We all know what current mainstream science says; the sun is a ball of mostly hydrogen and helium gas, the pressure in it’s core is enough to create the temperature required for nuclear fusion which powers it. However this explanation doesn’t fly with me there’s far too many glaring inconsistencies with what we’ve observed about the sun. One of the biggest in my opinion is the temperture difference between the solar corona (1-3 million kelvin), the surface (roughly 6,000 kelvin) and sunspots, the deepest we can see into the sun (3,000-4,500 kelvin).
If the power of the sun is generated in the core how come the deeper we see into the sun the cooler things get? A group of plasma physicists have developed their own theory of the sun that seems to clear up a lot of the observational inconsistencies. Take a look if your interested and tell me what you think. If you can’t be bothered reading through it all then tell me and I try to explain it more concisely in my own words.
It didn’t spark any legitimate interest then. I’m not so sure people will get charged up about it now. Unless, of course, you have the capacitance to endure the resistance that will probably start up all over again.
Thanks for pointing out that thread for me, I’ll read through it in a bit. I can’t see a problem with starting a new one though, you know keep things current, a lot can change in six years and a lot of the links in the thread are defunct.
After reading into that other thread a bit it’s apparant that Fonz didn’t do a very good job of explaining the theory. Here’s a very basic run through; the sun is a mass of plasma with a positive charge, while outer space contains plasma with a varying negative charge. Electrons flow from outer space towards the sun, for most of their journey the plasma is in dark glow mode (looks like nothing is going on) but the closer to the sun you get the greater the current density until the plasma enters glow mode, this is the coronosphere. The current density continues to increase and the plasma enters arc mode, this is where the photosphere begins.
The energy for the sun doesn’t come from fusion in it’s core, it comes from the charge difference between the sun and the surrounding space. So the theory goes.
I think unless the basic arguments for the theory are significantly transformed since last time, people are unlikely to get amped up. Maybe if we try to curl the discussion in a divergent direction, we could displace current opinions.
What’s implausible about it? Do you see anything implausible about the theory that energy somehow jumps from the core of the sun to the surface and coronosphere without passing through the matter inbetween?
Electromagnetism puns aside, I think this is a theory worth discussing. If it had anything too it it would pull cosmology out of the rut they’ve dug themselves into with silly ideas like neutron stars. Like I said, Fonz didn’t do a very good job of defending it.
I apologize. I saw a bunch of electromagnetism puns and couldn’t help but fire off a few of my own.
However, having neither the time or energy required to fully immerse myself in what the theory proposes, I’ll refrain from comments other than that current proponents (Dan Scott is his name, IIRC) seem to display a mentality not far off that displayed by truthers and birthers - to me an immediate hallmark of suspect science.
A) If space was filled with negative charge, presumably some of our many, many space probes would have detected it.
B) Why wouldn’t the Earth (and other planets) experience the same heating?
C) How much charge would need to be transferred to the Sun to create the energy that’s being emitted? (Hint - a LOT).
D) Energy ≠ temperature. The difference in temperatures between the core of the Sun and the surface are mysterious, but that’s just because we don’t understand all of the plasma dynamics going on. There’s nothing in that difference that says to me “oh look, it couldn’t possibly be fusion that’s powering the Sun.”
I know of Phil Plait, he religiously defends the fusion model with ad hominum attacks, misrepresentation and baseless claims. For example his main claim is that over the scales used in astronomy and cosmology there is no seperation of charges therefore electrodynamic effects are irrelevent. This is circular logic if I ever saw it, “you guys are claiming that phenomena we see in space are due to electrodynamic forces but this can’t be because no phenomena we see in space hint at electrodynamic forces being behind them”. Where is Plait’s evidence that there is no charge seperation in space?
I’m not going to go anywhere near his smug, self serving website again. But if you want to relay some of his arguments to me in your own words that’d be nice.
Firstly, the “temperature” of the solar corona is based on the speed of the escaping solar wind. Yes, at the speeds the hydrogen ions are going, they would be considered to have a “temperature” of a couple million degrees, but they’re so rarefied that they’re too far apart to bump into each other the way molecules do in a gas. The total amount of energy in the corona is insignificant compared with the energy in the photosphere, because the photosphere is so much more massive.
Secondly, sunspots are not “the deepest we can see into the sun”. They are surface phenomena, caused by strongly concentrated magnetic fields that inhibit convection in a small area, in a manner similar to an eddy-current brake. Material from deeper in the sun cannot convect upward to the surface as easily in a sunspot as it can in a normal area of the photosphere. The fact that sunspots are cooler than the rest of the photosphere is evidence that the layers beneath are hotter, not cooler.
Thirdly, what about solar flares? What makes you think they don’t reach more deeply into the sun than the photosphere? Flares are much, much hotter than the rest of the photosphere.
A. As far as I know charge can only be detected in relation to the charge of the matter around it, so it’s the differential that’s measured. The charge differential over the length a probe could measure would be so miniscule as to be undetectable.
B. I’d guess that the fact the sun is so large compared to other bodies in the solar system makes it the center of the electron flow, other large bodies like Jupiter may have electron flowing into them too but nothing like at the level occuring with the sun. So the electrons stay firmly in dark glow mode. Different extents of positive charge might have a hand in it as well.
C. Yes it’s a lot, but imagine a sphere with the radius of the solar system, then think of the area of that sphere in relation to the area of the photosphere. Electron are flowing inwards and the current density increases as they do. Lots of electrons are going to be concetrated in the photosphere so there will be a HUGE current density.
D. It’s a pretty big hole in the theory though, that definatly needs some explaining, with a gaping hole that that in the mainstream theory I’d of though people like Phil Plait would be slower to ridicule rival theories.
There’s a pretty good post in the referenced thread which convinced me. First, the poster calculated the energy produced by the Sun, then estimated how much electrical current the Sun would have to draw to meet that. Making a few decent assumptions (e.g. assume the current is uniform in the planetary plane with a thickness about the same as the Sun, that it doesn’t vary much over time, etc.), he then calculates the expected, curling magnetic field that should be observed around Earth due to this rush of charged particles into the Sun. By his calculations, he gets a field with a strength of 0.5 Tesla–about a billion times greater than the field of the observed solar wind. Even if his assumptions are off by orders of magnitude, that’s a hard point to reconcile.
Later in the thread someone mentions observations by the Ulysses space probe, which have seen no evidence of a curling magnetic field over the poles of the Sun which you’d expect to see if charge was shooting out to complete the circuit.