Dust in 'God's eye'

Linda Spontak, McHenry, Illinois — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:42:05 GMT

Thanks for the shot/photo of the eye in space. Too scarey though to think it is looking at us, like a real eye would be doing. Kind of unnerving? I guess I prefer to think of it as an eye-like image. Shot from different angels it might not look that way.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Neil Briggs, Greensburg, PA — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:56:35 GMT

They should have turned the flash off, that's classic red-eye.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Scot Dolan, Calgary, Ab — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:44:36 GMT

I agree with Neil.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Eli Perez, Lake Forest, California — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 23:07:52 GMT

Wow! Awesome picture, never knew anything about this nebula and now I am facinated by it. I agree with Neil, somebody get it some visine!

Dust in 'God's eye'

Joe Roberts — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 23:34:20 GMT

Who are these freaks who think its an eye???? GET a life people!

Dust in 'God's eye'

lupe gonzalez fresno, ca — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 23:40:04 GMT

Wow how beautiful that is, beyond mans imagination of what is out there and what is yet to come...

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chuck Sweet, Portland Oregon — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:29:16 GMT

Truly a beautiful pic, an astounding view, even if it is in artificially applied coloring. The evident amout of energy released in the explosion of the star is just phenomenal and the fact that we can get such a clear and highly detailed pic of it, in whatever wavelenths we choose, is an amazing feat in itself. Kudos to the researchers, the builders of the telescopes and the operators of them, without which we would be blind to the greater beauties of the mysteries of our physical Universe!!

That being said, I wonder why the researchers feel that the cometary material is what is the cause for the redder glow, one would think that such material would have been blown away by the intense light pressure as well as the initial shock wave of the nova (Supernova?) incident as the initial assumptions suggested. Could the dust and gasses instead be from planetary materials, torn apart by the intense gravitational and physical pressures of the stellar explosion be the culprits instead?? Given a system like our own, with several gas giants, there might be plenty of material for such a dust cloud if the shock and heat from the explosion were able to pulverise the solid planets, and asteroidal materials, and boil off the atmospheres of those gas giants as well as slower moving mass from the tail end of the explosion itself. Just a possibility from a layman in the field, but it is fun to be able to add ones conjecture in this forum. Thank You Alan, for providing it!!!

Dust in 'God's eye'

Jimmy Crackhorn — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:39:48 GMT

They usually travel in pairs....where's the other one?

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chris Eldridge, Harrisburg PA — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:48:20 GMT

It's kind of funny seeing the Helix nebula. When I was thinking about the photo of the volcano/impact on Titan, I thought the only other photo I have questions about is the Helix nebula. If you look at a magnified image of the inner part of the blue-green outer ring, you see what looks to be "the pillars of creation" all over. This is a photo of what I mean:

http://www.spacetoday.org/images/Hubble/
HubbleBeauty/HelixNebulaTadpolesNASA.jpg

I read one caption that mentioned in passing that they are 'cometary knots' but if the red eye is the cometary shell, could not these 'knots' be free floating planets? The expanding gas from the star seems to have reviled that space is totally full of free floating planets that we just can't see. Does anyone else have any insights as to what these are or how far away they are from the central white dwarf?

Dust in 'God's eye'

DesEmery,TheCarborundumChronicles,St.ThomasON,Canada — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 02:15:48 GMT

In looking at this and various other photos - whether in artificial colour or not - I always have the impression of two parts of the explosion which is the subject of the photo, one part blowing out of the polar regions of the star, north and south, in more or less straight lines, the faster the spin of the star the straighter and more obvious the lines become. The second portion of the expansion would involve the atmosphere and surface gases bursting away from the body of the star, followed by the more internal layers from the nuclear workings of the star. We see different views of the event in each picture, some edge-on, some vertically, some horizontally, and every point of view otherwise. I see similar details in pictures of other galaxies, too, with two spiral arms twisting in a St.Catharine's Wheel of fireworks, emanating from the north and south polar regions of the central black hole, or a plain globe of stars slowly accumulating without a back hole centre.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chuck Sweet, Portland Oregon — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 02:57:20 GMT

Chris, I myself thought that these likely represented the 'Oort Cloud' around that particular star. And if that is Not the case, that these are not the various comets, planetoids (the new pigmy class) and loose floating clouds of icy/rocky material left over from the creation of the star and possibly planetary system, then these may well represent various icy and/or rocky pigmy planetoids, full sized planetary sized bodies and even (frozen?)gas giants that are indeed floating thru free, interstellar space. And if That is the case, that space is indeed full of such bodies, it may well be another chunk of the "Dark Matter" equation. However, one would think that we would have seen greater numbers of them or had more evidence of their existence. Just some free floating thoughts mind you...

Dust in 'God's eye'

Motie — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 04:23:07 GMT

I can't believe you didn't call this column "The Mote in God's Eye" after the book!

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 06:12:47 GMT

It's an unfortunate fact that astronomy press releases today overwhelmingly refer to "gas and dust" when in fact they should be referring to matter in the plasma state.

Many cosmologists who are aware of the role of plasma in the universe believe that 99.99% of the visible universe consists of matter within the plasma state. You'll actually find this stated within astronomical plasma textbooks. And yet, press releases like this one are written by people who consistently fail to mention this fact.

Perhaps they don't want to confuse the public since few people understand what plasma actually is, but it's a big problem because plasma is very different than gas and dust. Plasma physicists use completely different equations to represent plasma within the laboratory than they do for gases because plasma can conduct electricity.

Unbeknownst to much of the public, mainstream astrophysicists actually believe that these electrical plasmas play little to no role within the universe. In other words, astrophysicists have taken the unfortunate position of arguing that laboratory plasma experiments do *not* apply to large-scale galactic plasmas. They *assume* that space plasmas are in fact ideal conductors, meaning that they can instantaneously neutralize any charge imbalances -- even when those space plasmas are light years in distance. This is a very big deal because electrical plasma that has resistance is governed by completely different equations than the non-resistive plasmas. Few people are aware that the guy who invented this concept of "frozen-in" magnetic fields for plasma where charges instantly neutralize themselves (Hannes Alfven), recused himself from this idea many years ago when he received the Nobel Physics Prize. Astrophysicists, however, ignored him and continue to assert that even though laboratory electrical plasma phenomenon bear striking resemblances to many things we see through our telescopes, they assert that electricity does *not* flow through space. This is a bold assertion that gets little attention within astronomical circles these days. To assert that we are somehow smarter than nature in that we figured out an efficient way to transmit energy over great distances and yet nature could not have figured the same thing out is increasingly common in our technological society.

We give ourselves more credit than we're due.

In this particular instance, the article mentions mysteriously strong x-rays. In the electrical plasma view, there is no mystery at all. What the article fails to mention is that nebulae with strong x-ray emissions tend to have x-rays with synchrotron components to them. Synchrotron x-rays *only* result from strong electrical activity. When astrophysicists assert that the x-rays *must* be the result of comets, they can only draw this conclusion because they have made earlier assumptions that have ruled out the right answer -- that electricity does in fact flow through space over electrical plasmas.

Astronomy, Geology and Archaeology are unique sciences in that we cannot perform input-output experiments with them. For this reason, it's important to realize that we can never achieve full certainty of our understanding in those realms.

Whenever you read an article like this that asserts a good deal of confidence about what *must* be causing an observation, it's healthy to maintain a good deal of skepticism and try to understand alternative explanations. If you delve beneath the surface of astronomy press releases today, you will be very surprised by what you find. There are numerous anomalies with astronomy today. Nearly every week, another press release comes out where astrophysicists proclaim "surprise" at an observation and then posit a speculation about its cause. Over time, many of these speculations end up in textbooks and are oftentimes presented as facts. Making matters worse, astrophysicists have lost their ability to maintain a humble attitude about interpreting observations. Many astrophysicists refuse to admit that they might be wrong about their interpretation of observations like this one even though the mysteries of the observation disappear when they drop their assumptions that electrical plasmas do not exist in space and even though they understand very little about dark matter and dark energy, which supposedly represents something like 95% of the universe's mass.

I highly recommend Don Scott's new book "The Electric Sky" for anybody who is interested in astronomy. It will forever change your view of press releases like this one. There is an alternative, cohesive explanation for all of our modern space observations that explains nearly all of the anomalies that our standard paradigms have so poorly addressed lately. When you get down to it, there's no excuse for us being "surprised" on a weekly basis these days. If we're still making anomalous observations with all of the data that we have available to us today, it would be wise to go back and check our early assumptions. There are numerous questionable assumptions that have been made over time, but the assumptions regarding electricity over plasma in space are especially dubious.

Dust in 'God's eye'

John A, San Diego, CA — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 06:42:16 GMT

Is it just me, or is there a real truth behind my perception that an atheist--apart from being someone who is terrified by the verb 'to believe' despite his constant and adamant recourse to it--is a person with no sense of humor who marches in protest against only those metaphors that he pretends not to see?

John

Dust in 'God's eye'

Dan Jackson, Denham Springs, Louisiana — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 06:46:19 GMT

How close is this to what we precieve as the center of the universe?

Dust in 'God's eye'

Jerry Bedard Winslow, Maine — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 07:23:50 GMT

After seeing such magnificent pictures of our universe, it's impossible to believe that our President would have let the Hubble Telescope "die" in space.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chris Eldridge, Harrisburg PA — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 07:33:34 GMT

"pigmy planetoids?" God, that's funny! But... yeah! If there were THAT MANY free floaters, maybe that would account for a few more percent of the missing matter they cannot find.

Maybe this is for another thread but you now got me thinking about dark matter. The only really heavy matter that might exist in really significant quantities but that doesn't shine like a star would be really big “iron-worlds.” Supernova happen when you get to the element of iron because iron cannot be fused together any further in a star. When a star explodes, maybe it sends off extremely large chunks of iron that have far more mass than say Jupiter (maybe 70 X - maybe 1000 X more) but that never would turn on (despite there mass) because the property of Iron would not allow it... Sure, the earth has a small iron core but maybe we’re just assuming that supernova mainly create (more or less) a “cloud” of heavy elements which then distills into a planetary system. A cloud is the only thing that really would lead to a star with planets orbiting it as free floaters would be more like pin balls out there never to be able to slowly distill into a central system with other things orbiting it. Such iron planets might outnumber stars 500 to one and yet would never bee seen… Now THATS something to sleep on!

Dust in 'God's eye'

wallace mccabe — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 10:01:55 GMT

i am with motie.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Mark Phillips — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 10:13:54 GMT

Yes, John A, it is just you.

Dust in 'God's eye'

George, North Port, Fl — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:14:57 GMT

For those who do not see the eye, you are missing out. No one really knows what these nebula's are really made of. We haven't gone that far yet but anyhow its a wonderful piece of God's creation.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Wade Whitlock, Aberdeen, MD — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:38:13 GMT

Oh, Dear! Here we go again! A-theists (literally "without gods") tend to use "I believe..." to indicate an unsubstantiated or partially substantiated idea. Those who operate on the basis of "faith" tend to neglect to require proof of statements. Please note the use of the word "tend". I know that there are the usual proportion of extremists on both sides.

Motie beat me to it! If you want some very interesting aliens, go read "The Mote in God's Eye". Very good. "One one hand, on the other hand and on the grasping hand...!"

Since we tend to percieve the Earth as the "center of the Universe or Cosmos" if you re-phrase the question that way you can get an answer: 700 LY, give or take a few thousand clicks.

Perception is limited by what you can percieve. Since we don't see infra-red, ultraviolet, x-rays or gamma rays we are now having our consciousness expanded, literally. These are good times! Questions, questions everywhere!

Dust in 'God's eye'

P. Beck — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:41:03 GMT

I spy with my flaming lidless eye...

Something that begins with the letter 'H'!

Dust in 'God's eye'

Baralatar — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 14:06:05 GMT

Why are you surprised, Jerry? Our President is quite good at letting things, and people, die unnecessarily.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Tom Moore, Palm springs Ca. — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 14:07:18 GMT

The dust is what got caught in the fabric of space when it was compressed during the explosion. most likely starting to form into sphere's already. for it to show up at this distance there must be at least a few planets worth.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Glenn Rogers, New Market, TN — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 14:37:17 GMT

Is this not a take on (I believe Larry Niven's) "A Mote In God's Eye"?

Dust in 'God's eye'

BILL B. JACKSONVILLE, FL. — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 14:37:52 GMT

THE GOD ,AND GREAT CREATOR , OF THE HEAVENS AND EARTH IS SO AWESOME THAT MORTAL MANKIND CAN NOT BEGIN TO COMPREHEND HIS GREATNESS. AMEN

Dust in 'God's eye'

Jason — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:36:53 GMT

To Jerry: the raw image used for this picture was captured by the Spitzer 'scope, not Hubble. And in case you haven't noticed, HST is having pretty major problems on its own and may not, in fact, survive until the next servicing mission. Also worth noting that many people who know more than both you and I believe the servicing mission is a waste of resources that should go towards Hubble's replacement. In any event, what I'm trying to get at is while I respect your opinion, this really isn't the proper forum for irrelevant, political non sequiturs.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Christine, Dallas, TX. — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 16:00:25 GMT

John A,

That was the most poignant and properly descriptive phrase I've read in a long time. It's nice to come across such philosophical clarity in the haze of post-modern thought. Thank you! I have written that down and will share the thought.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Rozanne Terranova, Anaheim Hills, CA — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 16:27:15 GMT

Wouldn't you all just be dumb founded if it truly was "The Eye of God". Never doubt the miracles that happen everyday in this world regardless of science.

Dust in 'God's eye'

ron-canada — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:35:16 GMT

The Helix Nebula is wonderful.I'm sure there are many more sights out there that are even better.Great moments in the theory of randomtivity.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Stlouis — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 18:11:25 GMT

god's creation?

Dust in 'God's eye'

D. Boyle, Fox River Grove, Ill — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 18:13:41 GMT

Apart from the pulverized comets bit, which is pretty funny actually, our sun is not going to explode. Not in a few billion years. Not ever. We on planet earth circle a star too small to ever grace the galaxy with a sparkly light show. The best our neighbors can hope for is a bloated red light for a few million years. You might say we'll all be at the center of the local Red Light district. The good part is that earth might live through it, to endlessly circle a slowly fading white dwarf.

Dust in 'God's eye'

John W, Chicago IL — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 18:47:33 GMT

I'm agnostic. Wake me when it blinks.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chris Eldridge, Harrisburg PA — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:25:30 GMT

Chris, there may at least be a hint of more evidence of such free floaters. Several years ago, a few astronomers noted that many of the comets entering into the inner solar system were coming from roughly the same location. Based on who knows how many calculations, they speculated that there was a large Jovian-sized planet orbiting 50,000 AU from the sun. We need to remember that the sun’s influence does not end at Pluto, a mere 40 AU from the sun. It extends out – from what I know – half way to the nearest star, some 100,000+ AU. It is VERY LIKELY that our star has ‘captured’ some of these free floaters. From what I know we are still outside of the main plain of the galaxy so things may be a lot more hectic once back inside it.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chris Eldrige, HBG PA — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:35:58 GMT

Oh... forgot. Try to think of these gaseous nebulas like dusting for the fingerprints of such free floaters. After thinking about it, I also realized that my size estimate of my proposed iron balls (of 1000 Jovian masses) was probably a bit much… Maybe a few hundred though…?

Dust in 'God's eye'

Jesus, Heaven, AL — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 20:03:28 GMT

Eye? what eye? Looks like a flying spaghetti monster's noodly appendage to me, not some white flowing bearded wish-bringing wizard's eye. That's just silly.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 23:54:50 GMT

I'm presuming that Mr Eldridge's comments were directed at my post (it's too bad that this blog doesn't have the ability to attach responses to particular postings).

I challenge you to investigate Electric Universe Theory as proposed by Don Scott in his book before blindly accepting the speculation of traditional astronomers in regards to invisible planets that may be shooting comets at us.

If you take the time to investigate it, you will learn that *both* of our recent missions to comets -- Stardust and Deep Impact -- have returned results that would cause any rational, objective person to question our assumptions about comets themselves. NASA scientists and astrophysicists alike are aware of this, and yet it does not interrupt their desire to publish additional speculative press releases in the media because these press releases gain them notoriety within the media, which in turn garners them additional funding for their work. To speculate about the actions of comets at a great distance when we cannot even understand the data that we've received from our close encounters is reckless. People like you and me then digest these articles believing that we're getting quality information when in fact the scientific method demands that we focus on trying to understand the anomalous data that's been coming back from our cometary probes before we continue to speculate about other things involving comets. It is the only responsible course of action for us to follow.

The truth about comets, in fact, is that Wallace Thornhill, an Electric Universe theorist, was the *only* scientist to accurately predict the results of the Deep Impact mission to Comet Tempel 1. There is a very good summary of his predictions and their theories at http://www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pdf. To this day, NASA scientists continue to be mystified by the same data that he very accurately predicted. If you read that document, you will learn that comets are not in fact dirty snowballs. Comets are just like asteroids in composition. The only difference is their orbital paths. Comets travel elliptical orbits, which cause them to pick up the electric charge of deep space while they are away from the Sun. The coma and tail appear as a result of electrical stress upon the comet as it approaches the Sun. It is not the result of any sublimation inspired by heat from the Sun, and we know this for several reasons -- because we've seen comets flare up near the gas giant planets far from the Sun where this heat is negligible; and because we've observed intense x-rays being emitted from comets. Very interestingly, the Great Chicago Fire was most likely caused by the Earth passing through cometary debris after a comet broke apart. The cometary breakup was actually observed to exhibit an apparent "bridge" connecting two different pieces of the comet (which would best be described as electrical filamentary plasma), and when the debris hit the Earth, the event was highly electrical in nature. One unfortunate man was actually killed because he had coins in his two pockets and the lightning bolt that connected the coins through his torso killed him. Can you imagine?

As you can see, there are the press releases, which would have you believe that our search for the truth in space is both scheduled, predictable and reliably efficient -- where scientists pretty much already "know" what they'll find before even looking through the telescopes. And then there is history itself, which any student of will tell you involves many surprises. One of the greatest surprises of the 21st century will be that much of our speculation about space in the 20th century was wrong. This comes as no surprise to plasma physicists because our planet exists in a protected pocket of non-plasma space. We're in that minuscule percentage of matter in space where plasma is a rare phenomenon. You don't hit plasma until you get to the ionosphere. But once you hit it, the various interacting plasmas never end until you run into another asteroid or planet. We likely owe our very existence to this fact. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that intelligent life would have a difficult time understanding the universe. Intelligent life would naturally believe that its surroundings would be representative of the entire universe. This philosophy is actually called uniformitarianism. It is the underlying philosophy of much of our speculative sciences (astronomy, geology and archeology), but there are many things that uniformitarianism cannot explain (like rilles on the rocky planets that travel both up and down with the topography!). And we should be greatly troubled by this because that means that our primary underlying assumption may be wrong. In other words, it's very likely that our immediate surroundings and the laws that govern them may not actually have a lot to do with those energetic events we're observing in deep space. But there is something that we can do: we can investigate plasma phenomenon in the lab and see if it corresponds with our observations in space. If you do this, you will find that electrical plasmas can explain all of the mystery of dark matter, strange supernova remnants, the flickering of "neutron stars", the rotational properties of spiral galaxies, the cosmic microwave background, the anomalously high temperatures of nebulae, the fact that the solar wind continues to accelerate even as it passes the planets, the high temperature of the Sun's corona (2 million K) as compared to its surface temperature (6000 K), and even the strange results returned by our cometary probes.

Once again, I highly encourage you to read Don Scott's book. So long as you are just listening to the mainstream astronomers, you have nothing to compare your reading materials against. Once you understand how plasma works, things make a lot more sense. You'll be able to read between the lines of these press releases. You'll thank me afterwards.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:33:06 GMT

A wonderful reminder of the ceaseless recycling events that keep our galaxy and universe working.
In a few billion years some of that material will make it's way into the formation of new solar systems and maybe even life.

Oh, and the red "eye" looks more like Terminator's!

Dust in 'God's eye'

Antonia, Pennsylvania — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 01:25:44 GMT

Coincidance? or did God put it there? also, one word: WOW.

Dust in 'God's eye'

DesEmery,TheCarborundumChronicles,St.Thomas,ON,Canada — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 05:37:05 GMT

Chris Reeve of San Francisco writes well explaining much. Plasma is frequently mentioned as an integral part of the 'material' involved in star-making in the works I have read (not as many as I would like to have read) but I understand the media's penchant for substituting 'gas and dust' as a more comprehensible phrase to describe the pictures telescopes provide. The visible light by which we see our surroundings is far too dim to see those pictures by, so telescopes must use infra-red radiation (heat) and ultra-violet radiation above the top of our spectrum (x-ray,gamma ray, etc.) to get impressions of the Helix Nebula and other astronomical subjects into frames of reference we can 'see.' I don't think we can use plasma as yet to take pictures but wouldn't it make a great medium if we could?

Chris Eldridge, once we get far enough from sol, I think his gravity is balanced and then overcome by the gravity of whatever is there. It is like jumping from one stone to another to cross over a stream. Our astronauts talk of zero-gravity in the shuttle and the space station, and that's what they experience, but in reality they live in a balance between Earth's gravity pulling them down and centrifugal force throwing them outwards.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chuck Sweet, Portland Oregon — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 07:23:02 GMT

Chris, WOW, that artical is a real eye opener!! I did have just a small extrapolation from the Electrical Comet information though, it would suggest that one should be able to develope a manner of propulsion based on magnetic fields of some sort and use the magneto-electrical charge of the sun itself as the actual propulsive force instead of using a chemicalally reactive fuel or nuclear driven mass as the means of propelling oneself. Since the earth itself would have to have an electrical field that is balanced against the solar field it may not be actually that hard to find a method of magnetic suspension akin to 'antigravity' that would serve to transport us here near the planetary surface as well as put us into interplanetary and interstellar space, the hardest part would seem to be the managing of the capacitance over the distances involved and the changes in voltage, but that then just becomes an engineering problem. Once the proper theories become well enough understood; OF COURSE the Earth has an electrical charge to it, it does have a magnetic field, a metal core, and orbits within a magnetic field itself, so why dont we have technology available to us that takes advantage of it? It would seem that there is energy enough to use profligately without depending upon any form of fossil fuel....so why dont we have it???

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chris Eldridge — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 14:51:45 GMT

Sorry for not attaching a last name to that Chris R. I was responding to something Chris Sweet was saying about free floating planets. I do have an observation, though. Water has been found to be fairly common in star forming regions of space. If comets were just like asteroids, why do they grow tails?

Dust in 'God's eye'

Christine, Dallas, TX. — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:11:06 GMT

John W, Chicago, IL.: Agnostic or not, that was funny! 'Jesus', AL wrote: "...not some white flowing bearded wish-bringing wizard's eye. That's just silly." How true in regards to such a silly concept of God. How completely foolish to think of naming an astrological phenomenon for such a concept. Hopefully, their conception of the nickname was a little more grounded in the truth.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chris Eldridge, Harrisburg PA — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 02:41:55 GMT

If a super nova did generate large Jovian chunks of iron instead of just a cloud, could such iron worlds achieve escape velocity from the galaxy? If these heavy, non-fusion worlds outnumbered normal stars, say, 500 to 1, many if not most might have left the galaxy and utterly fill the space between galaxies. Escape velocity for our solar system doesn’t seem to be too high. In fact they say an asteroid impact may very well have sent a bacteria ladened chunk of earth out into interstellar space. If a mere impact can do that, I’d be quite certain that a supernova could break the bounds of our galaxy altogether. Maybe this would better explain dwarf dark galaxies?

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 04:08:28 GMT

> If comets were just like asteroids, why do
> they grow tails?

This is probably a bit more than you asked for, but I'm guessing you guys don't mind ...

Plasma is a very unique state of matter compared to the others. Matter is in the plasma state when it contains some number of mobile charged particles. In other words, something has caused some electrons and/or protons to become unbound to their molecules. This is why plasma can conduct electricity. In fact, plasma can conduct electricity even better than copper.

But that's not all. Plasma has three distinct states of excitation, depending on the current density: the dark mode, the normal glow mode and the arc mode. You are already familiar with the last two. The glow mode is how we generate neon lights and fluorescent tubes and the arc mode is how we create arc welders and HID lighting. Lightning is also plasma in the arc mode. So, when current passes through plasma in space, it can become illuminated. Whether or not this is what's happening with comets depends on who you ask. Like I said, astrophysicists can be a stubborn bunch. They are *unanimously* taught in college in a course called magnetohydrodynamics that plasmas in space can be treated ideally as fluids. This is most likely a huge mistake because real life non-idealized plasma in our laboratories is definitely electrical in nature. They know this; they just refuse to believe that these lab results scale up to space phenomenon. These electrical plasmas obey Maxwell's equations and tend to form filamentary strands called Birkeland Currents. Birkeland Currents will tend to pair up and twist around one another with such a great force that it makes gravitational forces negligible. You already understand this on a basic level because you already understand that lightning and sparks do not obey gravity. Anyways, modeling plasmas in space like fluids is kind of like modeling lightning as fire. Maybe it works under some ideal scenarios, but under the vast number of situations, the two are very different.

When astrophysicists model space plasmas as fluids, they inevitably generate ginormous error terms. The electrical force that results from Birkeland Currents is something like 10^36 times stronger than the gravitational force. If electrical plasmas do exist in space, then one would expect that we'd be seeing some very strange phenomenon in the sky that are difficult or theoretically impossible to create with just gravity. This is what a black hole is. Astrophysicists *assume* that black holes *must* exist because they observe the presence of insanely huge forces. They then *extrapolate* the mass based upon this force. What they don't tell you is that we've actually imaged the center of the Milky Way galaxy using various wavelengths and we can see very clearly what's there. It's *not* a black hole. It is identical to the morphology of an electrical plasma phenomenon called a homopolar motor, which is the same exact thing that makes your power meter spin on the side of your house (!). It's actually a common practice these days for mainstream astrophysicists to try to convince you that you should believe their *math* over your own *eyes*. I recommend that you be more skeptical than that.

Once charged particles have been stripped from their parent molecules, they don't necessarily remain illuminated. In fact, it's been our experience that all of space is filled with these charged particles. But you cannot see them and we possess no way of observing them aside from intercepting them. Plasma in the dark mode, in fact, can explain how it's possible that we are observing the presence of forces within the universe and the absence of matter, ie dark matter. Mainstream astrophysicists, on the other hand, would have you believe that with all of our sophisticated telescopes that can now see in nearly every single wavelength, we can only see around 4 or 5% of the universe's mass. This is completely absurd. If dark matter is 3x more common than normal visible matter, then why have we not been able to observe it? People have been trying for *20* years now, and nobody has succeeded. That's because it does not exist. Dark matter is the error term you get when you model electrical plasma in space as a fluid.

The most amazing part of the whole story though relates to the Sun. You've never been told as much, but there are numerous major flaws with our belief that the Sun is a thermonuclear reaction. The corona is 2 million K, whereas the surface of the Sun does not exceed around 6000 K. If the core of the Sun is generating the heat, then how does this heat get through the surface without heating it up? Astrophysicists have proposed a mechanism for this called magnetic reconnections, but the father of plasma physics, Hannes Alfven, and many other plasma physicists vehemently argue against the existence of magnetic reconnections. Another big big problem is that the solar wind continues to increase as it passes the planets. The *only* way to cause charged particles to continue to accelerate is with an electric field centered at the Sun. This is very problematic if the Sun is just a controlled nuclear reaction. And the biggest problem of all for astrophysicists today is the fact that neutrino production by the Sun inversely correlates with the sunspot cycle. Neutrinos are a necessary byproduct of nuclear fusion within the Sun. But the thing is, they are not charged particles and they can travel through just about anything (it takes up to a light-year of pure lead to stop them). Astrophysicists' models for the Sun require that a complex process of convection occurs within the Sun that takes something like 100,000 years for energy and particles from the core to get to the surface. But sunspots are on the *surface* of the Sun! ... and they are a *magnetic* phenomenon. How is it possible that the sunspots can be correlated with something that supposedly happened in the core 100,000 years ago? It's IMPOSSIBLE. If neutrinos correlate with sunspots in *any* way, it means that fusion is happening closer to the surface of the Sun. And for this reason, and numerous other good reasons, one must conclude that the Sun receives its power *externally*. As breathtaking as this sounds, there is good reason to believe it. Watch closely the ongoing reports coming back from the Ulysses probe which is monitoring the poles of the Sun *right now*. It is making observations right now that demonstrate a million mph flow of charged particles *into* the Sun's poles! Stars do not progress through phases. They are in fact powered externally. As absurd as it sounds, the Sun could stop shining tomorrow ... or it could become incredibly bright. The fact that we exist seems to imply that either this just doesn't happen very often or we've managed to survive events like this *by chance*.

To be honest, I haven't even scratched the surface. The full story is so amazingly interesting that it's just a matter of time before this alternative Electric Universe Theory goes mainstream. Keep in mind though that if you try to talk to an astrophysicists about any of this, he will laugh at you and allege that the EU theorists are absurd. Their confidence, however, only results by *ignoring* all of the various anomalies. They spend all of their time developing extremely complex proofs for the big bang with things like the cosmic microwave background, and yet, they can't even explain things that are much closer to home -- like comets and rilles on the rocky planets. Sure, the cosmic microwave background can be used to prove the Big Bang Theory, but that's because we choose to do so. We could come up with alternative explanations for it, and people have!

Dust in 'God's eye'

Mushtaq Ahmed. — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 08:32:51 GMT

Beautiful picture!

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 16:52:02 GMT

Chuck, in regards to thoughts about novel anti-gravity propulsion mechanisms, you're probably right. But like many worthwhile ideas today, this is currently considered "pseudoscience". So long as an idea retains this stigma, it will not receive funding.

Through our speculative and even more physical sciences, we've absolutely convinced ourselves that we're on the right track in understanding the universe. But there are numerous anomalies that remain completely unexplained. We in fact cannot say that we understand the universe until we have a cosmology that can explain all of these anomalies.

For instance, have you ever wondered how it is possible that the dinosaurs were so large? Investigations into this strange situation have led to inconclusive results. In our current world, the muscle cell structure that's used to propel all vertebrates and invertebrates is basically the same. The only difference exists with the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cells. Elephants have a different number of mitochondria than do mice, and so on, but the remainder of the cell is the same. But there is a problem when you try to include dinosaurs. The thing about muscles is that their strength increases as the square of the muscle volume while mass increases as the cube of the muscle volume. We know this to be the case for all vertebrates and most of the invertebrates currently on the planet. That implies that there is an upper limit to the size of a land-walking animal. You can calculate this upper limit and it ends up at around 20,000 lbs -- which neatly corresponds to a weight just slightly larger than our largest land walkers, the elephants. Where does this leave the dinosaurs though? Nobody knows. It's an anomaly. A complete mystery. Many of the dinosaurs were absolutely tremendous in size. It has been postulated that the dinosaurs were all actually water creatures, but their teeth are worn (which wouldn't happen if they were eating kelp all the time) and we can see their footprints on land.

There are other problems with the dinosaurs. Some of their necks are so long that they should snap if projected horizontally and they shouldn't be able to get blood to their brain if projected vertically. Bones from flying creatures have been discovered that indicate plane-sized flying creatures. The pterasaurs, for instance, had estimated wingspans (based upon the bones recovered at Big Bend) of around 50 feet! We can't get birds to be bigger than 50 lbs right now, even though the Mongolians have been trying to breed their falcons larger for thousands of years. Bigger birds just can't land without killing themselves. How can the pterasaurs have been so large? They must have weighed hundreds or thousands of pounds. This topic has been debated for decades now with no resolution.

There is only one answer to all three mysteries: Gravity here on Earth has changed. And this is where astronomy and physics come into play. We like to think that an asteroid impact killed the dinosaurs. But, to some extent, this *assumes* that the Earth has no stored electrical charge because if it did, then any encroaching large body that had a different charge than the Earth's would experience a dramatic charge equalization before impact which would likely break it into lots of smaller pieces.

Have you ever wondered why nearly all craters are round? Doesn't this seem peculiar given that few asteroids strike at 90-degree angles? We're told that this is because the kinetic energy of the impact would create an explosion, which would create a round crater. But did you know that Meteor Crator in Arizona has *undisturbed* sedimentary layers beneath it? How is that possible if it's an explosion from kinetic energy? It's *not*. Meteor Crater and many other round craters are the result of massive electrical discharges between the Earth and foreign bodies. This is what causes many rilles (canyons) too. The Grand Canyon was likely created in the same exact way. That would explain why the Colorado River goes right *through* the Kaibab Upwarp instead of going around it, and that would explain why the debris from the Grand Canyon's excavation is nowhere to be found. We see similar things on the other rocky planets and the Moon. Aristarchus Crater on the Moon -- that crater with the extremely long spokes emanating from it -- has no non-electrical explanation because those spokes are not debris fields. They exhibit all of the characteristics of burn scars. Not debris. Furthermore, both that crater and the Tycho crater are approximately centered at high points on the topography on that side of the Moon -- exactly where you would expect a massive lightning bolt to occur. The discovery of magnetic rocks all over the Moon came as a surprise when we recovered our Moon rocks decades ago, but it was predicted by Velikovsky long before that to be the natural result of energetic electrical events between the Moon and other foreign bodies. Our solar system is completely riddled with clues that indicate large-scale transient electrical activity.

I can go on and on and on like this literally for hours. The evidence that electricity is flowing through space is overwhelming. Astrophysicists just choose to ignore it. And whatmore, there is something very strange happening with gravity. The dinosaurs experienced less gravity than we do today. This should cause us to suspect a link between gravity and electrical charge. But science moves forward as if none of this is a problem on its pre-ordained path. Astronomers continue looking through their telescopes for proof of the Big Bang while ignoring the evidence for electricity in space that you can see by just looking up at night time at the Moon with your bare eyes.

So, to answer your question, yes, there probably is a mechanism for anti-gravity and it likely relates to electrical charges and plasmas. The thing is, we as a society have become so enraptured in our awesome technologies that we've convinced ourselves that our speculative sciences are just as advanced. But although a complicated cell phone must work in order to be purchased, NASA press releases require no proof of concept in order to be believed by millions. In truth, the anomalies are still out there, and only by vigorously pursuing those anomalies will we ever fully understand the universe. You should be skeptical of any theory that tries to sweep them under the rug rather than directly addressing them. And any scientist that dismisses evidence contrary to their own theories just because that person was educated differently or because that foreign science used different techniques to achieve their results may satisfy a personal desire to prove to the public that they're right, but will not get any closer to finding the truth.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Jaycubed, Santa Rosa, CA — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:49:18 GMT

"Is it just me, or is there a real truth behind my perception that an atheist--apart from being someone who is terrified by the verb 'to believe' despite his constant and adamant recourse to it--is a person with no sense of humor who marches in protest against only those metaphors that he pretends not to see?"
John A, San Diego, CA

Athiests are hardly "terrified by" the phrase "to believe". We tend to be afraid of those who "Believe". I use the term "belief" and "Belief" to represent two different concepts as illustrated by these two different meanings of the word belief (from M-W http://209.161.33.50/dictionary/belief ):

Belief =
1: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
2: something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group

belief =
3: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence

Athiests believe that meaning 3 is the positive & appropriate way to believe. In other words, belief is based on the testing of evidence.

Those who Believe only have any interest in meanings 1 & 2.

Evidence has shown that the Beliefs of Believers are contrary to the test of evidence, both to the external world and to the internal consistency of the body of Beliefs. For monotheists it is not necessary to look farther than Genesis 1 & 2 which tells two different & conflicting stories about the creation of man & woman. God says the value of pi is 3 in 1 Kings 7:23 (if you want to argue a cabbalistic interpretation of the meaning of this tract, pleas check my responses at

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/
archive/2007/02/09/53659.aspx

... to this idea). For members of the christian sect, try & make a coherent & non-contradictory account of what happened on the first easter sunday. You will find it impossible to reconcile the accounts in the 4 gospels.

As an athiest, I do see your metaphors. I actively reject most of them as nonsense. The primary idea, the existence/rulership of "The Big Fairy", I most specifically reject. I prefer my metaphors to be testable by reality. I prefer my metaphors to be flexible enough to accomodate new information. I prefer my metaphors to reflect truth rather than "The Truth".

I take positive ideas regardless of the alleged source of the ideas. I have always been quite fond of many of the statements attributed to the Galilean rabbi Yeshua/Eshoo (sorry if you don't like my use of his probable real name rather than the usual Greek pun of Jesus), but the metaphor of "Christ" I find to be nonsense.

I have learned much from Chuang Tzu, but I am not a "Taoist".

I have learned much from Guatama Siddhartha, but I am not a "Buddhist".

I have learned much fron Yeshua bin Joseph, but I am not a "Christian".

As to lacking a "sense of humor" and "march(ing) in protest against only those metaphors that he pretends not to see", I will leave that to you & your fellow Believers.

I see your metaphors and I reject them based on a universe of evidence.

My universe appears to be laughing at the arrogant little monkeys rather than proclaiming them to be the epitome of "Creation".

Dust in 'God's eye'

DesEmery,TheCarborundumChronicles,St.Thomas,ON,Canada — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 02:58:52 GMT

Chris R. and Chris E. -- The site recommended by Chris R. is very interesting, I will have to watch for Electric Universe explanations of other events. Chris E., we have been told that comets, like those 'free floaters' in the pictures you provided, are composed of water/snow/ice holding together with 'dirt,' 'dust,' or grainy stuff, and the tails are the water blowing off the comet in streaks when the comet's orbit swings near the Sun. In that case, asteroids like the ones in the Belt between Mars and Jupiter should not possess tails, because they are rocky remnants confined to their own orbits. But some of them do. And there are pictures of known comets out around Jupiter and Saturn, with tails. So comet theory must be revised to co-incide with that information. Plasma does that. And I just read that in Brazil researchers have figured out that ball lightning is plasma discharge when lightning heats silica in soil,vaporizing it into an aerosol that glows from the silicon re-combining with Oxygen. The researchers placed wafers of silicon between two electrodes, zapped it with electricity, and produced a small explosion with small shards of silicon and small tennis-balls of glowing orbs floating around. Why not project that theory onto comets? Plasma is neutron-stripped electricity, abundant in nova- and supernova-spawned nebulae and should be the subject of more research.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Jaycubed, Santa Rosa, CA — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 00:03:38 GMT

There is one serious problem with the "Electrical Comet" theory which casts doubt on the whole "Electric Universe" theory.

Numerous satellites, which are made of metal & hence conductive, have traveled within the solar system with a substantial radial element to their travel. In other words they have, similiar to a comet, approached & retreated from the Sun during their travels. Various forms of gravity assist (gravitational slingshot effect) have been used on a variety of space probes, including orbits which have traveled near Jupiter's orbit and within the inner solar system.

These probes are all heavily instrumented and they would easily detect any so-called "Electrical Comet" effect. In fact, they would probably be immobilized if such a phenomenum occured. The described effects in the reference listed above include high-voltage arcing, which would destroy electronic devices with ease.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chuck Sweet, Portland Oregon — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:07:48 GMT

Actually, Jaycubed, the fact that our probes are metal and conductive, as well as tiny compared to a comet, means that they will equalise their structural charge with their environment very easily, and not be subject to the arcing you are proposing. I am not sure if they are set up to detect the plasma types proposed under the Electric Universe theory, mainly because since it has not been a mainstream idea it would likely not been given such consideration when the designers of said probes built them. I would like to see some probes built to explore just that theory since it could certainly change the way we look at our universe and how it all really works. It is too bad that so many scientists have "Staked their Reputations" and their grant monies on the "Mainstream" theories and have in fact disallowed rational discussion of the Electrical Universe theory since it would mean that they would have been wrong about so many different things stemming from 'Standard' theory, going back several decades. But then again, science has always grown in such steps; closely held theory against a radical idea, which in turn ends up to more closely describe what is really happening, and the older theory being discarded or modified according to the new....is how it has always happened.

On the subject of dinosaurs and lighter gravity, this idea makes much sense and has been one of my own pet theories, one I had never voiced in the past since I had no way of proving it nor had I devised a mechanism that would make that scenario plausible. However, it comes to mind that this planet has been outgassing billions of tons from it's interior, replenishing the atmosphere and offsetting the losses to space. that and the fact that our planet still attracts mass from space in the form of meteors and meteorites. Those two facts suggest a couple of things, that the Earth at one point was actually larger in size, thus increasing the radial vector and was also lower in mass, possibly also having a smaller mass to volume ratio. The crust would likely also have been thinner, not sure what effect this in itself would have on gravity but it is a possibility that it may have some effect. But taken together these facets may well have had some effect on gravity at the surface of the planet and that it may well of had the effect that would have allowed the huge size and structures of the dinosaurs in our fossil record that would seem to be impossible today. This also suggests that gravity is going to slowly continue to get stronger in the future, although mayhaps at a slower rate since there is less gas to be transferred to the surface and the fact that the Earth has swept near space cleaner of debris than it was a couple hundred millions of years ago. Just some points to ponder.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:28:24 GMT

Jaycubed --

I appreciate the skepticism. If we had more of that these days in general, it's my belief that we wouldn't be where we're at today with astronomy and astrophysics.

But, you don't appear to have tried very hard to doubt your own logic. A superficial google search revealed to me in just a few seconds that comets on highly elliptical orbits can travel far faster than space probes near the Sun (500,000 mph vs 70,000 mph) and perhaps more importantly, spend more time in deep space (up to millions of years). One would expect that either of these two factors could play a role in the difference. Both speed of approach and time for remote charge equalization would presumably affect the degree to which a space body's plasmasphere would illuminate as it approaches the Sun.

Personally, I find the Electric Universe Theorists' statements about the *morphology* of craters observed on comets and asteroids to be very convincing. The craters are just far too flat to be the result of impacts and the crater walls are oftentimes stepped (when they actually have a circular form to begin with, although they oftentimes don't). Scientists can recreate those same forms in the lab using focused plasma beams. Some of these craters represent more than half of the surface area of the rocky body itself; it makes little sense that an impact this large wouldn't break the object into pieces.

Contemporary cometary theory is the ideal example of what's wrong with astrophysics today. When problems like this are encountered, the theory is patched back together even though it is no longer the simplest explanation for our observations. The idea that we should take a second look at our assumptions based upon our more modern observations never occurs to anybody. It's as if we've lost the ability to self-doubt our own science even when our probes are telling us that it's wrong. Our assumptions now supercede our observations in importance.

Furthermore, our encounter with Comet Tempel 1 indicated strong electrical activity as the probe approached the comet. The operators noted bursts that reminded them of lightning and some of the closeup images clearly show whiteouts which exceeded the camera's capabilities to film. The fact that the impactor experienced an initial charge equalization which apepared to occur prior to impact strongly suggests that comets are electrical plasma phenomenon. In fact, the only thing keeping us from concluding that are our legacy theories about comets and cosmology that were developed many years before the importance of plasma in the universe was discovered. Now that we're aware of the pervasiveness of plasma in space, it would be wise to update all of our theories to include this new finding.

It is oddly very common for people to resist believing in the existence of electricity in space. This has been going on for many decades. However, I recommend that before you make up your mind about a theory that you try harder to convince yourself of it first. Otherwise, you're allowing your prejudices and preferences to take over your ability to objectively evaluate the theory. The www.thunderbolts.info site is a good starting point, but Don Scott's new book is actually a more comprehensive listing of all of the problems with contemporary astronomy today. If in the end you still decide to defer to the mainstream authorities on the subject, then you should always remind yourself that we don't actually fully understand the mechanics of the universe yet. If that were true, we'd know everything about dark matter and dark energy there is to know. So, don't let yourself forget that nobody can claim to fully understand these things. To some extent, we must all use our own common sense and best judgment to decide what we believe for ourselves.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Michael Gmirkin — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 02:15:06 GMT

I might point out a passing similarity to the region around sunspots. This image really seemed quite similar to those for some reason. Especially the high resolution ones where you can see the twisting filamentary structures that make up the outer edge of a sunspot. This just reminds me a lot, rightly or wrongly, of that...

And, as Chris Reeve says, a goodly portion of the universe is made up of matter in the plasma state. Plasma can be quite electrically conductive, as well as being prone to electromagnetic effects/influence.

Recall also that the electrical force is considerably stronger than the gravitational force. For example, take a penny and place it in the air over a table. By "place" I really mean "drop." As we all know from common experience, the penny will be accelerated downward by the pull of gravity being exerted by the entirety of the planet earth.

That last sentence is important. Basically, the ENTIRE planet is pulling down on the penny toward the Earth's center of gravity. Now, take an ordinary iron bar magnet about the size of a couple sticks of chewing gum and place it in proximity over the penny.

What happens? The penny will whip up off the table and stick to the bar magnet.

This has been a simple illustration of how much more powerful magnetism (and electricity; electric fields and magnetic fields were 'integrated' or show to be mutually interconnected by Maxwell, I believe) is versus the force of gravity. The magnetism of a little bar magnet is sufficient to overcome the puny force of gravity exerted by the entirety of the mass & matter of the entire planet Earth. In the fact of this information, how can we possibly ignore the effects of electricity and magnetism in the universe and posit that the puny force of gravity rules the cosmos?

An interesting question/quandary. Does electricity and its attendant magnetic fields (fields that we've found ubiquitously in space with ever more powerful telescopes) actually TRUMP gravity in the overall structure and processes of the universe?

Consider. Talk amongst yourselves.

Cheers all,
~Michael

Dust in 'God's eye'

Jaycubed, Santa Rosa, CA — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 06:37:58 GMT

Did a little more research on the Electric Universe Model:

The first listing is a specific Electric Universe site.

http://www.fixedearth.com/electric.html

The second is the main page for the people who Believe in this idea.

http://www.fixedearth.com/

They also believe that the Earth is fixed in space (hanging from a version of the "Levitating Magnetic Globe" found in novelty shops) , that the Sun & stars orbit the Earth, that gravity doesn't exist ("Gravity is an exhausted & bankrupt concept"), that the universe is tiny and six thousand years old, that geosynchronous satellites don't orbit around the Earth at the same speed as the revolving ground passing below (they just happen to hang there at the altitude that is predicted by the "Kabbalistic" Newtonian physics of a rotating Earth & Gravity driven solar system), indeed that all modern science is a "Bible-destroying and Christ-destroying" Kabbalistic Jewish plot.

I'm afraid my B.S. detector is screaming right now about the "Electric Universe" and those who believe in it.

And I thought the Flat Earthers were as nutty as they came.

I remain neutral about the concept that electrical fields propagate through space. I am open to evidence.

I cannot remain neutral about the other nonsense that Believers in this idea claim.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Jaycubed, Santa Rosa, CA — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:17:47 GMT

"Recall also that the electrical force is considerably stronger than the gravitational force. For example, take a penny and place it in the air over a table. By 'place' I really mean 'drop.' As we all know from common experience, the penny will be accelerated downward by the pull of gravity being exerted by the entirety of the planet earth."

That last sentence is important. Basically, the ENTIRE planet is pulling down on the penny toward the Earth's center of gravity. Now, take an ordinary iron bar magnet about the size of a couple sticks of chewing gum and place it in proximity over the penny.

What happens? The penny will whip up off the table and stick to the bar magnet.
This has been a simple illustration of how much more powerful magnetism (and electricity; electric fields and magnetic fields were 'integrated' or show to be mutually interconnected by Maxwell, I believe) is versus the force of gravity. The magnetism of a little bar magnet is sufficient to overcome the puny force of gravity exerted by the entirety of the mass & matter of the entire planet Earth. In the fact of this information, how can we possibly ignore the effects of electricity and magnetism in the universe and posit that the puny force of gravity rules the cosmos?"
Michael Gmirkin

I would love to see you try this experiment. As a penny, whether copper or zinc, is not magnetic; no magnet would make the "penny -whip up off the table and stick to the bar magnet".

While this is just a foolish error on your part, let's consider what happens when you use an object which is magnetic, say a nickel.

If we release the nickel an inch above the table, it will drop to the table with an acceleration of 32ftperSec perSec. If we release the nickel a foot above the table, it will fall to the table with an acceleration of 32ftperSec perSec. If we release the nickel a hundred feel above the table, it will fall to the table with an acceleration of 32ftperSec perSec. If we release the nickel one mile above the table, it will fall to the table with an acceleration of 32ftperSec perSec.

If we take a powerful bar magnet and place it an inch above the nickel, it might counteract the force of gravity and pick up the nickel. Most likely you would have to place the magnet in closer proximity to the nickel to overcome the force of gravity with magnetic force.

If we take a powerful electromagnet and place it a foot above the nickel, it would most likely be powerful enough to overcome the force of gravity with magnetic force.

If we take the most powerful electromagnet ever made and placed it a hundred feet above the nickel, it would never be powerful enough to overcome the force of gravity with magnetic force.

Yet gravity puts the same force on a nickel miles away, farther than any magnetic force would be powerful enough to counteract the force of gravity on even a tiny object like a nickel.

Your understanding of the nature of the fundamental forces of nature, in particular electro-magnetism and gravity, is fundamentally in error.

How do we "posit that the puny force of gravity rules the cosmos?" Simple; the theories of gravity, newtonian mechanics, and relativity explain & predict the behavior of everything from a falling nickel to the Earth orbiting the Sun to gravitational lensing to the precession of Mercury. And it allows predictions to be made and experimentally confirmed to an incredible degree of accuracy.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Scott Wall, Georgetown, Ont — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 02:35:36 GMT

Jaycubed,

Chris Reeve recommended starting at www.thunderbolts.info. This site contains many links to other Electric Universe (EU) sites, including www.holoscience.com which is also an excellent place to start. I also recommend the book previously mentioned, The Electric Sky. Noone mentioned anything about www.fixedearth.com. There is a good reason why these sites have no links to www.fixedearth.com. This site has distorted the science of the EU into a pseudo-science. This site should not be viewed as representative of the views of reputable proponents for the EU.

Your criticism is appreciated but should be directed at the fixedearth site not at the EU. I also looked at the fixedearth site a year or so back. I found it amusing and dismissed it and it alone as quackery. I remained convinced that the EU theory was as sound as ever. Any theory can be distorted into quackery. This does NOT invalidate the original theory.

The beauty of the EU theory is that is generates verifiable predictions that are repeatedly proven to be correct. I have yet to see a prediction from a reputable EU practitioner that failed.

There are two possible reasons for the use of the EU by the fixedearth site:
- acceptance of their proposed theory by inclusion of a provable theory
- destruction of the EU theory by association with quackery.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Scott Wall, Georgetown, Ont — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 13:26:07 GMT

Jaycubed said:
"If we take the most powerful electromagnet ever made and placed it a hundred feet above the nickel, it would never be powerful enough to overcome the force of gravity with magnetic force."

However, if you take an electromagnet the size of the earth the equation changes and the electromagnet would be the dominant attractor. A better demonstration would be to compare the gravitational and electrical interaction between two small objects. The gravitational attraction between two pith balls is minuscule. If you give the pith balls a similar charge, the pith balls ignore the gravitational attraction of each other and the earth and dramatically move away from each other. With opposite charges they are attracted until the charges equalize.

Jaycubed also said:
"The theories of gravity, newtonian mechanics, and relativity explain & predict the behavior of everything from a falling nickel to the Earth orbiting the Sun to gravitational lensing to the precession of Mercury. And it allows predictions to be made and experimentally confirmed to an incredible degree of accuracy."

If that is so, then why are scientists thinking of modifying Newtonian Dynamics to explain the 'galaxy rotation problem" with MOND (see Wikipedia)? Why did they invent "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy"? They claim that 96 percent of the universe is invisible. Why are they having so much trouble predicting the path of the Pioneer spacecraft? see:

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/
innovative_technologies/pioneer_anomaly/

The Electric Universe provides logical and consistent answers to all of these questions and more. Newtonian dynamics has its place but has limitations in areas where electric forces dominate.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Jaycubed, Santa Rosa, CA — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 01:25:32 GMT

"However, if you take an electromagnet the size of the earth the equation changes and the electromagnet would be the dominant attractor."
Scott Wall

Afraid not:

If you take an electromagnet the size of the Earth, it would be nearly half again as heavy as the Earth and would still lack a power supply to generate magnetism.

If you take an electromagnet the size of the Earth, it still won't "pick up" even a single penny.

If you were to replace the Earth with an functioning electromagnet the size of the Earth, it would have no appreciable attractive effect on a nickel on the Moon. It would however have a huge effect on the orbit of the Moon; but only because of the increase in mass and the effect of gravity.

----

"A better demonstration would be to compare the gravitational and electrical interaction between two small objects. The gravitational attraction between two pith balls is minuscule. If you give the pith balls a similar charge, the pith balls ignore the gravitational attraction of each other and the earth and dramatically move away from each other. With opposite charges they are attracted until the charges equalize."
Scott Wall

As my previous comment explained, the attraction between two objects due to gravity barely changes with increased distance. The attraction/repulsion between two objects due to electromagnetism rapidly changes even with small increases in distance. Gravity trumps electromagnetism over distance. You are also incorrect in saying "the pith balls ignore the gravitational attraction of each other and the earth". Gravity is not ignored, it is overpowered at the miniscule distances used in this type of experiment.

A similiar effect occurs in the nucleus of atoms, where the electromagnetic force, which should tear the nucleus apart due to the common positive electrical charge of its protons, is trumped by the strong nuclear force, which at extremely close distances is more powerful than electromagnetism.

-----

"The theories of gravity, newtonian mechanics, and relativity explain & predict the behavior of everything from a falling nickel to the Earth orbiting the Sun to gravitational lensing to the precession of Mercury. And it allows predictions to be made and experimentally confirmed to an incredible degree of accuracy."
Jaycubed

"If that is so, then why are scientists thinking of modifying Newtonian Dynamics to explain the 'galaxy rotation problem' with MOND"
Scott Wall

Some scientists don't like the idea of Dark Matter/Dark Energy and attempt to write them out of Newtonian Mechanics. MOND is not a physical theory, it does not explain itself. It starts from what "should be" the right answer & works it's way backwards to a theory. In 25 years, no confirmation of MOND theory predictions have been found. Evidence so far shows it unlikely to be correct, but still within the realm of probability. From your MOND wiki article, "... in interstellar space, gravity is the main acting force, and since no experiment could be performed on Earth to determine whether MOND is a new theory of inertia or a new theory of gravity, physicists have concentrated their effort on the latter. Presently, they have achieved only partial success, devising a more complicated version of Einstein's theory of gravitation". As you can see, MOND is at best merely a tweaking of Newton/Einstein, not a replacement or excuse for an "Electric Universe".

"Why are they having so much trouble predicting the path of the Pioneer spacecraft?"
Scott Wall

Perhaps because we still no little about what physically exists at the novel distances/part of the Solar system these probes are traversing, such as the density of the medium.

--------

" Noone mentioned anything about www.fixedearth.com. There is a good reason why these sites have no links to www.fixedearth.com. This site has distorted the science of the EU into a pseudo-science. This site should not be viewed as representative of the views of reputable proponents for the EU."
Scott Wall

The Fixed Earth site is representative of Electrical Universe sites because they all display the elements of "True Believers". This is uniform among various flavors of Electrical Universe Believers. Just because you don't want to be seen in public with one of your relatives doesn't mean they're not still your family. Your comments strike me as being similiar to "intelligent design" believers who twist themselves into pretzels to avoid saying that god is their "designer".

"The beauty of the EU theory is that is generates verifiable predictions that are repeatedly proven to be correct. I have yet to see a prediction from a reputable EU practitioner that failed."

I have yet to see a prediction,

I have yet to see a prediction proven to be correct.

I have yet to see a "reputable EU practitioner".

I have seen plenty of "True Believers".

--------

"Newtonian dynamics has its place but has limitations in areas where electric forces dominate."
Scott Wall

I agree, but the only place electric forces dominate are at the surfaces of atoms. We call this branch of science Chemistry. At macroscopic distances, gravity trumps electromagnetism.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Jaycubed, Santa Rosa, CA — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 02:07:29 GMT

Checked out the site you suggested:

http://www.holoscience.com/

I always trust a science site that begins with a quote from horror H.P.Lovecraft (whose work I love, but not for any of his "science") then moves on to a crackpot like I.Velikovsky. Although he deserves acknowledgement for promoting catastrophism during a time when mainstream science was decidedly gradualist, most of his theories are utter nonsense and based upon biblical & mythological "evidence".

The best scientist noted on the site is Halton Arp, who photographed & published his beautiful Atlas of galaxy shapes. However his theories about QSOs & redshift anomalies, which underline EU theory, have been continually disproven since the sixties.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift_quantization

"In particular, many opponents of the Big Bang including Halton Arp, a number of creationists, and even geocentrists have referred to such observations as reason to reject the standard account of the origin and evolution of the universe. Recent redshift surveys of quasars (QSOs) have found no evidence of quantization, and consequently most cosmologists dispute the existence of redshift quantization beyond a minimal trace due to galaxy clustering."

In fact, the EU model is pseudoscientific as demonstrated by this passage from http://www.holoscience.com/ :

"The Electric Universe works backward in time using observations rather than forward from some idealised theoretical beginning. It provides simple answers to problems that are now clothed in fashionable metaphysics and mysticism. It is more interdisciplinary and inclusive of information than any prior cosmology."

In other words, it is not based on a coherent theory, which would make predictions & be testable, but is a way of fitting the "True" idea to fit the selected evidence. EU theory shows more metaphysics & mysticism than most of those crackpot "Quantum Reality" popular pseudoscience writers' products. Rather than being inclusive, it is selective of ideas that Believers think support their ideas.

--------

This has been an interesting process in which I have learned much I didn't know about a variety of cosmological processes, including plasma and EM field propogation through space.

Due to the learning involved I stand by my criticism of the Electrical Universe Theory as being a crackpot theory regularly promoted by creationists, geocentrists and anti-science idealogues.

Dust in 'God's eye'

stephanie davidson, Oneida, Ky — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:20:09 GMT

what a beautiful picture this is..I believe this is only one of Gods ways of showing us that he is real and he will return soon..I know that God works in mysterious way..!!!

Dust in 'God's eye'

Scott Wall, Georgetown, Ont — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 11:05:52 GMT

Jaycubed said: "...True Believers ... crackpot theory..."

Name-calling is not appropriate for a scientific discussion. Please stick to factual statements.

Jaycubed said: "I always trust a science site that begins with a quote from horror H.P.Lovecraft (whose work I love, but not for any of his "science") then moves on to a crackpot like I.Velikovsky..."

The quote from H.P.Lovecraft is:
"The most merciful thing in the world ... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but someday the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality... That we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
This does not refer to any scientific theory but to the state of science today.

A search of the holoscience site for Velikovsky finds only three articles. The site acknowledges his accomplishments but also states "Velikovsky may have overstated his case (and mistakenly created a false historical context)...". This seems to be in agreement with your statement. Velikovsky had some successes but not all of his theories are valid.

Jaycubed said: "The best scientist noted on the site is Halton Arp, who photographed & published his beautiful Atlas of galaxy shapes. However his theories about QSOs & redshift anomalies, which underline EU theory, have been continually disproven since the sixties."

There are two aspects of redshift that Arp discusses, quantization and plasma clouds bridging QSOs to low redshift galaxies. Wikipedia only mentions quantization and claims that this has been disproven. This claim is disputable, see http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=stb9s0ye">http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=stb9s0ye. Why do you say "since the sixties", I see no reference to this on the site referenced, please provide accurate references to support your claims. There is also no mention of anomalies on the site referenced.

The bigger problem for proponents of the Big Bang are the plasma connections between low and high redshift objects. If the objects are connected, then they MUST be roughly the same distance from the earth. Hence, high redshift does not imply great distance.

The redshift anomalies are more of a death knell for the Big Bang theory than an underlining of the EU theory.

Jaycube said:
In fact, the EU model is pseudoscientific as demonstrated by this passage from http://www.holoscience.com/ :
"The Electric Universe works backward in time using observations rather than forward from some idealised theoretical beginning. It provides simple answers to problems that are now clothed in fashionable metaphysics and mysticism. It is more interdisciplinary and inclusive of information than any prior cosmology."
In other words, it is not based on a coherent theory, which would make predictions & be testable, but is a way of fitting the "True" idea to fit the selected evidence."

I'm afraid you have things backwards. The Empirical Method of science involves the following steps:
- observations
- theory
- experiment

This is precisely the way that the EU has been formulated. Observations made in plasma laboratories have been successfully extrapolated to larger scales. The metaphysics and mysticism that are referenced in the quote refer to the invented entities invoked to rescue the Big Bang theory, including Black Holes, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, String Theory, ... None of these objects have ever been directly observed. Black holes and String Theory are based on mathematical constructs which have been mistaken for reality.

Jaycubed said: "Due to the learning involved I stand by my criticism of the Electrical Universe Theory as being a crackpot theory regularly promoted by creationists, geocentrists and anti-science idealogues."

This is a logical fallacy. You are saying that some X believe Y, therefore all that believe Y are X. Perhaps, it is this logic that allows you to believe in the Big Bang theory.

Jaycubed said: "Afraid not... <snip> The attraction/repulsion between two objects due to electromagnetism rapidly changes even with small increases in distance. Gravity trumps electromagnetism over distance. ... <snip> ... Gravity is not ignored, it is overpowered at the minuscule distances"

Basically, what you're saying is that the force of gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, while electromagnetism is inversely proportional to the cube of the distance. This is a valid point, so the question comes down to the specifics of each quantity, i.e., voltage, mass, distance, ...

Jaycubed said: "Some scientists don't like the idea of Dark Matter/Dark Energy and attempt to write them out of Newtonian Mechanics. MOND is not a physical theory, it does not explain itself. It starts from what "should be" the right answer & works it's way backwards to a theory.... As you can see, MOND is at best merely a tweaking of Newton/Einstein, not a replacement or excuse for an "Electric Universe"."

Excellent, we finally agree on something. The point I was making was that MOND was created in order to explain the discrepancies in observations of outer low-density regions of galaxies. The fact that scientists are even considering this implies that there are problems with the current mainstream theory. This also raises the question of how gravity alone can account for the structure of galaxies, solar systems and the universe. The EU is based on observations from the laboratory and does not need an excuse.

Jaycubed said: "I have yet to see a prediction"

That sounds like an invitation, here are a few:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/rainbow11/tbolts/
tpod/2005/arch05/050719deepinterim.htm

http://www.catastrophism.com/texts/bruce/era.htm

http://www.bigbangneverhappened.org/p27.htm

There are many more predictions, but these should get the point across. Now, I would like to see a prediction that your theory has successfully predicted BEFORE the observation. I've seen plenty of explanations of what has already been observed, but I have never seen mainstream predictions that are actually successful.Generally, each new discovery comes as a complete surprise to the mainstream scientists.

Jaycubed said: "... the only place electric forces dominate are at the surfaces of atoms. We call this branch of science Chemistry. At macroscopic distances, gravity trumps electromagnetism."

Surely, you must have seen a lightning storm. Are you saying that lightning is an atmospheric chemical reaction? And what about Sprites, Elves and Gnomes which have been confirmed to appear in the upper atmosphere? These were predicted in the 1920s by C.T.R. Wilson and confirmed in 1990. They are electrical in nature. Doesn't electricity also light up your house? Are you saying that this is also a chemical reaction?

In summary, I have provided predictions that the EU has successfully made. I challenge Jaycubed to provide predictions that his favourite theory has made (where the prediction actually precedes the observation).

I would also like to challenge him to explain the following phenomena:
- sunspots appear to be holes in the photosphere into the "fiery nuclear furnace" and yet they are the coldest parts of the visible sun.
- how could huge filamentary galactic structures have sufficient time to form since the alleged big bang?
- why does the sun have a corona?
- why did the solar wind stop completely for two days a few years ago?

See http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=8u6jdqr1 for some of the electrical answers.

Dust in 'God's eye'

nishevitha,Batticaloa,srilanka — Sun, 27 May 2007 16:34:19 GMT

ohh! what abeautiful star
its really a god's eye..
this helix nebula is fantastic beautiful extraordinary
dust star..
i love to see this star always ..i too really believe it is a gods eye.....
this dust may lead a long tunnel inside and this dust shows wonderful colour red and blue and white...
love u nebula

Dust in 'God's eye'

John G — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 15:03:53 GMT

According to a recent paper I just read regarding the Helix Nebula, it appears that the Nebula is actually cylindrically shaped, and what we're seeing is the end of cylinder, which is pointed towards the Earth.

So, it's no more an eye than the barrel of a shotgun pointed at you would be.

Maybe it's a galactic scale telescope as percived by the Forerunners (grin)!

Dust in 'God's eye'

Allesandro Fossati — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 03:48:33 GMT

Certainly is another proof of the overwelming power of God, that can be seen not only in outer space, but here on earth: in the smile of the child, a pregnant lady, or the georgeous landscape in every corner of the globe. Creation itself reveals there's an architect, so perfect being, able to whole all things together. The list goes on and on. Guys the proofs are everywhere (smile)

Dust in 'God's eye'

Brad M. — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 20:22:58 GMT

Hey! How many lab coat geeks do we have out there, making up all sorts of theories of what they think it is? I mean, it's trillions of light years away! All of you probably think that we evolved from monkeys too. No wait, I guess if you believe that we evolved from monkeys, we must have also evolved from butterflies, or crocodiles, or worms. Which one came first? You people rely to much on your own theories when you have no hard evidence, and you call it "Science". Ill give you some hard evidence. Something that people documented as they WITNESSED IT!!! In other words, they saw it!! It's not based on theory like all evolution is. Give up? Its called the BIBLE!!! Read it!!! It makes more sense than any science book or mathmatical genius or philosopher ever has. Just Read it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dust in 'God's eye'

Dan, NYC — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:35:18 GMT

There are some who see things as they are, and some who see things as they'd like them to be. Nuff said.

Dust in 'God's eye'

B.Woolston woodbridge Va — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:50:01 GMT

I would like to know where I can buy a copy of this photo? I have a copy from several years ago and it looks different know.
Thanks.

Dust in 'God's eye'

kimberly nicole, Premont, Texas — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:35:24 GMT

is that really dust in gods eye?

Dust in 'God's eye'

Vibhav Tewari, Muscat, Oman — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:39:05 GMT

Its nice that we give these phenomenon a name and a description and then feel sort of satisfied that we have it under control. There's plenty in the Universe we dont know yet and never will...as there are no limits to knowledge. What we do know, is so hopelessly little that unless you're scientist you'll never know! Pun intended.

Dust in 'God's eye'

Ayferi Turumtay,Bandirma,Turkey — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:42:36 GMT

Sorry,I don't good know Eng.But this photo Incredible, magnificient...

Dust in 'God's eye'

Linda Hall,Manassas,Viriginia — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:34:21 GMT

What if we are in someone's mind and we are looking through their eye or something.Maybe it's like another dimension.

Dust in 'God's eye'

liz orlando fl — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:07:36 GMT

this pic is so amazing of our father he is alwaz looking @ his people watching us 24 7 365 days of the year look @ its Beautful just like Jesus all i have to say is just wow and just look @ his love through his eys that tells you allot BEAUTIFUL i love it and is sooo real

Dust in 'God's eye'

chase carey,merkel,texas — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:39:07 GMT

its gods eye

Dust in 'God's eye'

Jennifer , Lakewood, CA — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:29:49 GMT

It is such a beautiful site.