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Eta Carinae, Soon To Be a Local Supernova
da4 writes "Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy has a great article about Eta Car, a star approx 7,500 light years away from us that's ready to supernova sometime Real Soon Now." Larger versions of the Hubble-Chandra image of Eta Car are available at the Chandra site. Of course when astronomers say it's "about to explode," they really mean it probably exploded 6,500 to 7,500 years ago and we're awaiting the news.
It's interesting that the site is called "Bad Astronomy" -- as if all discussion on that site is meant purely to confirm existing mainstream theories. In fact, if you follow the site closely, you'll notice that they stack the cards very heavily in favor of mainstream theories. There is absolutely no attempt at objectivity. Theories are not evaluated on the basis of their merit alone, but rather how well their creators can withstand a relentless series of withering attacks. This is a trend that I believe was started back in the day of Carl Sagan, when he would call together conferences that had the public relations appearance of being objective, only to place extreme limitations on any speakers that would tend to disagree with any mainstream views. Carl Sagan was particularly disingenuous, however, when the topic came to comets, as he wasn't afraid to contradict his own publications on the subject in order to discredit the big V.
People who do not follow the Electric Universe debate can perhaps be forgiven for not realizing that many of the EU concepts are in the process of being co-opted by the natives of the BAUT forum. You will frequently hear things like:
"Well, we never denied there was electricity in space, but it doesn't do what you think it does, or work in quite the way you think it does."
This conveniently ignores the fact that Einstein never even mentioned electrodynamics, except in his correspondence with (that expletive) V, and that James Clerk Maxwell demonstrated that e-fields and b-fields are inseparable. Astrophysics continues to be the only field of science where magnetic fields are treated as if they are independent entities that can exist in the absence of electric currents and electric fields. People would be wise to consider that it is now an established fact that there exists an interstellar magnetic field whose origin remains unknown. There is little doubt that the mainstreamers will eventually attempt to explain that this magnetic field has been frozen in place for billions of years, but there will subsequently be very little effort to validate this concept. Its mathematical postulation will be considered adequate to explain the finding until the time comes when it is accidentally discovered that this theory is incorrect. By the time that it is discovered that there may in fact be an interstellar current associated with this interstellar magnetic field, the mainstream astrophysicists will claim that either it is insufficient to actually do anything other than induce the magnetic field, or that they had always suspected that it was the case in the first place. No mention of EU Theory will follow.
And that is how mainstream astrophysics more-or-less works today.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.