From Science @NASA: Let’s hope it doesn’t taste like chicken or smell like feet.
NASA’s daring plan to visit the sun took a giant leap forward today with the selection of five key science investigations for the Solar Probe+ spacecraft.
Slated to launch no later than 2018, the smart car-sized spacecraft will plunge directly into the atmosphere of the sun, aiming to solve some of the biggest mysteries of solar physics. Today’s announcement means that researchers can begin building sensors for unprecedented in situ measurements of the solar system’s innermost frontier.
“Solar Probe+ is going where no spacecraft has gone before,” says Lika Guhathakurta, Solar Probe+ program scientist at NASA HQ. “For the first time, we’ll be able to ‘touch, taste and smell’ the sun.”
Last year, NASA invited top researchers around the world to submit proposals detailing possible science investigations for the pioneering spacecraft. Thirteen proposals were received and five have been selected:
–SWEAP, the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation: The most abundant particles in the solar wind are electrons, protons and helium ions. SWEAP will count these particles and measure their properties, even “sweeping up” some of them in a special Solar Probe Cup for direct analysis. The principal investigator is Justin C. Kasper of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.
–WISPR, the Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe Plus: WISPR is a telescope that will make 3D images of the sun’s atmosphere similar to medical CAT scans. WISPR can actually see the solar wind, allowing it to image clouds and shock waves as they approach and pass the spacecraft. This telescope is an important complement to the spacecraft’s in situ instruments, which sample the plasmas that WISPR images. The principal investigator is Russell Howard of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC.
–FIELDS, The Fields Investigation for Solar Probe Plus: This instrument will make direct measurements of electric and magnetic fields, radio emissions, and shock waves which course through the sun’s atmospheric plasma. FIELDS also turns Solar Probe Plus into a giant dust detector, registering voltage signatures when specks of space dust hit the spacecraft’s antenna. The principal investigator is Stuart Bale of the University of California in Berkeley.
–ISIS, Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun: The ISIS EPI-Hi and EPI-Lo instruments will monitor electrons, protons and ions which are accelerated to high energies by shock waves in the sun’s atmosphere. These are the very same particles that pose a threat to astronauts in space, disable satellites, and ionize Earth’s upper atmosphere.
–Solar Probe+ Observatory Scientist: This was a proposal not for an instrument, but for a person. The principal investigator, Marco Velli, becomes the mission’s Observatory Scientist. In the years ahead, he will become deeply familiar with the spacecraft and its construction, helping to ensure that adjacent in situ instruments do not interfere with one another as they sample the solar environment. He will also guide the mission’s “big picture” science investigations after Solar Probe+ enters the sun’s atmosphere.
“The sensors we’ve selected to ride aboard Solar Probe+ are designed to solve some of the biggest mysteries of solar physics,” says Dick Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division in Washington DC.
Why is the sun’s atmosphere is so much hotter than its surface? And what propels the solar wind?
“We’ve been struggling with these questions for decades,” says Fisher. “Solar Probe+ should finally provide some answers.”
Solar Probe+ will likely discover new mysteries, too, in a realm that no other spacecraft has dared enter. At closest approach, Solar Probe+ will be 7 million km or 9 solar radii from the sun. There, the spacecraft’s carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures as high as 2000 degrees C and survive blasts of radiation that would quickly disable other missions. From these near distances inside the sun’s atmosphere, the solar disk will loom 23 times wider than it does in the skies of Earth.
“What will we find there?” wonders Guhathakurta. “This is truly unexplored territory.” By design, Solar Probe’s winning instruments are sufficiently versatile to investigate many different kinds of phenomena. Whatever comes along–be it electric or magnetic, high- or low-energy, wavy or turbulent–they should be able to measure it.
“The possibilities for discovery,” she says, “are off the charts.”
Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
James F. Evans says:
September 5, 2010 at 6:12 am
What is relevant are the observations & measurements carried out by the investigations of NASA’s Solar Probe Plus.
and they will illuminate the universal magnetic reconnection process and measure the electric currents that result from the movement of neutral plasma across existing magnetic fields. What you miss is that the eventual forming of double layers are not the cause of reconnection, but a consequence of opposite magnetic fields being pressed together. If one entertains for a moment that EDLs are the driving forces, then the question arises: what causes the EDL to form in the first place? What causes the separation of opposite electric charges and therefor the electric field between them?
I get the feeling that for some their arguments about science are less about science and more about their arguments. Is not science still built upon a foundation of dry, hard, cold ‘facts’ as we ‘know’ them and not wet, soft, hot ‘points of faith’ and ‘theories’ as we have them? And, must yet ‘prove’ them? I wonder if Old Leonardo would be able to carry on an intelligent conversation with Old Uncle Albert without pulling any more of his hair out? (I have a feeling he would.) So why does modern man see red so much? Floride! I’ll bet it’s all the floride in the water.
“illuminate the universal magnetic reconnection process”?
Oh, really…scientists (with your viewpoint) can’t even pin it down (or agree with each other) without recourse to electric fields, electric currents, charged particle location, direction, velocity, and charged particle acceleration.
All of those parameters are covered in the Electric Double Layer as has been demonstrated in plasma physics laboratories, both, qualitatively & quantitatively.
“universal” is premature from your viewpoint.
** For the qualitative & quantitative work up of (plasma) Double Layer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_layer_(plasma)
Footnoted authority at bottom of webpage and mathematical equations in appropriate sections, quantifying the physical forces involved in the process.
James F. Evans says:
September 5, 2010 at 11:03 am
All of those parameters are covered in the Electric Double Layer as has been demonstrated in plasma physics laboratories, both, qualitatively & quantitatively.
All of these things are involved in many more phenomena than EDLs as well and are indeed important. Where you go wrong is in the sequence of cause and effect: what cause what?
neutral plasma moving across a magnetic field causing currents! or what?
You avoided telling us what caused the charge separation of the two oppositely charged layers in an EDL. Go research that and come back and tell us.
The magnetic field is all-pervasive, plasma is a significant part of the universe [some 4%], and everything is in motion, so electric currents are generated as the result with all the wonderful effects [flares, aurorae, etc]. This is how the Magnetic Universe works.
It’s a completely pointless and very silly observation to make, I know–but doesn’t that Solar Probe look like a naked Dalek?
Slated to launch no later than 2018…
Ah, so they’ve set a deadline on raising enough money from the bake sales and yard sales.
Maybe here at WUWT we could organize an online funding drive, if we could be assured it would go towards this mission and not get budget-shuffled to provide planetary system models to madrasahs.
Remember when NASA had a noticeable budget, that was noticeably devoted to space exploration?
Martin Meenagh said on September 5, 2010 at 3:54 pm:
I don’t recall ever seeing a Dalek wearing clothes. Weren’t they all naked?
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 5, 2010 at 6:52 am
James F. Evans says:
September 5, 2010 at 6:12 am
What is relevant are the observations & measurements carried out by the investigations of NASA’s Solar Probe Plus.
and they will illuminate the universal magnetic reconnection process and measure the electric currents that result from the movement of neutral plasma across existing magnetic fields. What you miss is that the eventual forming of double layers are not the cause of reconnection, but a consequence of opposite magnetic fields being pressed together. If one entertains for a moment that EDLs are the driving forces, then the question arises: what causes the EDL to form in the first place? What causes the separation of opposite electric charges and therefor the electric field between them?
~
OK, brain overload, good night.
So I’ll be a dummy and ask; how does Earnshaw’s Theorem play into all this solar electric and magnetic field stuff; or does it ?
SO I don’t know what happened to the cut and paste but it doesn’t work for me any more.
But up there somewhere Zeke the sneak cited a reference to the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron; and commented that it is an example of “strong focussing”
I’m not sure just which machine he was referring to; but I am familiar with the concept of an Alternating Field, Alternating Gradient Synchrotron. Not only does the Radial Gradient of the Magnetic Field reverse sign at each magnet; but so does the field polarity. So you have an outside path that is in a strong field that creates a stronger curvature than the curvature of the vaccuum tube, and in the next magnet the field reverses so the beam curves the other way so the average beam curvature matches the Tube Curvature; so the beam follows a wavy path crossing the tube axis in between magnets. The picture looks the same from top or bottom; so the beam can go in either direction; or more usefully you can send two beams in opposite directions simultaneously in the same acceleration cycle, to get collisions in between each magnet pair.
Actually what accelerator engineers call “Strong Focussing”; which uses a sequence of focussing and defocussing magnets (lenses) is what optical engineers would refer to as Control of the Petzval Sum. In Geometrical Optics the Petzval sum is the sum of (1-1/n).c for all of the lenses (of index n) in the system; or a more complex form involving the curvature of each surface (c) and the two indices. The importance of the Petzval sum is that it is the curvature of the final image surface in the absence of any Astigmatism; so if the P sum is not zero or low, the image will be curved.
In principle, you can make a perfect lens that forms a 1:1 image of an axial object point; so it would appear that a simple string of such lenses spaced by four times the focal length would let you propagate an image forever; for example along a tube like the periscope of a submarine.
The problem is that a simple converging lens has a positive Petzval sum, so the 1:1 image of a flat object is an image that is curved in towards the lens. The next lens in the string sees a backward curved object, so it forms an even more curved in image. The image simply curls up; so this scheme does not work. However, is you place an equal curvature negative lens coincident with the image plane; the lens contributes no power since the image is coincident with the lens; but it cancels the image curvature. So an actual Optical periscope sonsists of an alternating sequence of converging and diverging lenses, with the diverging lenses in each image plane; to cancel the Petzval sum.
Accelerator strong focussing does exactly the same thing; but if you asked a synchrotron designer what the Petzval sum was for his machine; he probably wouldn’t know what the hell you were talking about.
The orbital path in a synchrotron that has only positive power magnetic lenses is completely unstable because of the Petzval sum build up.
George E. Smith says:
September 7, 2010 at 11:14 am
So I’ll be a dummy and ask; how does Earnshaw’s Theorem play into all this solar electric and magnetic field stuff
No, because the solar stuff is always in vigorous motion. There are no static fields.
@Geo. E Smith
“The AGS name is derived from the concept of alternating gradient focusing, in which the field gradients of the accelerator’s 240 magnets are successively alternated inward and outward, permitting particles to be propelled and focused in both the horizontal and vertical plane at the same time. Capable of accelerating 25 trillion protons with every pulse, and heavy ions such as gold and iron, the AGS is used by 850 users from 180 institutions from around the world annually.”
http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/AGS.asp
http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/history/focusing.asp
But the idea here is that NASA has Brookhaven National Laboratory quite capably accelerating its heavy ions to tremendous energies using an electromagnetic field.
The solar ions are also accelerating. An average speed for these ions reaching the earth is not the whole story. All solar particles increase in speed and energy as they get farther away from the sun, not just those in the spectacular CMEs. (Solar wind also has periodicities and has stopped on occasion. Donald E Scott)
So it seems reasonable to suppose that the solar wind is accelerating because of an efield between the sun and the heliopause. NASA won’t even entertain the question. The thing about science is that care must be taken in asking the right questions.
Interesting bit about the optical engineers and the lenses.
Zeke the Sneak says:
September 7, 2010 at 6:01 pm
So it seems reasonable to suppose that the solar wind is accelerating because of an efield between the sun and the heliopause. NASA won’t even entertain the question. The thing about science is that care must be taken in asking the right questions.
It is not reasonable to suppose that and there are good reasons for NASA [and space scientists in general] not entertaining such an idea. The simplest and most obvious is that any such electric field would be quickly shorted out by the very particles it was supposed to accelerate.
Moving charged particles cause magnetic fields.
Stationary charged particles do not cause magnetic fields.
But enough of trying to elevate either the electric field or the magnetic field above the other, it’s a distraction. Maxwell’s equations speak to the reciprical physical relationship of electric & magnetic fields. Maxwell’s equations have been confirmed by repeated laboratory experiments.
The appropriate framework for analysis & interpretation in a plasma environment is an electromagnetic framework.
Not an electric framework or magnetic framework — either one by itself is only half the Fundamental Force of Electromagnetism.
Wistful musings about a “magnetic universe” or an “electric universe”, or a “gravity universe”, for that matter, are arrogant distractions.
To understand the Universe one must consider all the fundamental physical forces, electromagnetism, gravity, the strong atomic force and the weak atomic force.
Exclusion or over-emphasis of one physical force over another will block Man’s advancement in understanding his physical surroundings.
Man must be open to consider all physical forces and to do this Man must be able to observe & measure all physical forces — I’m glad to see NASA’s Solar Probe + spacecraft is a significant step in that direction.
James F. Evans says:
September 8, 2010 at 10:45 am
To understand the Universe one must consider all the fundamental physical forces, electromagnetism, gravity, the strong atomic force and the weak atomic force.
All scientists do that all the time within the proper contexts and domains of applicability.
I’m glad to see NASA’s Solar Probe + spacecraft is a significant step in that direction
And we will learn more about the universal process of magnetic reconnection: http://www.physorg.com/news203001491.html
Yes, this is another NASA in situ satellite probe which will observe & measure electric fields, magnetic fields, and charged particle location, motion, and velocity & charged particle acceleration. This will be the death nell of so-called “magnetic reconnection” as a concept & term. The signature of Electric Double Layers will be detected.
And “magnetic reconnection” as a concept will be thrown onto the ash heap of history and the term will be abandoned in favor of Electric Double Layer and Science will advance.
James F. Evans says:
September 8, 2010 at 2:59 pm
And “magnetic reconnection” as a concept will be thrown onto the ash heap of history
We have already measured magnetic reconnection in situ, e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/2008GL035297.pdf including the electric fields formed as a result of the magnetic fields being pressed together by plasma motion. The new NASA missions will solidify the picture already obtained. The ‘ash’-heap will be pretty much crowded with solid science and exciting new data coming from the new satellites.
Perhaps time to tone down the vehemence a bit and broaden your world-view to include more of reality and less of wishful ‘thinking’…
Dr. Svalgaard, at this point it’s a two person discussion, the website has moved on, but it needs to be pointed out for the record that I already presented the paper you linked above:
James F. Evans, September 3, 2010 at 12:03 pm, wrote: “…Let’s now compare the above Electric Double Layers papers with the following so-called “magnetic reconnection” scientific papers…”
“…Recent in-situ observations of magnetic reconnection in near-Earth space, published 11 October 2008
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2008GL035297.pdf
[Same paper as Dr. Svalgaard presented in his last comment.]
Quote from the above paper:
Figure 1. “(bottom [schematic, page 2 of 7] ) : “Zoom-in on the region around the X-line, with the ion and electron diffusion regions indicated by the shading and the rectangular box, respectively. The quadrupolar Hall magnetic field is pointing in and out of the plane of the figure. The Hall electric field [perpendicular electric field] is shown by the red arrows, while the blue arrows mark the oppositely directed jets in the outflow regions. Note that entry and acceleration occur all the way along the current sheet. Figure courtesy of Marit Oieroset.”
[Below is original commentary from the quoted Evans’ comment.]
The ‘X’ cross section discussed in these “magnetic reconnection” papers are where electric and magnetic fields cross, just as Hannes Alfven described in his empirical laboratory work on Electric Double Layers and, is central to the acceleration of the particles in both sets of papers, Electric Double Layers and ‘magnetic reconnection’, respectively…”
(Present comment.) And, yes, I compared, analyzed, and interpreted the two Electric Double Layer papers I originally presented in my quoted comment with the above “magnetic reconnection” paper and two more “magnetic reconnection” papers.
The description of the physical components, i.e., electric field, magnetic field, charged particle location, direction, and velocity & location of charged particle acceleration, was the same for both sets of papers, respectively. It’s clear the two sets of papers are describing the same physical process and considering the Electric Double Layer process has been qualitatively & quantitatively described and so-called “magnetic reconnection” has not, it is appropriate to call this process an Electric Double Layer.
After the original comment, James F. Evans, September 3, 2010 at 12:03 pm, Dr. Svalgaard could have distinghished the physical components to make the case that they aren’t the same physical process, but Dr. Svalgaard chose not do this.
But I invite Dr. Svalgaard to distinghish the two sets of papers, now.
For Dr. Svalgaard’s convience here are the two Electric Double Layer papers I originally presented with quotes from those papers:
Scientific papers presented:
Filamentary Structures in U-Shaped Double Layers, 2005
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2005AGUFMSM41C1202D&db_key=AST&data_type=HTML&format=&high=42ca922c9c05019
Quote from the above paper:
“Observations from the Polar and FAST satellites have revealed a host of intriguing features of the auroral accelerations processes in the upward current region (UCR). These features include: (i) large-amplitude parallel and perpendicular fluctuating as well as quasi-static electric fields in density cavities, (ii) fairly large-amplitude unipolar parallel electric fields like in a strong double layer (DL), (iii) variety of wave modes, (iv) counter-streaming of upward going ion beams and downward accelerated electrons, (v) horizontally corrugated bottom region of the potential structures (PS), in which electron and ion accelerations occur, (vi) filamentary ion beams in the corrugated PS, and (vii) both upward and downward moving narrow regions of parallel electric fields, inferred from the frequency drifts of the auroral kilometric radiations.”
Parallel electric fields in the upward current region of the aurora: Indirect and direct observations, published 2002 Physics of Plasma
http://www.space.irfu.se/exjobb/2003_erik_bergman/articles/PHP03685_ergun.pdf
Quote from the above paper:
“In this article we present electric field, magnetic field, and charged particle observations from the upward current region of the aurora focusing on the structure of electric fields at the boundary between the auroral cavity and the ionosphere…These observations suggest that the parallel electric fields at the
boundary between the auroral cavity and the ionosphere are self-consistently supported as oblique double layers.”
Again, I invite Dr. Svalgaard to physically distinguish the physical components in the two sets of papers, Electric Double Layer, and “magnetic reconnection”.
James F. Evans says:
September 9, 2010 at 9:34 am
Again, I invite Dr. Svalgaard to physically distinguish the physical components in the two sets of papers, Electric Double Layer, and “magnetic reconnection”.
The difference between “electric double layers” and Reconnection is cause and effect. What causes what? Reconnection is caused by electrically neutral plasmas with opposite magnetic fields moving or being pressed together, thereby generating electric fields that may, if conditions are favorable, lead to EDLs. I think [although you have never cared to be precise about it] that you believe that somehow some electric fields cursing through the Universe or the Sun are responsible. This is, of course, quite incorrect as a plasma cannot sustain large-scale electric fields in the rest frame of the plasma. So, there is the difference.
Dr. Svalgaard:
You are a scientist. You understand when an interlocutor asks you to distinguish the physical processes in two scientific papers, that means to list the physical forces involved, i.e., in this case, electric fields, magnetic fields and charged particle location, direction, and velocity & location of charged particle acceleration, and then make distinctions by describing the specific physical forces & physical particles involved, and, then, describe how those physical forces & physical particles’ motions are different between the two papers, when considered for similarities and differences.
Your answer is non-responsive.
The two sets of papers describe similar physical processes involving “parallel electric fields” and “perpendicular electric fields” (Electric Double Layer), versus, “parallel electric fields” and perpendicular electric fields, aka, Hall electric fields” (magnetic reconnection).
Similar locations of charged particle acceleration in both physical structures, Electric Double Layer and magnetic reconnection, repectively, along the “X” cross section (where the magnetic & electric fields cross as empirically demonstrated by Hannes Alfven in his Electric Double Layer work).
And, “oppositely directed jets [ions “jetted” in one direction, electrons “jetted” in the opposite direction] in the outflow regions (magnetic reconnection)”, versus, “counter-streaming of upward going ion beams and downward accelerated electrons (Electric Double Layer).
In both sets of papers “density cavities” are noted and described in similar locations within the structure.
“horizontally corrugated bottom region of the potential structures (PS), in which electron and ion accelerations occur” (Electric Double Layer), versus, “entry and acceleration occur all the way along the current sheet” (magnetic reconnection).
It’s the same physical process. There is no cause and effect difference as you claim.
Dr. Svalgaard wrote: “The difference between ‘electric double layers’ and Reconnection is cause and effect. What causes what? Reconnection is caused by electrically neutral plasmas with opposite magnetic fields moving or being pressed together, thereby generating electric fields that may, if conditions are favorable, lead to EDLs.”
“Reconnection is caused by electrically neutral plasmas with opposite magnetic fields moving or being pressed together…”
This is the same process that causes Electric Double Layers.
Electric Double Layer is caused by electrically neutral plasma with opposite magnetic fields moving or being pressed together, thereby generating electric fields…
The cause and effect is the combination of magnetic fields and charged particles (moving charged particles cause a magnetic field, a current of charged particles, in other words) causing electric fields, both parallel electric fields & perpendicular electric fields, and thus electron & ion diffusion regions or “jets” in opposite directions, which are electric currents.
Dr. Svalgaard wrote: ” I think that you believe that somehow some electric fields cursing through the Universe or the Sun are responsible.”
No, electric fields don’t go “cursing” through the Universe, but charged particles do go coursing through the Universe or flowing as currents through the Universe.
And the those currents of charged particles cause magnetic fields.
Dr. Svalgaard never did respond to this set of facts:
Moving charged particles cause magnetic fields.
Stationary charged particles do not cause magnetic fields.
In other words, magnetic fields are dependent on not just charged particles, but are also dependent on the motion of those charged particles.
In other words, magnetic fields are a function of moving charged particles.
And a charged particle is one that has coulomb force, also known as an “electric force”, which can be attraction between opposite charged particles or can be repulsion between similarly charged particles.
This is why Maxwell’s equations, confirmed by laboratory experiments, quantify the reciprical physical relationship between electric fields & magnetic fields.
Because it is the motion of charged particles which causes a magnetic field.
It is silly to hold out or segregate the magnetic field above the electric field, because both are necessary to accelerate charged particles, in the process described, whether the process & structure is called an Electric Double Layer or “magnetic reconnection”, it is the same dynamic.
But it is important to note:
The term & concept “magnetic reconnection” is an antiquated, pre-space age (1946) analytical tool, which did not consider electric fields or electric currents or the motions and configurations of charged particles. The reason it was originally limited to magnetic fields is because in that pre-space age time frame there was no opportunity to carry out investigation of electric fields and electric currents, which require in situ observation & measurement.
But, today, these in situ observations & measurements can be carried out by satellite probe.
The “magnetic reconnection” concept was a reasonable first impression when originally conceived, but was limited to magnetic field observation & measurement, in response to observations of coronal mass ejections (CME) in the 1940’s.
But, today, there is no excuse for clinging to an outdated concept that hasn’t been quantified by its supporters own admission, Dr. Svalgaard, “We have lots of theories that ‘explain’ this…The problem is that we don’t know which one [if any] is the correct one. Perhaps a combination of several, even.”
Dr. Svalgaard, by your own admission and NASA’s admission in the news release subject of this post, “magnetic reconnection” supporters are whistling in the dark.
Come into the light, the Electric Double Layer is qualitatively & quantitatively described & explained…no whistling in the dark.
MHD theory is a load of crap since it makes the assumption magnetic fields can be maintained in a plasma without current input.
Any junior college electrical engineering student will tell you this is a load of crap.
This is grade school physics, magnetic fields require moving charge.
Needless to say all the work done by Alfven and others before him is totally ignored by the criminal class of physicists who have decided that public tax dollars are more important than scientific truth.
James F. Evans says:
September 9, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Dr. Svalgaard, by your own admission and NASA’s admission in the news release subject of this post, “magnetic reconnection” supporters are whistling in the dark.
No ‘whistling in the dark’. We have specific questions about the details of magnetic reconnection and the new spacecraft [and some old ones] will help us to further solidify our understanding of magnetic reconnection.
The problem with electric currents [and I was loopy in saying ‘fields’ when I meant currents] is the lack of electromotive force to drive them and [most importantly] to sustain them.
And just to correct your idea about magnetism: there are no electric currents causing the magnetism of a permanent ferromagnet [like the ones on your fridge door].
James F. Evans says:
September 9, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Moving charged particles cause magnetic fields.
Apart from it being wrong as you should have said ‘moving an imbalance of charges’.
Moving the same number of negative and positive charges does not cause magnetic fields. But since magnetic fields require existing magnetic fields to be created and amplified, the problem crops up how the ‘initial’ magnetic field was created. This is addressed here: http://www.physorg.com/news203241923.html
Notice there is no talk about moving charged particles….
Dr. Svalgaard wrote: “And just to correct your idea about magnetism: there are no electric currents causing the magnetism of a permanent ferromagnet [like the ones on your fridge door].”
Actually, there are competing hypothesis for what causes permanent ferromagnets, but one is that permanent ferromagnets are the result of the lattice of the iron being organized in a specific pattern where the electrons within the iron move in an arrayed fashion which is a compounded and organized motion, which causes the magnetic field.
(One of the other hypothesis is about the electrons’ “magnetic moment”, still, no matter what the hypothesis, it boils down to some form of charged particle motion which causes a permanent ferromagnet.)
Anyway, back to the matter at hand, as higher resolution observation & measurement of the space phenomenon, alternatively called Electric Double Layer or “magnetic reconnection”, is obtained with more detailed, quantified data of the electric fields, magnetic fields, charged particle location, direction, and velocity & location of particle acceleration, it will be even easier to compare with the well understood Electric Double Layer, which Science knows and accepts as a scale-independent phenomonon.
I should add charged particle density and voltage potential also will be observed & measured, and are also important to the three-dimentional image, description, and explanation of all the physical forces and physical matter involved in this structure & dynamic.
The comparison will either confirm or falsify the hypothesis that this space phenomenon has a similar structure & dynamic as Electric Double Layer structure & dynamic.
It will be easy to compare this space structure & dynamic to the known Electric Double Layer physical process, just like I have done above in an admittedly rough & rudimentary fashion — true scientific detailed comparison will pin it down qualitatively & quantitatively, such that it will be evident either way, either Electric Double Layer or “magnetic reconnection”.
This is the beauty of experimental or in situ observation & measurement, it is much less subject (if subject at all) to theoretical conjecture (which has long dominated astronomy and astrophysics).
Again, “magnetic reconnection” was first developed in the 1940’s without benefit of observation & measurement of electric fields, electric currents, charged particle location, direction, and velocity & location of charged particle acceleration.
As far as your linked paper, it’s a highly theoretical discussion, mostly devoid of empirical observation & measurement. I would characterize the paper as a theoretical foray. The authors are welcome to this informed speculation, but I suspect it will never be embraced by laboratory based physicists because most physicists are empirically minded — this paper’s hypothesis likely will never be empirically confirmed.
It will remain theoretical speculation, possibly embraced by numerous astrophysicists because they are more inclined to embrace theoretical speculation.
Astronomers and many astrophysicists have had a very bad habbit of being enamored with first impressions & hypothesis and seemingly have had an inability to challenge those first impressions & hypothesis, no matter how much later observation & measurement contradict the first impressions & hypothesis.
James F. Evans says:
September 10, 2010 at 10:12 am
(One of the other hypothesis is about the electrons’ “magnetic moment”, still, no matter what the hypothesis, it boils down to some form of charged particle motion which causes a permanent ferromagnet.)
Both rely on the electron spin, which as a pure quantum mechanical effect has nothing to to with a moving charge [remember Maxwell’s equations do not apply at the atomic scale]
The comparison will either confirm or falsify the hypothesis that this space phenomenon has a similar structure & dynamic as Electric Double Layer structure & dynamic.
That there have some similarity does not make them the same. A cat and a dog both have four legs, but are yet different. And the real point is not to what degree they are similar, but what causes what. The electric field resulting from reconnection is caused by neutral plasma moving in existing magnetic fields. You have avoided to answer what creates the field in the EDL. Remember, there are no enduring electric fields in plasmas because of the very high conductivity.
this paper’s hypothesis likely will never be empirically confirmed.
The fact that the Universe is permeated by magnetic fields [and no large-scale electric fields] is already part of the empirical confirmation.
Astronomers and many astrophysicists have had a very bad habbit of being enamored with first impressions & hypothesis and seemingly have had an inability to challenge those first impressions & hypothesis, no matter how much later observation & measurement contradict the first impressions & hypothesis.
This is just pure nonsense. Let me quote a few counterexamples:
The Earth is round [and not flat]
The Earth goes around the Sun [and not the Sun orbiting the Earth]
The universe is expanding [and not static]
There was a big bang [and no Steady State]
The expansion is accelerating [rather than slowing down]
The universe is flat [rather than curved]
There is dark matter [rather than just unseen baryons, e.g. snowballs]
Magnetic reconnection is a universal process responsible for many energetic effects [rather than EDLs]
These are all cases where astrophysicists have changed their views when the data demanded such change].