Astronomers Again Baffled by Solar Observations

SteakNShake writes "Once again professional astronomers are struggling to understand observations of the sun. ScienceDaily reports that a team from Saint Andrew's University announced that the sun's magnetic fields dominate the behavior of the corona via a mechanism dubbed the 'solar skeleton.' Computer models continue to be built to mimic the observed behavior of the sun in terms of magnetic fields but apparently the ball is still being dropped; no mention in the announcement is made of the electric fields that must be the cause of the observed magnetic fields. Also conspicuously absent from the press releases is the conclusion that the sun's corona is so-dominated by electric and magnetic fields because it is a plasma. In light of past and present research revealing the electrical nature of the universe, this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing."

Comments

whaa?

[delong]

What kind of horse shit story is this?

Re:whaa?

[niiler]

I'm pretty certain that astronomers have a pretty clear notion of what they are up against. You've got a plasma that must be modeled in 3D using Navier-Stokes equations with allowances made for EM coupling. You must also deal with the nuclear reactions occurring inside. The boundary conditions are ill-defined in that we must make certain assumptions about what's at the core of the Sun on one hand and where its boundary is on the other. Add to this the fact that the solar wind accelerates due to a de Laval nozzle effect and the corona seems to be hotter than the Sun's surface and you've got quite a quandry. It's not that the individual principles are not understood; they are. Rather it's how to put all of it together in such a way that it gives us the right answer. This is most certainly NOT the same as not understanding E&M! Sheesh!

Re:whaa?

[Phil-14]

The electric universe people use that tactic a lot; quote some real scientists' new discovery of some physics behind space plasmas and say it proves their pet theory about how fusion doesn't really happen... of course, they never seem to say where the energy really does come from if "it's all electric." Maybe the windmill down the road?

Crank crackpottery

[Anonymous Coward]

Er. Can we have less of the "electric universe" guy? Geez. Next you'll be posting Bearden rants.

Slashdot is an easy target for kooks

[ebcdic]

It seems that any fringe theorist can now post an apparently topical article to Slashdot as a way of getting hits on their Velikovski-style planetary catastrophe web site.

The Tao of Slashdot

[florescent_beige]

The Yin: genius multiple-PhD types figure out something about the sun. Good for them.

The Yang: irrelevant mention of a cabal of self-referential mouth breathers who don't know energy is not a discrete thing but is a property of other things.

Maybe Slashdot posts articles like this to give us a poke and see what our reaction will be. That reminds me of a certain thing I can't quite remember, I think it starts with a "t".

One thing I noticed about Slashdot's feigned ignorance as humour (if that's what it is), it's always about things other than IT. For example, let's see an article asserting that integrated circuits are actually an alien technology harvested from flying saucers the US Government has hidden away. Not funny because it's too ridiculous?

I guess I'll chime in.

[hardgeus]

Shame on you Slashdot for even letting this touch the front page. I read "this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing," and wondered who in the hell was who had the balls to say something like that...Is "SteakNShake" a famous physicist I haven't heard of?

Then I clicked that last link. Ooooh. This guy is nuts. Still doesn't explain why he got his rant accepted on Slashdot.