Solar Hurricane Rips Off Comet's Tail

coondoggie writes to mention that NASA recently captured images of a solar hurricane ripping the tail off Encke's comet. "In a release, NASA said preliminary analysis suggests that the tail was ripped away when magnetic fields bumped together in an explosive process called "magnetic reconnection." Oppositely directed magnetic fields around the comet "bumped into each" by the magnetic fields in the hurricane. Suddenly, these fields linked together--they "reconnected"--releasing a burst of energy that tore off the comet's tail. A similar process takes place in Earth's magnetosphere during geomagnetic storms fueling, among other things, the Northern Lights, NASA said."

Comments

Wonder what the RF signature of that was like

[Nefarious Wheel]

Don't you get a rather large electrical field when a magnetic field like that collapses? Should be an amazing radio source.

Re:Wonder what the RF signature of that was like

[The_Wilschon]

Precisely. Magnetic reconnection releases a tremendous amount of energy, most of it in the form of EM radiation. It is the phenomenon responsible for, IIRC, many (most?) solar weather events, perhaps most notably solar flares.

Tsk tsk tsk

[Bluesman]

That's very immature of the Sun. Fortunately, we know that the comet's tail will grow back, and it will be none the worse for wear.

Re:Tsk tsk tsk

[Anonymous Coward]

In further news: The solar hurricane was named Lorena.

Re:Tsk tsk tsk

[MillionthMonkey]

Fortunately, we know that the comet's tail will grow back

Well, hey, hold on there... we first need to decide whether this comet tail should be rebuilt at all. If another solar hurricane is just going to come and wash the tail away, then it's a waste of valuable ice and dust to rebuild it and we should disincentivize comet tails from forming by saying, hey, comet tails, we're not bailing you out anymore! Stop mooching off the rest of the solar system and take some responsibility for yourselves!

Curiously, by accident or design it seems that most of the damage and disruption was confined to the ion tail, instead of the wealthier dust tail area... that's typical electromagnetic justice for you.

Magnetic Reconnection?

[IMarvinTPA]

What is this Magnetic Reconnection thing you speak of?
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060711magnetic.htm

IMarv

Re:Magnetic Reconnection?

[kmac06]

Uh...between well-agreed upon scientific data and interpretation vs one guy's ranting website (who's not a physicist), I'm gonna go with the peer-reviewed literature. This claims to single-handedly see a gaping hole in solar neutrino oscillation experiments, that no physicist sees. That is just screaming CRACKPOT!

As far as the magnetic reconnection issue...well there's no reason to trust (or even read) anything a crackpot like this says.

Re:Magnetic Reconnection?

[pln2bz]

Science is not a democracy, by the way. We do not vote on ideas based upon who is saying them, contrary to the increasing belief that this is how it works. Instead, we should attempt to understand the arguments that are being made and discuss the logic behind both sides in the argument.

There have been plenty of intelligent people who believed that space plasmas are electrical. You just have not read about them. Hannes Alfven, Ralph Juergens, Kristian Birkeland, Anthony Peratt, to name a few. Hannes Alfven received the Noble Physics Prize for his creation of magnetohydrodynamics, which is the mathematics used to model space plasmas. You may be surprised to learn that in his acceptance speech, he disagreed with the idea of modeling space plasmas with frozen-in-place magnetic fields -- a technique which he originated and that persists to this day. He was completely ignored.

If you have not read the story of Halton Arp, then you are limiting your exposure to observations to those which you agree with. In truth, there is no good reason for why Arp's observations are not correct. Arp has been obstructed from sharing his findings at every step of the way, oftentimes by the very people whose research is threatened by his observations.

There is a person on wikipedia called ScienceApologist, who has been censoring EU Theory from wikipedia on the basis that there are no published papers which support EU Theory. Well, Anthony Peratt, Wallace Thornhill and a handful of other EU theorists did in fact get published in September in an IEEE publication. ScienceApologist decided to actually send a letter to the IEEE editor, objecting that the papers were pseudo-scientific (and yet in the absence of any evidence supporting his statements). Apparently, his requirement that EU Theorists be published is in fact not sufficient at all. There appears to be no burden that can be met by the EU Theorists that would satisfy him, and the ethical problems associated with his being both a wikipedia referee and a player involved in influencing the publication of the theory appears to escape him.

Not being popular is not an excuse to avoid reading about something, especially when there are such over-zealous censors who believe it is their duty to prevent the public from understanding the debate about electricity in space. If a theory appears to be logically coherent and supported by observational evidence, then it stands a chance of being true regardless of how many adherents it possesses (nature does not care what people prefer to believe), and it deserves investigation and even attempts to quantify it. Evaluating theories purely on the basis of who looks or sounds the smartest is a downward spiral. I recommend that you think twice before suggesting that others follow your lead. You very well could be redirecting people away from fruitful lines of research and investigation. Despite your good intentions, you may in fact be causing harm. You can't possibly know until you *read* what the theory says and talk to people about it, right?

Re:Magnetic Reconnection?

[kmac06]

I have no opinion on the magnetics going on here. I was pointing our the crackpottery of the first paragraph of your link, and saying that the rest of what he has to say should be ignored based on that (that doesn't mean everything he says is false--if he says 1+1=2 that's still true).

Re:Magnetic Reconnection?

[kmac06]

You're not getting (or intentionally ignoring) my point about the solar neutrino oscillations. This guy clearly either doesn't know what he's talking about, or for some reason isn't trying to convince any actual physicists. Either way, it means he shouldn't be taken seriously, regardless of what he's saying.

Re:Magnetic Reconnection?

[lindseyp]

Well bloody hell.. you could have provided some references.

Now all I have to go on are three newly-ordered-from-amazon books. by Arp, Scott, and Lerner. I don't think all the points you mention in your post are covered there.

Tail wasn't connected anyway

[noidentity]

The tail of a comet isn't connected to the comet anyway; it's material that's already fallen off the comet. A better headline would be "solar hurricane redirects comet's tail". But in this age of violent analogies, "rips off" gets preference.

Solar Hurricane???

[flajann]

What is a "Solar Hurricane"? This is a astronomical term to which I am unfamiliar.
I wonder if they are talking about coronal mass ejections? If so, I don't get the analogy. Hurricanes are basically large vortices's. Coronal Mass Ejections are not.

Spaceweather.com has...

[Assassin bug]

... an animated GIF that is kind of nifty. I bet if that CME hit earth containing a comet tail the light show would be impressive!

Re:Cometary Tails as Electron Sources

[Guppy06]

"this appears to confirm the Electric Universe hypothesis that comets are not sublimating dirty snowballs, but rather electrical phenomenon."

Why mod you down when I can point you here?

"Keep in mind that there is a difference between saying that a theory is not properly quantified and a theory *cannot* be quantified."

A theory can be unquantifiable due to its subject matter (intelligent design) or, as is the case with the "electric universe theory," due to its authors' refusal to let it be quantified when it would be to their egos' detriment. Only observations that have a (usually fleetingly small) connection to this pet theory are allowed in, permitting people such as yourself to churn out several paragraphs of "We're right!" all while cheerfully ignoring something as trivial as we've fucking been there! In that respect, you have more in common with the Flat Earth types than the ID folks you allude to, whose statements are truly unassailable (placing it outside the realm of science) rather than willfully ignorant.

At least you're "interesting" rather than "informative." Thank His Noodliness for such small blessings.

Slashdot party game

[greyhueofdoubt]

Just in time for Slashdot's birthday party: Rip the tail off the comet!