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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
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.
Apparently the Electric Universe doesn't believe in Spectroscopy, which has already shown the object to be an icy snowball ejecting gas.
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
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....
Space isn't a perfect vacuum. Sound waves and shocks can exist anywhere there's enough gas to act in an ordered, collective fashion, and on solar system scales that doesn't require a very high density.
The solar wind is supersonic--it travels faster than sound waves will travel in it (which is why there's a bow shock upstream of the Earth). In the case of a comet, as you quoted, it's expelling material, and sound waves can travel in that.
Somebody makes a crack like this every time a space fluids topic gets posted on slash.
(Incidentally, why the heck is this posted under "Science" instead of "It's Funny, Laugh"? These are absolute crackpots.)
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.
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.