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Deep Impact on Comet Theory
AlexGP writes "Proponents of the Electric Universe theory have gone out on a limb ahead of Deep Impact. They're predicting it will show comets are just rocks and not dirty snowballs.
Controversially they assert comets are highly negatively-charged asteroids on eccentric orbits. As they travel further into the Sun's radial positive electric field, they discharge into space, expelling material at supersonic speed."
from the i-got-a-theory-it-could-be-bunnies dept.
No, really, WTF?
As someone on Usenet already put it, seeing how the Electric Universe proponents rationalize the failure of their predictions may be more interesting than seeing what the mission discovers.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
expelling material at supersonic speed
Supersonic speed in hard vaccuum? interesting...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I admit, I'm a materials guy, not an astrophysicist, but I found it odd that I'd never heard of this "electric universe" model, and the best reference the submittor could find was from "thunderbolt.info". I decided to google for it, and the first link that came up was this gem, which links the electric universe to geocentric, anti-evolutionary, creationist crap. I can't find a single reputable source describing this so-called theory, just a bunch of crackpot websites. I call bullshit.
I mean, the temperature out there in the orbit of those comets is very high near the sun, if it was an ice ball, then it would melt before it left the the region.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
> We won't have any answers to anything. It may half confirm existing theories. But really, it won't answer much.
Good science generally provides more questions than answers.
> Sort of like how Titan didnt answer whther there are really methane lakes currently on the surface or not. And like how the Mars probes havent told us if there is/was life. In fact whether there was water is still disputed.
The dispute about water seems to be rapidly evaporating. From what I've read, the focus seems to have shifted to when, where, how much, and the associated whys.
> Space probes havent advanced in decades.
That's a curious claim.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It snows in space? I didn't know there were clouds in space! I wish I lived in space. Without gravity, the snow would never land on my driveway, so I wouldn't have to plow it.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
the "landing" is supposed to be tomorrow, so why all the speculation when we will probably know a lot more tomorrow.
Apparently the Electric Universe doesn't believe in Spectroscopy, which has already shown the object to be an icy snowball ejecting gas.
Was that pun intentional? Well played!
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Finally, we get to extract vengeance upon the comets for killing off our dinosaur cousins. Comets gotta learn that for every action there's a reaction. Halley, you're next! And to all the planets out there .. you're either with us or against us.
..their theory is interesting .. I dont think they are whacko ..science thrives because of diversity in thought .. However, if you read their predictions, nothing short of a massive water splash of water folllowed be an ice tsunami on the asteroid would cause them to change their mind. I wish they'd put some numbers (if the crater is larger than "100 feet" then we are wrong. "If the ice detected in the debris is greater than X percent, we are wrong" etc.
.. if they genuinely wish to be taken seriously they should find out the sensitivit of the instruments (publicly available) and make solid predictions.
Anyway, about Electric universe folks
Non of that is done
Electric universe isn't the only interesting group out there. Some claim that comets are made of antimatter. If so the Tempel 1 collision should be a whopper. On the otherhand the lack of hard evidence (or hard radiation) coming from comets makes this theory a bit improbable. If comets were antimatter, I suspect we would have noticed the 0.51 and 938 MeV gamma rays produced when particles in the solar wind struck the comet.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
> More info on the "Electric Universe" topic:
Jokes aside (and you gotta admit this story is jokebait), Google Groups will show you what it's all about. Don't know why Taco linked the term to a JPL site.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Of course, I wonder if the probe is capable of picking up some of the effects decribed below, given the the design is aligned towards conventional theory, such as it is ... The whole thunderbolts.info websight makes of interesting reading. At least they are making predictions that can be proven/disproven based on data.
Predictions on "Deep Impact"
With the imminent arrival of the "Deep Impact" spacecraft at the comet Tempel 1, it is time to test competing theories on the nature of comets. The predictions and lines of reasoning offered here will set the stage for future analysis of the "electric comet" model.
We are posting this document at 1:45 a.m. Sunday, July 3, with "Deep Impact" less than 24 hours away. [...]
At 10:52 p.m. PDT July 3, the Deep Impact spacecraft will fire an 800-pound copper projectile at the nucleus of Comet Tempel 1. If all goes as planned the projectile will impact on the nucleus 24 hours later. The impact is expected to eject into space large volumes of subsurface material.
Cameras on the projectile will record its approach toward the nucleus, and instruments on the spacecraft will record the event across a broad spectrum. Dozens of telescopes will be trained on the comet. According to NASA scientists, the released material will provide a sample of the primordial water, gas and dust from which the Sun, planets, moons, and other bodies in the solar system formed.
Though Deep Impact team members see this as a milestone event, advocates of the Electric Universe expect a "shock to the system" with revolutionary implications. They say that a comet is not a primordial object left over from the formation of the solar system. Fundamentally, it is distinguishable from a rocky asteroid only by its more elliptical orbit.
In the Electric Universe a comet is a negatively charged object moving through the extensive and constant radial electric field of the positively charged Sun. A comet becomes negatively charged during its long sojourn in the outer solar system. As it speeds into the inner solar system, the increasing voltage and charge density of the plasma (solar "wind") cause the nucleus to discharge electrically, producing the bright coma and tail.
If the electrical theorists are correct, the implications of the event will not be limited to comet theory alone. At issue is the assumption of an electrically neutral universe, upon which every conventional astronomical theory rests. An electric comet would forever change the picture of the solar system and force astronomers to consider the overwhelming evidence that electricity lights not only our Sun but also all the stars in the heavens. Moreover, the cosmic electricians insist that this would only be the beginning of a more sweeping revolution touching all of the theoretical sciences and in the end recasting our understanding of earth history and the human past.
The most appropriate test of a new theory is its predictive power (see predictions from October 2001 in Wallace Thornhill's "Comet Borrelly Rocks Core Scientific Beliefs"). Therefore, we wish to make as clear as possible, in advance of the projectile's impact, the distinctions between the electric model and the standard model. Where the issues grow complex, the primary reason is that the standard model, which failed to anticipate any of the major discoveries about comets over the past three decades or more, has fragmented into competing versions, forced upon the theorists by unsettling facts. Nevertheless a shared ideology continues to guide orthodox comet investigation while limiting scientific perception. For this reason advocates of the electric universe do not believe that a reconciliation of the current theoretical fragments is possible.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Interplanetanetary space (even interstellar space) is nowhere near a "hard vacuum".
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Yeah, interesting theory. Too bad no one has ever taken a spectrum of a comet tail to find out if it's sublimated ices or 'supersonic' bits of rock.
How does their 'theory' purport to explain the second tail of comets, which points along the comet's direction of motion, rather than away from the Sun? Maybe only *some* of the bits of rock are electrically charged? Maybe magic comet elves rub the charge off of some bits?
I had never heard of the Electric Universe, but they seem on par with the flat-earthers and creationists.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
where else did you think they formed, 'the ground'?
..
you need space to make snowflakes, silly
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Here is the [cough] official [cough] statement of the Electric Universe Model, which appears to have been thought up by an electrical engineer during his lunchtime:
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.
So where should they look? Randomly send a few billion dollar probes and hope they find a spot where there used to be life? And no, not everyone was sure that life could have existed on Mars since many scientists do like hard evidence (instead of speculation).
Its also politics and practicality probably, the chances of the finding life past or present are very small. Any instrument designed to find such life would thus add weight without giving back anything useful (most likely). In addition, such a negative result would decrease interest in Mars and cut future funding potentially.
Of course, if you REALLY gave a damn about the reasons there are probably numerous interviews and websites on which NASA has given answers (or just try and contact NASA directly). However, you prefer to post such questiond on slashdot, instead of investigating them, since you either don't want to hear the answers or are too lazy to try and find them.
And how do they account for the spectra of the comet? Seems pretty simple to me: asteroid gives spectra x... comet gives spectra y. (NOT THE SAME)
Sounds like a description of your average Slashdot reader...
That is all.
Sort of like how Titan didnt answer whther there are really methane lakes currently on the surface or not.
It showed there aren't large methane seas, which was one theory.
And like how the Mars probes havent told us if there is/was life.
That wasn't the point of Spirit and Opportunity. That was the point of Beagle, unfortunately.
In fact whether there was water is still disputed.
Not really. The discovery of hematite by the Mars Rovers is pretty conclusive. Combine that with the satellite studies that have shown water combined with CO2 in the ice caps, and there is no real dispute at all.
We need to be sending better probes out there that can do some real science.
They are doing real science. Science doesn't provide yes/no answers. It is about gathering data and doing experiments. We are doing more of that now than ever.
Space probes havent advanced in decades.
Considering the amazing Spirit and Opportunity missions and the pictures coming back from Cassini/Huygens as compared with brief visits to the outer planets from Voyager, I find that an very odd statement.
As they travel further into the Sun's radial positive electric field, they discharge into space, expelling material at supersonic speed.
Isn't the comet already traveling at some ridiculous rate? Supersonic? or maybe was it ludicrous speed?
The Chronic *WHAT* les of Narnia!
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and before Deep Impact hits the comet I'm going to say these guys are totally, completely, 100% wrong.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
It won't even half confirm existing theories if the aliens don't let this probe smash into the comet in the first place. After all, they took out CONTOUR.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
It's a line from Once More, With Feeling, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical.
Happy to help!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
From a different page on that site: "But as astronauts now prepare to ride another shuttle into space, few Americans are aware of the most critical issue raised by the Columbia disaster. Did a super-bolt of lightning--called "megalightning"--strike Columbia, causing the breakup of the craft?"
Sounds somewhat plausable until you get to "But NASA officials seized both the camera and the photograph itself, prohibiting the San Francisco Chronicle from publishing it after the newspaper had received the picture."
That's one step away from saying that we never went into space and that Columbia was done with ILM SFX and fireworks.
...here. But at least this one makes a prediction that's about to be tested, so I should give it some credit. But crackpots have a tendency of adapting ingeniously to data that doesn't fit the theory. We'll see...
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
No, seriously? Is there really not enough happening in the world this morning that you have to give 5 minutes of fame to a BUNCH OF RETARDED IDIOTS who's claims are obviously bunk if you think about it for 2 seconds.
And people actually subscribe - pay money to this website - when it has shit like this for an article?
Is it too much to hope that these biscuit-headed nimrods will STFU forever if, erm, WHEN their predictions about Deep Impact are wrong?
Also, a swift kick to the 'nads for Taco for considering this news, nerdy, or something that mattered.
Science doesn't provide yes/no answers.
Sure it does. The scientific method is all about asking "is this hypothesis true?" to which you'll most likely get a yes/no answer.
But when each question costs billions of dollars, how likely are you to ask a simple yes or no question like that?
What concerns me are comet creatures we're going to really piss off. I'm thinking the dinosaurs had a space program and did something like this and you know what happened next.
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
Picture in your mind 3 objects in an isolated vacuum. One object is comparatively much larger than the other two. Relative to us (as observers) that largest object sits at a fixed position. It might move, but let's assume we move with it so we won't notice any movement. The other two very small objects are of the same size and mass as each other. They both orbit the large object at the same distance from the centre of the large object at the same speed. Hence, the observerd distance between the two orbiters never changes. The force of attraction toward the centre of the large object (due to the circular motion of these 'satellites') is given by Fc = m((v)^2/r). The force of attraction toward the centre of the large object (due to gravitational attraction) is given by Fg = m(GM/r^2). Hence the total force acting upon each orbiter is given by Ft = Fc + Fg.
Herein lies the problem: since all objects in the universe are gravitationally attracted to one another, the two orbiters must be attracted to one another. But, since they're travelling at the same speed, how can they possibly keep that same distance apart if they are gravitationally attracted to one another?! My theory: they are of equal electrical charge and therefore repelled from each other with an electrostatic force commensurate with that of their mutual gravitational attraction. But where did this charge come from? It seems to me that the charges are only there once we measure them!
Debate the correctness of the above reasoning - that electrostatic metrology is arbitrarily relativistic. This is a debate for scientific people only (no environmentalists or homosexuals).
[Science doesn't provide yes/no answers.]
Sure it does. The scientific method is all about asking "is this hypothesis true?" to which you'll most likely get a yes/no answer.
This is not the scientific method at all. You don't get yes no answers. You set up hypotheses and then devise statistical procedures to test the hypotheses. You don't get yes or no answers from these tests. You get probabilities. There are nominal probabilities at which a hypothesis is traditionally considered to be accepted or rejected, but any good scientist realises that this is still a matter of chance and it requires subsequent experiments to back up the findings. Assuming, of course, you have put forward a sensible hypothesis, and used sensible statistical tests...
But when each question costs billions of dollars, how likely are you to ask a simple yes or no question like that?
The billions of dollars aren't about single questions (although I don't see where that figure comes from - the Mars rovers disn't cost). The money is spent to provide information about as many questions and hypotheses as possible. Each spacecraft is usually crammed full of dozens of experiments, all competing for space, power, field of view of sensors etc. They are good value for money.
...that there is no Foot icon next to the story. This definitely does not qualify for the science category.
Here's one based on the 'satellite model' of comets. http://www.metaresearch.org/solar%20system/eph/Dee pImpact.asp
Hannes Alfven, Swedish Nobel laureate physicist, also wrote Science Fiction under the pseudonym O. Johannesson (not to be confused with Eric O. Johannesson, Professor Emeritus, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley).
Hannes Alfven is worth considering carefully in the context of allegedly crackpot theories. Nobody believed him about waves in plasma, until they found them (and named them after him). Nobody believed him about the solar wind causation of aurorae, until (50 years later) it became the conventional view, and his invention of the notion essentially forgotten. Nobody believed him, circa 1960, when he testified to the California legislature that radioactive waste from fission reactors would be a problem. And nobody believed him when he suggested that the universe is infinite in age, and an equal mixture of matter and antimatter, with the Big Bang being the result of a period of cosmic contraction that increased annihilation occurrences until radiation pressure forced the system to expand again. Anyone right several times in the face of skepticism may be assumed to have thought things through, and maybe be right again.
I'm not affiliated in any way with the Electric Universe people, but I do think that Hannes Alfven is under-rated, and deserves reconsideration for some of his ideas.
-- Professor Jonathan Vos Post
former Adjunct Professor of Astronomy
webmaster magicdragon.com
had some weird people in it.
Unfortunately, while electrostatic and magnetic forces are important, they are additive to the picture and not dominant. That is, all charges are going to act on each other and influence them, but gravity and so forth have influence as well, especially because space-time curvature must be obeyed by electrostatic and magnetic forces. Too bad they are trying so hard to ignore decades of evidence that doesn't fit their theory. First sign of it not being fit to be taken seriously.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
"They rarely take any courses in electrodynamic field theory, and thus they try to explain every new discovery via gravity, magnetism, and fluid dynamics which is all they understand."
Which is interesting since every astro Ph.D. program that I know of has an advanced course in electrodynamics as a basic requirement. Not to mention that "magnetism" is simply one aspect of electrodynamics...
Why is slashdot wasting its precious collective time discussing cranks?
Electric as in electric puha?
It's actually a very intersting theory, first proposed by the Nobel-prize winning father of plasma physics Alfven. Their simulations of galactic formation look a lot like the real thing.
l
http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/TheUniverse.htm
Well, Zeus is going to be severely pissed at Nasa for this fender bender...
Oh well, what the hell...
We're going to look really stupid if the comet fires back!
This is where Professor Edgar Bering, a physicist at the University of Houston in Texas, comes in. He heads a team from NASA's National Scientific Balloon Facility to study sprites by flying a high-altitude balloon above major thunderstorms.
:)
..National Scientific 'Balloon' Facility, suuure.
You claim that Plasma Cosmology does not predict as well as standard cosmology. This is exactly what Plasma Cosmology promponents say in reverse, and it's meaningless without examples and data. You mentioned three examples.
The evidence that I have seen is that standard cosmology did not accurately predict the microwave background level, but predicted wrong several times and then adjusted to "predict" it after its level was measured. It did not "predict" elemental abundances either, rather someone found a way to work it out so that if you started with something you'd end up where we are now. That doesn't prove the thoeory, it just shows that it can be made to fit. That is only one part of a good theory. Finally, the well-known redshift/distance correlation was measured long before the standard theory was developed, so that again is not something that standard cosmology "predicts."
Both theories have solid ways to explain known observations, and both can point to things that they explain better or more simply than the alternative. I don't think it's fair to discount Plasma Cosmology as a fringe theory based on its merits. It is fringe only because people like you treat it as such instead of honestly trying to evaluate which parts of its theory may be accurate.
(On topic, this comet theory is bunk. I believe in spectroscopy, which proves that comets have lots of ice. Off topic again, I also believe that the big bang is a theory in need of replacement and that the redshift/distance correlation is not just about doppler shift, but that's just me)
I read the article and it makes sense to me.
There are a lot of things not explained at this moment and people tend to stick to old ideas or bend them to unlogical explanations instead of look8ing for answers.
IF this concept is TRUE, then the implications are alot.
IF TRUE electricity forms a more indisputable important role in cosmology. how much i don't know, but definatly not neglactable.
IT TRUE then thunderstorms are not like we think they are.
IF TRUE the spaceship collumbia could have been struck by a big electrical charge
Putting the new mission in danger. I wonder if they will react at all if they found out they were wrong with deep impact.
IF TRUE a space elevator become way harder to make as it creates a conductor between outer space and earth. This can have mojor impacts.
IF TRUE and a space elevator could be made it could solve all(alot) of energy problems on earth as we will harnass lightning (an long thought impossible dream). (Can I pattent this or as this is now documented public knowledge at least prevent it from patenting)
IF TRUE and a space elevator could be made it would discharge the athmosphere, making space travel safer (no columbia disaster), but also less thunderstorms. Less formation of ionised gasses and all other implications for a bigger hole on the poles
SO is it good or bad, I don't know
Is it TRUE or NOT I don't know
But I do know that today we will lift a vail of secrecy and that if TRUE the implications are greater then at first sight.
Greets John
There are no stupid questions, Just a lot of inquisitive idiots. (from a good friend)
Yes, they're all running off. Wave as they go by. Bunch of drips, anyway. Every idea they had was all wet, precipitating a natural response to want to rain on their parade. It just makes me boil, you know?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No, actually, in the electric model the Sun is a giant anode at the center of a giant vacuum tube. No wire is required. Perhaps you also believe that EM radiation requires the luminiferous ether to operate?
There is nothing whacko about the electric model of the Sun. It is simply a competing model. Keep in mind that there have already been failures of the fusion model, for example, the deficiency of neutrino production.
I have no horse in this race, but it would be nice if those who claim to believe in science would act a bit more scientifically and a bit less like the advocates of superstition and religion.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
"I wish they'd put some numbers (if the crater is larger than "100 feet" then we are wrong. "If the ice detected in the debris is greater than X percent, we are wrong" etc."
Well spotted; scientific theories *must* be disprovable.
It must be possible, in principle, to disprove a theory otherwise its an axiom. And axioms need some justification (like Newtons laws of motion which are not scientific theories but (justifiable) axioms).
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I concur.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
If you go to the trouble to read what they have predicted, you will learn that they see comets as just asteroids with highly elliptical orbits. Just exactly how much of a splash would YOU expect from a spacecraft hitting an iron-nickel asteroid?
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
I'm recalling one of the first Mars-surface experiments which used enzymes from fireflies that shine when mixed with adenosine triphosphate, which is a by-product of all known forms of metabolism.
Or, did you mean a written test?
The last fucking thing you want is my undivided attention...
"the Sun's radial positive electric field" ... ... exists half the time. The other half, it's negative. The solar wind changes in predominant charge two cycles per rotation, or roughly one switch per week.
If the comets were negatively charged, we'd no doubt have noticed them dancing in their orbits. And if the sub had a constant positive charge apart from the solar wind, we'd have noticed the fluctuations in it also.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
See Electric-Universe.info
The Electric Universe theory is not creationist etc....
Can a moderator do some actual fact checking before moderating garbage as informative? Meta-moderators, please take note?
The EU theory is the very essence of scientific thinking. It questions dogma with extensive use of evidence, proposing an alternative hypothesis, not just tweaking existing non-predictive theories.
Nuf said
Do you mean "Watts, Teslas and Farads?"
Bitter and proud of it.
Anybody notice that they dated it with tomorrow's date? Ironic how they brag in the article about how they stated their theory "before it happen(s)/(ed)", and they couldn't even date the fucking article right...
Out of all the countless theories circulating the vast expanses of the internet, why choose this one? Why was this comet theory put on the front page of /. to be ripped apart while others are completely ignored or unknown?
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
According the nasa's deep impacts web page the comet is made of "ice, gas, and dust" -- the dirty snowball theory. The comet's effects we observe are due to off-gassing. After impact we should see a lot of ice/water in the debris.
...so we'll see who's right.
Electric universe theory says comets are rocks like asteroids, and the effects we see are electric/plasma related. Prior to impact we may see electric/plasma effects (though not necessarily). After impact we should see mostly dry rock/dust.
is to practice deflecting an object heading towards the earth.
prediction: More energy will be released than expected because of the electrical contributions of the comet. (The discharge could be similar to the "megalightning" bolt that, evidence suggests, struck the shuttle Columbia).
Though I don't buy the megalighting coda.
I'm watching the live jpl feed now. one of the scienctists (who just stopped speaking) is effusively wondering how the little probe made such an impressive impact. he is truly surprised and has said that it will take alot of work to figure out why it did so.
although, it is difficult to say what a non-impressive impact would have looked like...
Bwahahahahahahahah
. impact.sues.reut/
From the so-lame-it-must-be-true dept.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/07/04/deep
Lakatos argued that scientific theories had a 'hard core' and a 'protective belt'. If your theory's hard core has plenty going for it then it's rational to keep tweaking stuff in the belt to make theory fit the core facts. Eg. if you make one observation in a simple mechanical system that says F!=ma, it's better to hypothesis that maybe there's another force acting that you were unaware of, than that F=ma should be thrown out. It's worth doing this because there is plenty of support for F=ma. But the core only becomes a core after years of research supporting it. Crackpot theories lack such a thing.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Entirely consistent with the prevailing "dirty snowball" view; entirely at odds with the Electric Universe wack jobs' "out-on-a-limb" prediction (that the comet is asteroid-like and the impact would be very small).
The remaining question, of course, is what kind of trumped-up post hoc excuse the nut jobs are going to put forth to explain this away. Doctored photographs promulgated by the Vast Astronomical Conspiracy?
Have your read the predictions?
n t.htm
http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/00curre
A bright flash is entirely consistent with electrical discharge. It is brighter than expected by mission scientists, who would base their expectation on the conventional model.
I doubt a conventional impact could create a flash like that.
If we take "a far bigger explosion" to mean "more energy liberated", then where did the extra energy come from? One explanation is electrical discharge.
Nice to see someone *thinking* about this stuff.
Must it be pointed out, again?
--
Been there, discussed that (at least a thousand times). Next topic.