from anyway? Second, why do the loop patterns remain "relatively fixed' over hours, days, weeks, etc? Plasma isn't exactly "stable' and you're trying to run a jetspeed convection process up through that atmosphere. Why in the world would the loops remain in angular and yet rigid patterns over days and weeks rather than come and go over 8 minute intervals like the structures in the photosphere? CC: Why do hurricanes last for days? MM: They quite clearly move like sunspots move, unlike RD images of the coronal loop activity. It's not moving like that. CC: As concerns iron in the coronal loops, which do not show up in H-alpha, that sounds like a good point that I haven't considered. But we should remember that the plasma density is very slight in those loops. So it doesn't necessarily speak to abundances. - Nevertheless, I still don't see how you build a solar model just on the behaviors of the coronal loops. These are specific to active regions, which are the rare exception. LK: CC, you don't buy the satellite images as showing E.D. under the photosphere? - By the way, Brant, how were you thinking last time they would find that the Sun rotates as a whole in 27 days, as a solid? BC: Eventually by helioseismology. It seems as though the sunspot[s] are mostly tied to the surface as it moves. As well as the solar moss. I think there are huge electrical currents that exist inside the iron shell. Since iron is magnetostrictive, moves with current generated magnetic field, it makes vibration in the crust that appear to be moving streams of plasma. You will not have coherent plasma streams that bend and wander? like the streams under the crust.. Look at the (plasma) bands that encircle the equator under the photosphere. These are electrical currents that are responsible for the butterfly pattern. And the origin of solar flares, sunspots and CME's. - [See:] Mighty Streams of Plasma.. "These plasma streams are the smallest structures yet observed inside the Sun, but each stream is still large enough to engulf two Earths." "Standford scientists have found that there are gaseous bands located in both hemispheres that move faster than the material around them. These bands extend to a depth of at least 12,000 miles below the Sun's surface. These bands also have a relationship to sunspot formation as sunspots form at the edges of these zones." http://www.windows2universe.org/headline_universe/rot.html&~ LK: Are those bands/streams vertical vents? BC: I don't think so. I am pretty sure they encircle the equator. LK: Then do you mean those bands are within the iron crust? BC: Yes. Think of them like curtains 12000 miles tall going around the equator inside the iron shell. LK: How about rivers? And what about the jet streams under the photosphere? I think they're several 10,000 km deep, aren't they? BC: It would seem as though I should be able to locate a minimum depth for these jet streams and other movement under the photosphere. LK: What's your plan for finding that info? BC: I never have a plan. I just start researching and see where the observations lead me. If its not a good idea I will find something that falsifies that idea. I started with the term "plasma flow under the solar atmosphere" and found a whole bunch of stuff. So that's where I will start wandering around.. LK: Do they have plans to send any satellites to make closer observations? Can the Mercury orbiting satellite get closer images of the Sun? BC: Are Raleigh-Benard convection cells purely thermal? CC: Actually, no. The updrafts average 2 km/s, and the downdrafts can exceed 7 km/s. These are supersonic speeds in the solar atmosphere, and in no sense do the principles of convection (i.e., buoyancy) explain supersonic speeds. These can only be cathode tufts, where the updrafts are motivated by electron drag, and the position ions that can shed off of the electron stream are then pulled forcefully back down by the electric force. Nevertheless, the dynamics are the same, whether it's thermal buoyancy or electric forces. MM: If you are counting on supersonic speeds of convection, I wouldn't. I even emailed Kosovichev about it. He didn't like their findings and didn't necessarily agree with them, but he didn't point out any faults in their work either. I'd say that the jury is still out on convection. The fast plasma is located in the loops, and in the spicules that are also current carrying filaments. BC: OK. So can we say right now that there is a electrical power source driving the cells, and that power source lies somewhere between [400km] and 600km underneath the photosphere, i.e. the emitting surface? CC: I think that the source of the electrons is 20,000 km below the limb. The electrons accelerate as they move outward, because they are moving away from a current divider. At 4000 km below the limb, the increasing speed and decreasing pressure cause the eruption of convection (i.e., granules). Below 4000 km, the high-pressure plasma generates BB radiation. Above 4000 km, we get spectral lines (emission & absorption). LK: Did you see my question to you yet below about the depth of granules at LK3a? MM: The other bit of information that confirms the fact that the iron lines start under the photosphere is found in the overlay image on the first page of my website. It is Trace/Yohkoh overlay image that shows the x-ray images in yellow, in relationship to the 171A iron line images in blue. As you can see, the blue areas of the coronal loop extend far into the photosphere whereas the yellow x-rays are pretty much terminated at a much higher point in the atmosphere. The reason we can't see x-rays further into the atmosphere is because they are absorbed by the photosphere, whereas the 171A line penetrate much deeper into the atmosphere. The overall depth that I could "eyeball" (and that's the best I could call it) from that image was certainly several times the depth of the visible part of the photosphere. For a variety of reasons (and images), I would tend to agree with the 500-700KM thickness of the photosphere. Yohkoh & Trace Overlay Image http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/images/mossyohkoh.jpg LK2b: Could the Si layer not be a thin layer at the bottom of the photosphere's Ne layer, with the iron crust being immediately below that, as per BC? LK2c: How do you think arcs under the photosphere manage to make the granules all about the same width of 1,100 km and enduring about 8 minutes each? LK2d: Can you explain in detail how you conclude that the photosphere is 80 - 90% Ne? Or where might you have already explained that on your site or elsewhere? LK3a: CC, MM seems to agree with a lot of your convection ideas about granules. Is it possible that convection in plasma could involve much quicker expansion of thermal bubbles than in liquids, so that they expand to about 1,100 km width in a depth of only 600 km? MM: One of the "concerns" I have about the helioseismology study that shows low convection speeds is that it's based primarily on ion speeds at 'subsurface" depths (solid surface). That is likely to be magma movement or dense ion plasma movement but it does not include the effects of a 'cathode" sun that is kicking out streams of electrons. Once more 'shallow studies are conducted, it might turn out the convection process closer to the surface of the photosphere is faster than it is at greater depth. I think that favors the model Charles put forth too if I understand it. It's still possible that the current (electrons) flows freely through the ions at depth, but they may have a greater impact on ion movement as they reach the thinner parts of the atmosphere. I conveyed that idea to Kosovichev after he explained that their equipment is most sensitive to ion movements, not electron movements. I'd love it if the convection process near the surface turns out to be very slow too, but I'm not convinced yet that this is necessarily the case. - It is "possible" that the electron kinetic energy near the surface creates a "rapid boil" effect that isn't seen at depths greater than 4800KM. In fact I'm quite sure that is how it will work out. CC: My model has a current divider 20,000 km below the limb. There the electrons are stationary, as the E-field pulling them down to the under[lie] positive layer matches the E-field from the positive heliosphere. Above the current divider, the electrons accelerate, and continue to accelerate. Only a current divider can explain that acceleration. Anyway, this means that the ohmic heating increases as the electrons near the photosphere. And the pressure thins out. Increasing heat and decreasing viscosity means that sooner or later, you'll cross the threshold for turbulence. So I'm thinking that these are the factors that define the granules. MM: Have you thought yet about how your model ties into the helioseismology study from the SDO data? They show a very 'slow" upward ion movement in the .92R and .96R. I wouldn't expect much movement in that region based on my model. Keep in mind that the techniques are most sensitive to ion movements rather than electron movement so it is possible that there is more kinetic energy moving through the system than it seems at first glance. CC: My model incorporates data on supergranules, which rise at roughly .4 km/s. I infer from their 30,000 km width that they originate from a depth of 120,000 km below the limb. This is the level of the liquid-plasma boundary. S-waves at that boundary will enable charge recombination, producing heat. BC: The electric current or the plasma itself? CC: In my model, the s-waves are in the liquid, at the liquid-plasma boundary. It's a supercritical fluid, compressed by the pressure of the overlying plasma, to the point of ionization. Hence a wave will elevate the crests above the liquid line, meaning that an ionized supercritical fluid turns to plasma, which has room for electrons between the atoms, and the electrons stream in vigorously. Did I understand the question? BC:I am thinking that the granules are a type of plasma filament that extends some ways under the photosphere and some ways above the photosphere. The question relates to maybe how far does the liquid plasma extend down in your model? And how far does the granule filament extend down, and does it ever run into a hard surface? CC: At least going on the Dalsgaard densities, the liquid line occurs at 125,000 km below the limb. I don't see any way for the behaviors of the granules to extend to that depth. So I'm sticking with granules that are 4,000 km deep. I'm thinking of granules as boiling on top of high-pressure plasma at the 4,000 km depth that is producing BB radiation. BC: The plasma would have to be almost solid with an excuse for extra UV emission. Similar to an arc lamp emission, to truly represent the solar emission spectrum correctly. CC: I hear ya. I'm thinking that the optical depth is a somewhat irrelevant concept under the circumstances, as in my model, all of the topmost plasma is fully ionized, and therefore transparent. So we're actually seeing BB radiation from a lot deeper than the gas optical depth. Hence the plasma that generates the BB radiation is under a lot of pressure, and the Coulomb forces between positive ions give them the ability to vibrate at extremely high frequencies, mimicking BB radiation, but at extrapolated temperatures far too hot for any solid. MM: If you look at penumbral filaments in sunspot image, they have all the earmarkings of a plasma filament that is "turfed" at the top. I think you're right that they are filaments that traverse the whole neon photosphere. Somewhere on my website I have a nice movie of energy flowing up one of the penumbral filaments. I'll see if I can locate it. It's a cool image and it appears to show a "current bundle" that flows up the filament. CC: I'm not sure what you mean by "tufting" as concerns penumbral filaments. To me, granules look and act like cathode tufts, while penumbral filaments look like B-field-aligned electric currents. MM: That's actually a better way to put it. CC: BTW, I did a bunch more work on my piece about torsional oscillations. Having eliminated a number of other possibilities, I finally came to the conclusion that s-waves at the liquid line are the only mechanisms that can produce all of the observed effects. We know that supergranules are more pronounced at the equator, and that they move in wave-like patterns around the Sun, in the direction of the rotation. So I'm thinking that tidal forces initiated the waves in the first place, which is consistent with the equatorial preference, and the direction of the rotation. We also see differential rotation, with the equatorial band rotating faster than the solid body rate, and the polar cap rotating slower. This is explained by the fact that the crests of s-waves at the liquid line will create thermal bubbles that have the momentum of the wave speed itself. In s-waves, there is no net translational movement overall, but the particles rotate in place, hence a thermal bubble will be "launched" moving in the direction and speed of the crest. As the supergranules are more pronounced at the equator, this acceleration happens more at the equator. In the higher latitudes, we see slower-than-solid-body rotation. This could just be an eddy current, as outflow from the equatorial band. MM: The primary problem I'm having with your model is the fact I can't explain RD images, nor the 'fixed" layout of coronal loops particularly well without something "rigid", or considerably more rigid than the loops themselves. Something "anchors" them in place in very angular patterns. That's reasonably easy to explain with a rigid surface or dense plasma layer, but no[t] so much with a liquid IMO. CC: My model has a supercritical fluid below 125,000 km, and high-pressure (though not supercritical) plasma above. LK: Can you show us the angular features here? MM: If you notice in the upper section, there is a small angular feature that persists throughout the flare sequence. That isn't quite as noticeable in the raw data, but you can see similar patterns in the light emissions from raw images too. LK: How many centimeters from the top and from the left or right side? MM: Each pixel represents roughly 250KM. The item in question is about 1/3 of the way from the left, and about a 1/8th of the way from the top. LK: The thing that looks like a straight stick with a shadow on the left side of it? MM: Yes. You can see lots of angular features in pretty much any iron ion raw or rd image. Even the raw images show very angular areas and patterns that aren't indicative of plasma/gas/liquid IMO. BC: I drew a diagram illustrating light movement across the surface illuminating a ridge. https://www.box.com/files#/files/0/f/40333942/1/f_439289987 CC: The black-body temperature, when measured normal to the Sun, is 6400 K. Is iron solid at that temperature? BC: In my model the temperature is really an average of all of the surface conditions. - Looking at the image below and imagining you are looking at the surface of the sun. - You can see the "Arcade" that stick up through the photosphere. In the middle of the loops(arcades) you can see mounds that represent the places where coronal rains has [have] fallen and mounded up. If you look at the areas in the picture you can see that the point where the loops exit the surface is the hottest point. There are glowing areas known as solar moss that represent intermediate temperature areas. And there are cold areas. The solar BB temperature is a combination of all of these areas plus lines from ionized iron and other elements. Nobody has explained where all the iron comes from but I can show you in this picture. MM: The angular patterns also play out in "solar moss" activity, perhaps most commonly in solar moss activity. That angular pattern is directly related to the surface terrain IMO. BC: Yep. MM: Brant, I meant to tell you that there is another way to demonstrate that the moss activity takes place *under* the photosphere and shows that the loops come up through it. You can now put together multiple wavelength SDO movies yourself using Helioviewer. If you take any 1600A or 1700A image and overlay it with a magnetogram image of the same timeline, the lighter areas on the surface seen in 1600 or 1700A correspond to black/white magnetic field alignments in magnetogram images, and they align perfectly with "loops' seen in iron ion wavelengths. All of that alignment in the images would suggest that the loops come up and through the photosphere and "light up" (bright spots) that surface in the process. The black/white magnetic field alignments are directly related to whether the current is coming up or going back down through the photosphere. The magnetic field alignments show the points where the loops traverse the surface of the photosphere. If you keep looking, you'll also find images that have "hot spots' in iron ion images, but no corresponding 'bright point' on the surface and no obvious magnetic alignment in magnetogram images. That is due to the fact that the loops seen in the bright hot spots aren't large enough to penetrate the surface. They are quite "hot" and very bright, but the whole loop exists *under* the surface of the photosphere, hence no bright area in 1700, and no magnetogram alignment. Helioviewer
'12-08-02, 10:41 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Discussion #12 - Part 2 CC: Below the surface, we'd expect these temperatures to average out, right? And in the absence of a perfect thermal insulator, it wouldn't take long for the entire interior to be at least that temperature. The BB temp on the limb is 4600 K. This drop in temp we can understand as the inverse square law of dispersin. But it isn't possible for the interior to be an[y] cooler than the maximum surface temperature (i.e., 6400 K). LK: Isn't that assuming that the Sun isn't like a blowtorch or a welder? CC: Indeed, the tip of a blowtorch is within a couple of centimeters of a flame running at 1000 degrees Celsius or so. But the gas flowing through the nozzle cools it. So I'm saying that if you wrap the Sun with anything that has an average temperature of 6400 K, and in the absence of convection that could get the heat out, and in the absence of a thermal insulator, that heat should get conducted all of the way through the Sun. BC: The sun may be wrapped with a 6000K heat source layer but if the underlying solid surface absorbs the energy from a 10^-6 [kgm/cc?] density plasma emission(or its only emitting lines as opposed to broad band) and re emits it as IR the problem is solved. IR goes right through thin gas or plasma. CC: I'm not agreeing yet. but there is another way of looking at it. What if the hot stuff is responsible for the BB radiation, and the cool stuff is not? BC: CC, did you see my explanation under my pic above? CC: Then what is the heat source outside of active regions? At the solar minimum, the power output is only 0.1% less. LK: Can you state this question more clearly, CC? MM: Don't get hung up on their "black body" argument. It's just not worth it IMO. There are multiple layers of plasma, each with their own temperatures and densities, each with variations from top to bottom. It's an "average" temperature at best case. LK: By the way, Brant was saying that the temp is an average. So, if the hot parts are what leave as solar wind, the remaining plasma and gas should be cooler than the average. Not? - But aren't things mostly moving outward? CC: It's possible for the interior to be hotter, but it is not possible for the interior to be cooler. BC: It all depends on the thermal balance. As long as you have a stick touching the interior you might be able to remove enough heat to maintain the illusion of a cooler interior. MM: I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you, but it depends on the interior too. - FYI, Kosovichev wasn't convinced that the flow would be consistent or even, so he wasn't particularly enamored by their findings. I didn't find his rebuttal to be all that convincing however. A variable convection would surely have shown up in the original study as well IMO. CC: Supergranules are observable even in surface data, as broad but slight upwellings, and with a general expansion of surface features away from the updraft core. LK: You don't think it would be possible for thermal bubbles in plasma to expand to 1100 km average width from a depth of only 600 km? CC: No. Raleigh-Benard convection cells are distinctive patterns of recirculation. LK: Have those convection cell studies ever been done for plasma? CC: I don't know of any. You're right, that I'm extrapolating thermodynamic behaviors outside of their home territory. Actually, the mainstream is doing this, while I'm saying that the motivating force has to be more powerful than just thermal buoyancy. But I'm still maintaining that the dynamics are the same, even if the speeds are on electric steroids. LK: I'd like us to find ways to resolve these different views. Are there ways to do that? MM: I am quite sure that Brant and I can resolve whatever atmospheric depth issues we might have, but Charles has a very different model without a clear way (at least IMO) to explain the angular nature of the electrical discharge patterns in the solar atmosphere. I think Brant and I are both in agreement that the overall longevity and angular nature of solar moss activity is indicative of a solid surface that experiences surface erosion over time. I'm just not clear how I could explain the longevity and angular layout of solar moss activity with a liquid or even a dense plasma, which is why I believe it's solid in the first place. In short, to bridge the gap in my understanding of the model Charles is proposing, I need him to explain those angular patterns that persist for hours and days rather than a few minutes as we might observe in the photosphere. BC: I pretty much agree with that assessment. CC: The patterns in question are artifacts of active regions, and in combination with magnetogram data, we know that these are magnetic fields associated with sunspots (either fully developed or still emerging). In my model, the Sun is emitting electrons. These start out rising slowly, from 20,000 km below the limb, and accelerate as they move away from a current divider. At slow speeds, electrostatic repulsion disperses the electrons evenly, and we don't see electrodynamic effects, such as z-pinches. But if the current density increases, electrodynamic effects will emerge, and these will persist as long as the current density stays high enough to maintain them. So the "solid" features that you're seeing match up 1-for-1 with magnetic fields. What causes magnetic fields in high-temp plasma? Electric currents. As long as the currents persist, the magnetic fields persist, and you'll see persistent features. Sunspots can last for months. But that doesn't prove a solid surface. It proves that electric currents, sufficiently robust to overpower electrostatic repulsion and generate local magnetic fields, can persist for months. MM: I think I can falsify at least part of your views about active regions being related to sunspots. Only the *largest* active regions ever generate a sunspot. Many 'hot spots' flare up on the sun yet no corresponding sunspots can be observed. In fact I've seen a few that don't even seem to generate discharge loops that are large enough and tall enough to traverse the surface of the photosphere. At least they leave no 'bright' point on that surface that I can see. It's clear that not every discharge 'hot spot' has a corresponding sunspot to go with it. That was one of the big weaknesses with Alfven's explanation of coronal loops IMO. There does not seem to be a strong correlation between the existence of "small" active regions and sunspots. The larger active regions tend to generate more heat and therefore there is a stronger correlation between *large* active region and sunspots. Not so with smaller active regions however. I'm noticing now in the SDO data that some of the active regions aren't even leaving bright areas on the surface of the photosphere in 1600A or 1700A images. Again, that is all indicative of a process that occurs *under* the photosphere rather than above it. BC: You know how kelp waves in the sea? We dont sea that.. BC; But we dont see that we see electrical activity in conjunction with the surface not moving. So the surface is the emission surface and not the plasma surface. We see discharges forming and then moving along a surface without disturbing it, unlike what you would expect with a plasma. LK: Have you given links to that too many times already to want to provide one again now? BC: Just cathode emission properties. I sure you could glean that from that and a few other papers. Plasma is funny stuff. The only cases that I know of of the plasma energy density getting so high than it discharges like lightning out of the bulk of the plasma itself is in TOKAMAK's. You can look at the JET TOKAMAK web site and find all kinds of cool plasma stuff. Of course I just went there and they took all of the good stuff and left junk for school kids. http://www.efda.org/jet/ - That might happen on the sun at the photosphere but that plasma density is much lower in the solar photosphere than in a TOKAMAK so you wouldnt expect discharges out of the Blue in the photosphere. Thats partially why I think coronal loops and stuff are tied to a solid surface. CC: I don't understand the comment about "discharges forming and then moving along a surface without disturbing it". Are you saying that in the RD images, flares move differently, compared to the persistent features? MM: Yes. In fact in the gold RD image you can see the material in the flare gets spewed into the solar atmosphere and appears like "dust in the wind". It even falls back to the surface as coronal rain and changes surface features in the RD image as they fall. BC: The prominent surface features are the same as under the loops in the image above. LK: CC, he said he was referring to cathode properties, I think. BC: Yes. If you watch the movies, unless my memory fails me, the flares move differently than the persistent surface features. CC: I agree, that flares move differently, not to mention at much faster rates. But I'm contending that the iron emissions match up with the magnetic fields from sunspots (fully developed or still brewing), not flares. BC: And the flares. Coronal rain. Iron XV is all over the place. MM: The loops are current carrying loops so they are "associated" with magnetic fields. Magnetic fields however aren't the "source" of energy, nor do they "confine" anything. The angular patterns IMO are caused by solid terrain features. The discharges occur all along that surface, and most of them are tiny, less than few kilometers in size. They only show up in a single pixel of an SDO image. The larger ones go longer distances, but the rigidness of the base of the loops is related to the rigidness of the surface itself. The lines move over time actually, but the RD images will still show the fixed angular patterns even hours later. CC: So the solid surface generates the magnetic fields? What temperature are you figuring for the iron? MM: The solid surface already has current running up and through it and back down too. It's simply a "discharge" conduit, not unlike the crust of the Earth during lightning. The rigid surface holds the charge separation patterns that come from currents that start far below the surface. The currents even tend to 'magnetize" various location on the surface IMO. Imagine if small discharges took place all over the surface of the Earth. If they were "small", they would tend to follow the contours of the Earth's crust and its mountains, etc. That's what we observe in the solar atmosphere IMO. BC: Any iron about 1043K will not get magnetized. It can still carry a electric current that can have a magnetic field. MM: That might make me rethink that aspect of things because I doubt that the surface is less than 1200K. BC: I think that portions of it are less than 1200K and portions of it are ionized just like a cathode(spot). The cathode spot is the hottest portion and only occupies a small part of the electrode. MM: I'm inclined to believe that the currents originate under the surface. It could just be a path of least resistance issue however and have nothing to [do] with the crust alignments. The most active regions are directly related to volcanic activity IMO as magma from below is spewed into the solar atmosphere and instantly ionized by the currents in the atmosphere. I suppose in that case it's just the magma hot spot that controls where the discharge process occurs, not necessarily the current. CC: The Sun at its maximum only puts out 0.1% more power than at its minimum. And you have a model that is based entirely on the properties of active regions during the solar maximum. So you're working on explaining that 0.1%. MM: Not really. The interior power source in Birkeland's model might be simply fission or fusion. The energy release process is constant and consistent. It's just the small variations in active region activity that increase that energy output, but only slightly. Birkeland's solar model was internally powered. He attributed it to the 'transmutation of elements', but that predated fusion. He did mention a number of radioactive elements in terms of the energy source. CC: Fission from what? Fusion from what? MM: If it's fission powered it's because all the heavier radioactive elements sank to the core and it's simply a breeder reactor at its core. In Manuel's model, fusion occurs all throughout the sun, and it is most concentrated near the rapidly spinning core. In Brant's model the sun is externally powered wirelessly by standing waves that are trapped (and put to use) inside the relatively "hollow" sun. Even his model isn't necessarily dependent upon large changes in energy output to be associated with the solar cycle, at least not as I understand it. CC: The recent finding that convection accounts for less than 1/20 of the heat radiation to the surface is a problem for that model. MM: Which model? Birkeland's cathode sun wasn't powered by convection. The average temperature would really relate to its average output. CC: In Birkeland's model (or any of the internally-powered models), how does energy propagate out from the core to the surface? MM: In all cathode solar models (including Brant's AFAIK), the primary propagation of energy is the flow of current from the core (inside of shell in Brant's case) to the surface where the current is released as heat in electrical discharge activity of various sizes. The only difference in Brant's model is that it's powered externally by standing scalar waves that are transmitted to the interior of the sun and propagate outward. CC: In the antenna model, the antenna would have to be the hottest aspect of the Sun, and the temp would fall off from there. In the quiet Sun, as measured normal to the surface, the temp is 6400 K. Iron is not solid at the temperature. BC: Did you not read what I said above? And I inserted a picture to make my point as well. MM: Brant may not realize it yet, but I believe he also needs a "thick silicon' layer to keep the surface cool. Keep in mind that the plasma layers are arranged from the hottest on the outside to the coolest (and most dense) as we move into the sun. It doesn't work like a "hot stove" in any way. BC: The heat in the coronal [loops] that we are talking about is the average temperature take[n] by spectral imaging. The reason the coronal [loop] is hot is because the same particle that started out in the photosphere is accelerated as it moves up to the corona. As it passes through the corona on it[s] way to being solar wind it[s] temperature is taken. So the corona as well as the lower layers of the solar atmosphere are not the traditional idea of a heat blanket where you have a stationary layer that radiates in all directions as well as trapping any out going heat. So the idea of heat a [?] temperature as well as heat flow in the solar atmosphere needs to be carefully thought about before you start making proclamations. I'm pretty sure that most of the papers I have read about heat flow in the solar atmosphere indicate that the bulk of the flow is outward. CC: Where is the energy source? If the energy source is the antenna, that is the source of the heat. So that has to be the hottest part of the system. BC: Birkelands Terrella. CC: MM is saying that the hottest layers are on the outside, and the coolest are on the inside. If you have a perfect thermal insulator, you could get away with this for an extended period of time. What was the response to that? But Brant is saying that the bulk flow is outward. In order to agree on a model, these little details of how entropy works have to be addressed. BC The sun is as you see it. The coolest layer is right where you see it and it gets cooler as you move inward. Maybe on the inside surface there are discharges that look like the outside surface.[/color] LK: Yeah, but you're talking averages you said before. And as I said, if the hottest part is what becomes the solar wind, then the below average temperature stuff is what's left behind. Ain't I right there? CC: That would be relevant, except for the fact that it only applies to coronal loops, which do not speak to the 99.9% of the solar output that is there all of the time, even in the solar minimum. LK: But isn't the 6400K an average for the photosphere? [I've heard 5800K before too.] CC: That's the black-body temperature, when measured normal to the surface (straight-on). LK: And it's an average over several thousand square kilometers, isn't it? CC: How can the inside be cooler than the outside? BC: Ok. Think about this. How much heat energy does a thin plasma emit? How much heat energy does a solid surface emit? - How much heat energy does a thin plasma attenuate? - How much heat energy does a solid attenuate? - So if you have a solid surface emitting underneath a thin plasma will the thin plasma stop 100% of the solid surface emission? - How about the converse?? CC: A thin, hot plasma could certainly generate more heat than a solid could absorb — in a short period of time. But eventually, the solid will no longer be a heat sink, as eventually, with nowhere else to shed its heat, it will achieve the same temperature as the hot plasma on the outside. LK: P.S., CC, isn't the Earth's thermosphere hotter than the Earth? BC: Solids re emit in the IR. Oh yeah. I had forgotten about that argument. It's (the thermosphere) about 2500K. But its super thin. You wouldn't feel the heat if you stuck your hand into it. CC: I agree, that the ionic temperature is very high, but it's almost a pure vacuum. Also, the atmosphere even starting [at] sea level is thin enough that it can radiate heat. So there isn't a full, dense covering of hot stuff on top. Maybe I just don't understand the antenna model. I don't see how there could be a solid surface near the limb, considering the dynamics of the granules. I think Michael calls it volcanism or something. I really don't know. But this doesn't jive with the observations. BC: I gotta see if I can find that article on taking the temperature of a sunspot. I could swear they had a picture in there that showed through to a loop footprint. CC: Solids emit in the IR, but that doesn't cool them. BC: Conduction vs Radiation. Just like any cathode. If you turn up the current too high it will over heat and melt. There is material leaving the solar surface. - We are constricted mostly by observations. I have read pretty much everything [you've] read about the sun. I am totally open to changing my model. But give[n] the constraints of the cathode model, I would have to throw the whole model away and start over. I'm not opposed to doing that. I'm just not there yet. MM: If I'm understanding your question properly and his model properly, the antenna in his model is the hollow part (hot plasma part) of the interior of the sun. I think he's basing it on a wireless transfer of energy to the inside of the sun. CC: … My model has come a long ways since we first started this. That's because I listen to criticisms, and when I realized that there is something that I wasn't taking into account, I think about it. … When it gets to the point that [people are] just repeating themselves over and over again, never having addressed the issues, it's time for me to move on. … I've come a long ways by listening to what people have to say, and I have a long ways to go. I'll get to where I want to be, with a comprehensive and accurate model, by seeking useful information from people who know what they're talking about. I've learned a lot from you guys. But now we're just spinning. MM: I feel the same way about the model that I now propose on my website, and I'm confident that Brant has strong feelings too. The model on my website has come a long way since I first started, and I've added new information and new predictions, like a predominantly Ne+4 photosphere as I've gained insights into the ramification of this model. I've tinkered with the thickness of layers based on what I learned about helioseismology. The website got a wholesale upgrade in fact after reading Birkeland's work. I'm still (to this day) considering removing the Calcium plasma layer entirely. Much of what I wrote on my website early on has been changed as a result of conversations I've had about this solar model. It's definitely undergone some adaptations as a result of the online debates that I've participated in. It's not as "set in stone" as you might think, but admittedly I've had to defend it publicly now for several years, and therefore I'm pretty confident in the model that I've proposed. I am open to Brant's idea about an external power source so I don't feel like I'm "closed minded" toward other ideas but admittedly I have strong feelings about my own interpretation of satellite imagery. - I've tried to explain that the primary basis of a solid surface model directly relates to the solar satellite images themselves. They are what convinced me that the sun has a solid surface and I suspect (actually know) that is true in Brant's case as well. What I really need(ed) from you (to come your way) is a 'better' way to explain the RD and standard iron ion images in your model. Most of the rest of the images could be interpreted in many ways, but the iron ion images are important IMO. You've already given me one explanation since I asked for it today, and I need to think about what you're proposing a bit more before I can comment further. - In terms of solar moss activity in particular, I need to understand what you think keeps those loops 'anchored" to very specific locations in highly angular shapes. That blue solar moss image has a blown up area that clearly shows some of the angular features we observe in such activity. That's relatively easy to explain with a solid, but it is not clear to me how it could be explained any other way. LK: Brant, didn't you say in your TB Iron Sun thread, which quoted your Randi forum thread, that light from loops lights up the iron surface and that there are shadows visible there on the solar moss, or something like that? BC: I was arguing that MM was correct and providing an explanation as to how a solid surface feature could be lit up by a solar flare. I had to convince RC that light at 171nm reflects just like white light and that you can see solid features by this same light using a camera. LK: And are shadows visible in different directions on the solar moss as if from a central light? BC: I have not seen any movies that I remember directly to that effect. I might have said that in relation to MM's movies, because I expect that the area around the peak are solar moss, just like in the image that I included. LK: What about the solar arcade image above and copied below? It looks like the solar moss in the right foreground is in shadow away from the loops. - BC & MM, have you settled the matter of the distance to the iron crust from the top of the photosphere? MM: I intend to beat BC into submission with helioseismology data and SDO images. LK2b: MM, Could the Si layer not be a thin layer at the bottom of the photosphere's Ne layer, with the iron crust being immediately below that, as per BC? MM: Anything is "possible", but I would say that both the helioseismology data and the SDO first light images make that highly unlikely. LK2c: MM & BC, how do you think arcs under the photosphere manage to make the granules all about the same width of 1,100 km and enduring about 8 minutes each? MM: I believe that small (and large) coronal loop discharge activity releases a fairly consistent amount of heat into the atmosphere that convects to the surface. The bulk of the heat is released about 4700 KM under the surface and rises to the surface as "granules" LK2d: MM, if you didn't already answer this above anywhere, can you explain in detail how you conclude that the photosphere is 80 - 90% Ne? Or where might you have already explained that on your site or elsewhere? MM: You might read up on photoionization. Any high energy photon will tend to be absorbed by lower energy ions or it will tend to ionize non ionized materials. That is why we cannot observe ion images on Earth in fact. They are blocked by our own atmosphere. If the bulk of the Neon were in a "low energy" state, say a non-ionized state, or a +1 state, the light at 171A and 193A and other ion wavelengths would be absorbed by the photosphere in a matter of meters, not kilometers. I would never be able to see the surface if the neon were not ionized. Furthermore there must also be a logical explanation as to why there is such an abundance of Neon in the higher energy states and so little Neon in a non-ionized state. A 'prediction' of a cathode solar model would include an ionized atmosphere. There's just no two ways about it. If the sun is a cathode it *must* possess an ionized atmosphere. It's a question then of "what energy state" it achieve[s] due to the constant flow of current. The ionization state is directly related to photoionization and the fact I'm claiming to be able to 'see' to a depth of 4800KM under the photosphere. That would not be possible if the atmosphere was in a lower energy state. LK3b: CC, Don't you think MM's idea of layers of different elements in the solar atmosphere makes sense, and that highly ionized Ne in loops must be from a lot of Ne in the photosphere?
'12-08-03, 13:54 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Shadows on the Sun * In my previous post quoting our last Electric Sun discussion #12, I had this brief exchange with Brant. LK: Brant, didn't you say in your TB Iron Sun thread, which quoted your Randi forum thread, that light from loops lights up the iron surface and that there are shadows visible there on the solar moss, or something like that? BC: I was arguing that MM was correct and providing an explanation as to how a solid surface feature could be lit up by a solar flare. I had to convince RC that light at 171nm reflects just like white light and that you can see solid features by this same light using a camera. LK: And are shadows visible in different directions on the solar moss as if from a central light? BC: I have not seen any movies that I remember directly to that effect. I might have said that in relation to MM's movies, because I expect that the area around the peak are solar moss, just like in the image that I included. * I just checked the Aether Battery Iron Sun thread, and found where I quoted or paraphrased Brant from his post #234 on the referenced Randi forum thread as follows at http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&am~: #234- The image appears to show a solid surface with ridges and other terrain elevation features, strongly and directionally illuminated, from a source located to the upper right of the area. #234- The highlights face that direction and the shadows are opposite, and from an elevation considerably above the plane of the surface, because the shadows are short. #234- The source of the illumination is the discharges at the base of the loop footprints, as well as the loops themselves, the same as with arc welding, or an arc lamp!!! #234- This light is from ionized iron (at 77,000 to 1,500,000 K). #234- The flares are lighting up [solid] structures that stand above the surface and last on time scales longer than would be expected for a plasma form. #234- Discharges originate from these structures [mounds of iron slag?], because they are high points, just like in cathode thermionic emission observations. * So now I'll ask Brant if he remembers that and if he has any new comments. Another Forum for Discussion * By the way, we're going to try discussing things in different ways now to see if we can find a way to make better progress. I started a thread on my forum at http://sci2.lefora.com/2012/08/02/1-44/#post1 to discuss satellite images of the Sun. I probably won't approve any new memberships there, besides Charles, unless someone sends me a private message or email in response to this. Charles is working on a place for us to discuss too, but I don't know how public he'll make it.
'12-09-01, 14:23 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Solar Jetstream Triggers Sunspots? [from 2009] * In our discussions above we discussed sunspots, but not solar jet streams that are said to apparently trigger them. So I want to post the following item here and then ask the other guys what they think about the solar jet stream. It's said to be about 7,000 km deep. It could fit into CC's model, which has plasma hydrogen above a deeper liquid hydrogen layer. It might fit in MM's model, which has the solid iron layer about 5,000 km below the top of the photosphere, but I think he said he thinks the solid iron is at least 3,000 km thick, so the jet stream would be within his solid iron. He thinks the iron is plasma below the solid outer shell, so the jet stream could fit there, if the depth measurements are off. BC's model has solid iron about 600 km below the top of the photosphere and extending to about 1/3 the radius of the Sun. Solar Cycle 24 lack of sunspots caused by "sluggish solar jet stream" – returning soon? Posted on June 17, 2009 by Anthony Watts http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/17/solar-cycle-24-lack-o~ - I got a tip by email from JohnA who runs http://solarscience.auditblogs.com about this NASA press release. John's skeptical about it. He makes some good points in this post here [http://solarscience.auditblogs.com/2009/06/17/nasa-the-myst~]. - What I most agree with JohnA's post is about sunspots. While we've seen some small rumblings that the solar dynamo might be on the upswing, such as watching Leif's plot of the 10.7 CM solar radio flux, there just doesn't appear to be much change in character of the sunspots during the last year. And the magnetic field strength just doesn't seem to be ramping up much. He writes: "Let's check out the window" On http://Solarcycle24.com they've got yet another sun speck recorded yesterday, that by today had disappeared. Exactly the same behaviour we've been having for 12 months with no end in sight. - I agree with JohnA, it's still a bit slow out there. Leif is at the conference in Boulder where NASA made this announcement below, so perhaps he'll fill us in on the details. - Here is the NASA story: Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved? - June 17, 2009: The sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why. - At an American Astronomical Society press conference today in Boulder, Colorado, researchers announced that a jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots. - Rachel Howe and Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona, used a technique called helioseismology to detect and track the jet stream down to depths of 7,000 km below the surface of the sun. The sun generates new jet streams near its poles every 11 years, they explained to a room full of reporters and fellow scientists. The streams migrate slowly from the poles to the equator and when a jet stream reaches the critical latitude of 22 degrees, new-cycle sunspots begin to appear. - See caption: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/images/jetstream/so~ - Above: A helioseismic map of the solar interior. Tilted red-yellow bands trace solar jet streams. Black contours denote sunspot activity. When the jet streams reach a critical latitude around 22 degrees, sunspot activity intensifies. [larger image: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/images/jetstream/so~] [more graphics: http://spd.boulder.swri.edu/solar_mystery/] - Howe and Hill found that the stream associated with the next solar cycle has moved sluggishly, taking three years to cover a 10 degree range in latitude compared to only two years for the previous solar cycle. - The jet stream is now, finally, reaching the critical latitude, heralding a return of solar activity in the months and years ahead. - "It is exciting to see", says Hill, "that just as this sluggish stream reaches the usual active latitude of 22 degrees, a year late, we finally begin to see new groups of sunspots emerging." - The current solar minimum has been so long and deep, it prompted some scientists to speculate that the sun might enter a long period with no sunspot activity at all, akin to the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century. This new result dispells those concerns. The sun's internal magnetic dynamo is still operating, and the sunspot cycle is not "broken." - Because it flows beneath the surface of the sun, the jet stream is not directly visible. Hill and Howe tracked its hidden motions via helioseismology. Shifting masses inside the sun send pressure waves rippling through the stellar interior. So-called "p modes" (p for pressure) bounce around the interior and cause the sun to ring like an enormous bell. By studying the vibrations of the sun's surface, it is possible to figure out what is happening inside. Similar techniques are used by geologists to map the interior of our planet. - In this case, researchers combined data from GONG and SOHO. GONG, short for "Global Oscillation Network Group," is an NSO-led network of telescopes that measures solar vibrations from various locations around Earth. SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, makes similar measurements from Earth orbit. - "This is an important discovery," says Dean Pesnell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "It shows how flows inside the sun are tied to the creation of sunspots and how jet streams can affect the timing of the solar cycle." See caption: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/images/jetstream/sd~ - There is, however, much more to learn. - "We still don't understand exactly how jet streams trigger sunspot production," says Pesnell. "Nor do we fully understand how the jet streams themselves are generated." - To solve these mysteries, and others, NASA plans to launch the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) later this year. SDO is equipped with sophisticated helioseismology sensors that will allow it to probe the solar interior better than ever before.
'12-09-01, 17:17 upriver	Re: Electric Sun Discussions I wonder how consistent the location of these "jet streams" is...
'12-09-02, 08:39 Michael Mozina	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Lloyd wrote: Solar Jetstream Triggers Sunspots? [from 2009] * In our discussions above we discussed sunspots, but not solar jet streams that are said to apparently trigger them. So I want to post the following item here and then ask the other guys what they think about the solar jet stream. It's said to be about 7,000 km deep. It could fit into CC's model, which has plasma hydrogen above a deeper liquid hydrogen layer. It might fit in MM's model, which has the solid iron layer about 5,000 km below the top of the photosphere, but I think he said he thinks the solid iron is at least 3,000 km thick, so the jet stream would be within his solid iron. Keep in mind that I would assume that at some depth that the solids give way to magma and the magma moves, particularly near volcanic outlets. Kosovichev's early papers suggest it's a relatively thin crust. I also would assume that there is mass flow movement associated with the electrons from the interior of the sun coming up and through the surface, probably in 'rivers of current" that produce quite a bit of mass movement in and of themselves. IMO the whole field of helioseismology works because of that relatively thin surface layer, and the surface layer is relatively thin according to the SOHO helioseismology data. Magma seems capable of erupting from just about anywhere between the active bands, and the sound wave inversion changes in Kosovichev's work came from a relatively thin layer centered at around .995R, so I would have to believe that the solid crust is actually relatively thin. I'll have to read through the paper today to see what jumps out at me. Suffice to say, it does not surprise me that mass flow movements deeper in the sun are slower than predicted in standard gas model theory. It makes more sense that mass tends to move at a walking speed than jets speeds below 4800 KM. I suspect what they will eventually "discover" is that area above 4800KM convects more rapidly than below that point. I also suspect they'll eventually have to 'come clean' about the fact that coronal loops come roaring up and through the surface of the photosphere at million degree temperatures, lighting up the surface of the photosphere at the exit and reentrance points, and producing magnetic field points on the surface of the photosphere with opposite polarity where they exit and reenter the photosphere. There is already ample evidence of this process in Helioviever SDO images of the sun. Just overlay any SDO 171A or 193A (or almost any iron iron wavelength), with a magnetogram image of the surface of the photosphere, or any 1600A image of that same surface, preferably near a large sunspot. http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/images/sdo/mfield.mp4 http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/image ... mi-171.mp4 http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/image ... 00-131.mp4 The large loops (not necessarily all the smaller ones) produce "bright" points on the surface of the photosphere where the loops pierce that surface. The larger loops also leave magnetic field 'footprints' on that same surface in magnetogram images, with opposite polarities at each end of the loop. The polarity observed in the magnetogram images is directly related to the flow of current though the plasma loop as it traverses that surface. The larger loops will also tend to follow the contours of the penumbral filaments as they exit the surface of the photosphere at angles that are consistent with the angles of the penumbral filaments. These are just a 'few' of the correlations between the large loops and the surface of the photosphere that I can think of off the top of my head. SDO is *crushing* (and I mean absolutely destroying) their beliefs about the sun at every level. That is exactly what I expected would happen from the first moment that I looked at the "first light'" images from SDO. The various wavelengths were well calibrated while on the ground to produce images that would clearly show the relationship between the iron ion images and the surface of the photosphere. The first light images clearly revealed the fact that the iron ion emissions began about 4800KM +- 1200KM *under* the surface of the photosphere, not 1200KM above the photosphere as the mainstream "predicted". It's been downhill ever since the images started arriving because of the relationships between the large loops and that surface that I mentioned above. With all the solar activity going on right now, it's virtually impossible to miss the fact that 'flares' sometimes blow huge chunks of the photosphere material into space as they occur. That makes perfect sense if the flare occurs *under* the surface of the photosphere. It's also just about impossible to ignore the 171A and magnetogram images, not to mention the correlation in the 1600 and 1700A images and those same loops. The helioseismology data is simply icing on the cake IMO. It pretty much destroys their solar model as it relates to solar atmospheric activity. They are *highly dependent* upon a fast convection process to produce the strong magnetic fields in the atmosphere. Without a jet speed convection, their whole 'magnetic reconnection' nonsense goes up in magnetic smoke. Even Alfven's model was dependent up a "fast" convection process. Birkeland's approach, and of course Brant's approach or Charles' approach would predict this sort of behavior at the surface of the photosphere from a "cathode surface" that is located under the photosphere. Juergen's externally powered solar model might also survive a slow speed convection revelation and still explain coronal loop behaviors. Pretty much all the rest of the solar models are off the table, most definitely the mainstream solar model, not to mention's Alfven's "electric sun" model which was dependent upon the mainstream model for events under the photosphere. Alfven's model could in theory be "tinkered with' to accommodate these findings provided it assumes that the loops begin *way* under the surface of the photosphere, near the core, they can't just form based on events near the surface of the photosphere.
'12-09-02, 09:02 Michael Mozina	Plasma layer thermoclines The other point I should mention is that the outer plasma layers of the solar atmosphere show a distinct pattern of behavior that is a bit like 'thermoclines' in the ocean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline At the corona/chromosphere boundary, temperatures drop from millions of degrees, down to 20,000 degrees Kelvin. At the chromosphere/photosphere boundary, the temperature again drops quite substantially from tens of thousands of degrees to less than 6000 degrees Kelvin. Sunspot activity suggests that the 'shiny" layer of the photosphere is only about 500KM thick, at which point we should observe another rapid drop in temperature. This drop in temperature under the photosphere is verified in sunspot activity since sunspots often contains *lower* temperature plasma in the umbra of the sunspot. The solar atmosphere shows a very consistent pattern of thermoclines at the boundaries of the various plasma double layers. IMO this is directly related to the density of each of the double layers. The lower layers of the solar atmosphere are cooler and more dense than the outer double layers. They therefore conduct very easily, whereas the outer, thinner, hotter layers have to move more electrons per ion than the denser layers below. That generates more heat per ion in outer layers since all plasma experiences some small amount of resistance to current, and ions move.
'12-09-02, 09:04 Lloyd	Re: Electric Sun Discussions Solar Jet Stream and Sunspots * Michael, I look forward to any comment you may have on the Solar Jet Stream issue and how you think if may fit into your model of intense subphotosphere electric discharges (coronal loops) and vulcanism leading to Sunspots. Slow Solar Convection * We've been discussing this a bit, so I'll post now some of the info that led to this discussion. Kiwi posted something about the Sun's convection in reply to Talbott's recent post. Here's the link: http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3~. And here's part of what Kiwi posted: The team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Princeton University, NASA's Goddard Flight Center and New York University was able to determine the flow velocities at a depth of 55000 kilometres, which is eight percent of the solar radius. Surprisingly, the flow velocities of the plasma were found to be less than a few meters per second. Gizon puts this into perspective saying "This is a hundred times less than predicted by numerical models of solar convection". * I had asked the guys: Do yous think the measurement is likely to be accurate or not? It seems like it's too slow for CC's model and too fast for MM's and BC's models. Does that mean all your models are correct? Liquid Plasma Solar Model * By the way, you guys, Solar posted this link http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2007/PP-08-12.PDF in the Round Sun thread and, since it describes another model of the Sun, i.e. a liquid plasma model, I hope yous may get time to comment on it. Here's the opening paragraph. In this work, a liquid model of the Sun is presented wherein the entire solar mass is viewed as a high density/high energy plasma. This model challenges our current understanding of the densities associated with the internal layers of the Sun, advocating a relatively constant density, almost independent of radial position. The incompressible nature of liquids is advanced to prevent solar collapse from gravitational forces. The liquid plasma model of the Sun is a non-equilibrium approach, where nuclear reactions occur throughout the solar mass. The primary means of addressing internal heat transfer are convection and conduction. As a result of the convective processes on the solar surface, the liquid model brings into question the established temperature of the solar photosphere by highlighting a violation of Kirchhoff's law of thermal emission. Along these lines, the model also emphasizes that radiative emission is a surface phenomenon. Evidence that the Sun is a high density/high energy plasma is based on our knowledge of Planckian thermal emission and condensed matter, including the existence of pressure ionization and liquid metallic hydrogen at high temperatures and pressures. Prior to introducing the liquid plasma model, the historic and scientific justifications for the gaseous model of the Sun are reviewed and the gaseous equations of state are also discussed.