Seems like GMU doesn’t stop, waiting for Dave Clarke and John Mashey to launch the next copygate volley. Here’s some interesting research.
FAIRFAX, Va., June 15, 2011—George Mason University scientists discovered recently that a phenomenon called a giant magnetic rope is the cause of solar storms. Confirming the existence of this formation is a key first step in helping to mitigate the adverse effects that solar storm eruptions can have on satellite communications on Earth.
The discovery was made by associate professor Jie Zhang and his graduate student Xin Cheng using images from the NASA Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) spacecraft.
Though the magnetic rope was believed to be the cause of these giant eruptions on the Sun, scientists had previously not been able to prove this phenomenon existed because of how quickly the rope moves.
However, through close examination of images taken by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) telescope on board the SDO, Zhang was able to pinpoint an area of the sun where a magnetic rope was forming. The AIA telescope suite is able to capture images of the Sun every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day. This unprecedented
cadence in time helped the discovery.
“The magnetic rope triggers a solar eruption. Scientists have been debating whether or not this magnetic rope exists before a solar eruption. I believe that the result of this excellent observation helps finally solve this controversial issue,” says Zhang.
A solar storm is a violent eruption from the Sun, sending billions of tons of charged material, also called plasma, into space at a speed of more than one million miles per hour. The cloud of plasma carries with it a strong magnetic field. When the magnetized cloud reaches Earth one to three days later, a huge amount of energy is deposited into the magnetosphere of the Earth.
Normally the Earth’s magnetosphere shields this harmful solar wind and protects the environment. However, a solar storm has the potential to disrupt the shielding effect and produce severe space weather, which can have harmful effects on a wide array of technological systems, including satellite operation, communication and navigation and electric power grids.
Zhang’s research will help in giving early warning about solar storms and help to minimize the damage done by space weather here on Earth.
“Understanding the eruption process of these storms will definitely help us better predict them,” says Zhang. “We cannot prevent solar storms, just like we cannot prevent earthquakes or volcanoes. But the development of prediction capacity can help mitigate adverse effects. For instance, satellite operators can power-down key systems to prevent the possible damage to the systems.”
It is widely believed that magnetic fields in the Sun play an essential role in storing energy and powering solar storms. However, the exact form that magnetic field lines take prior to the eruption are highly controversial. Most field lines are semi-circular loops with their foot-points rooted on the surface of the Sun. They cannot erupt easily, and in fact, they often play the role of preventing the eruption.
Scientists suspected that the magnetic rope, if it indeed existed, was the phenomenon that powered the eruption. A magnetic rope contains many magnetic field lines wrapping around a center axis and possibly twisting around each other. Because of the twisting, a strong electric current can be carried by the magnetic rope. Theoretically, the electric current could produce a sufficient electro-magnetic force to overcome the overlying constraining force from other field lines and power the magnetic rope to move outward.
AIA images now reveal that, before an eruption, there is a long and low-lying channel running through the entire active region, which heats to a temperature as high as 10 million degrees, and slowly rises. When it reaches a critical point, it starts to erupt quickly. It is a feature distinctly different from the surrounding magnetic field lines. This particular hot channel is now believed to be the magnetic rope that scientists have been looking for.
Zhang is an associate professor in the School of Physics, Astronomy and Computational Sciences and works with the Space Weather Lab at George Mason University. His results were reported at the American Astronomical Society Solar Physics Division Meeting, held in Las Cruces, New Mexico on June 12 – 16, 2011.
Image-1: http://spaceweather.gmu.edu/press/Figure_1_SDO_171_Full_Size.png
Video-1: http://spaceweather.gmu.edu/press/Movie_1_SDO_171_Full_Size.avi (44 MB)
Image-2: http://spaceweather.gmu.edu/press/Figure_2_SDO_rope_loop.png
Video-2: http://spaceweather.gmu.edu/press/Movie_2_SDO_rope_loop.avi (80 MB)
Caption: http://spaceweather.gmu.edu/press/caption.txt
(Video and images credit: NASA and George Mason University)
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I have no axe to grind, and visit here to learn. But why is it that on a blog frequented by those sceptical of the hubris of researchers in (ahem) certain fields, there seems to be a tolerance of, nay kow-towing to, the hubris of (ahem) other researchers whose science is apparently settled and can therefore not tolerate other contraversial views? I would like to hear the other views, thank you. Even the most authorative views can be overturned and proved wrong. Mirrors are useful implements, and no-one is immune to the pitfalls of overrating ones’ own level of competence or knowledge.
Thanks for that, Leif – and btw may I add my personal thanks in appreciation of your knowledgeable presence here on WUWT to enlighten us plain folk. I confess that I do still wonder, though – even if the total quantity of energy is relatively small w.r.t. the total value, if we happen to get in the way of a concentrated “ropey” stream of it then presumably the quantity of any energy transferred would be that much larger, with potentially non-negligible effects. A millionth of a heck of a lot could still be a lot as measured on the scale of our planet’s little energy budget.
Thanks Tallbloke, too, for that suggested figure – if it’s anywhere near, it certainly sounds like something I wouldn’t want landing in my back yard, at least not all in one lump!
Very interesting. Perhaps another external influence of climate. Their numbers keep stacking up.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 16, 2011 at 2:14 am
A large auroral substorm I calculated expended 5E14 J or a 6.7 Richter scale earthquake. Tiny…
Yes, I agree that compared to the energy in the sunlight flowing steadily to earth it is a small figure. The ‘lumpiness’ of the flux tube ‘reconnections’ may have an effect disproportionate to the magnitude of the energy involved however.
I’m sure NASA scientists will continue to study these effects and their effort is not generally thought to be a waste of time and resources.
This may help clearing the field line topic:
We all know that magnetic field *lines* are imaginary, a concept. There are no “strings” of field that we can count, or identify. But this abstraction works pretty well to describe the real magnetic field. That’s not a novel idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_line
Look at the images of the Sun in the original post and see the loop-shaped bright features. Our eyes can easily see “lines” there, right? Those “lines” are shaped by the magnetic field there: we see the emission of the plasma there, not the field of course. Because of the Lorentz force, the charged particles of the plasma can only move along the direction of the field. The plasma trace the field direction as it happens with iron powder, a paper sheet and an ordinary magnet.
Also, we should remember that the magnetic field we see on the solar corona is generated inside the Sun, and not by electric currents in the Sun’s atmosphere (photosphere, chromosphere and corona). The electric currents in the corona cannot compete with the Sun’s dynamo mechanism to generate those large scale magnetic fields.
tallbloke says:
June 16, 2011 at 5:00 am
I’m sure NASA scientists will continue to study these effects and their effort is not generally thought to be a waste of time and resources.
These effects are major up where the density of the atmosphere is millions to trillions times less that at sea level where we are, so, of course, there is no waste of time and resources as we have space assets that are strongly influenced by those effects. I wonder why you even made that remark.
Steve C says:
June 16, 2011 at 3:09 am
if we happen to get in the way of a concentrated “ropey” stream of it then presumably the quantity of any energy transferred would be that much larger, with potentially non-negligible effects.
Such effects do happen from time to time [but very rarely – one per decade or so] and do have dramatic effects [melting of transformers, destroying satellites, etc], but they are rare and short-lived. Fixing the damage may take a long time, though. But these events do not play a significant role in the overall energy budget.
PJA Simoes says:
June 15, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Mac the Knife says:
Really, really interesting images and videos!
A little help with interpretation?
“I’ll try some answers, Mac:”
Thanks a Bunch, PJ!
I’m not a plasma physicist…. (BS/MS Metallurgical Engineering) so I really appreciate a 2nd opinion on my rudimentary interpretations of these images. Such magnificent structure!!!! Magnetic ropes caging plasma rainbows, as vast arches spanning nuclear geysers!!!! Science fiction becomes reality……
About a 15 years back, I worked a couple of years on materials and structures development for proposed fusion energy reactors (International Tokamak Experimental Reactor – ITER, and Tokamak Physics EXperiment – TPX). It is only now, with the superb images provided by our solar observing satellites, that I can really begin to visualize the intensity of the ‘magnetic toroid’ needed to contain a nuclear fusion generated plasma field and prevent contact with the plasma facing reactor ‘1st wall’ heat exchangers!
Thanks again, for your kindness PJ !!
Though this is interesting, it is not persuasive that this is not just a co-equal resultant with the solar storms.
Two events – Event ‘A’ and Event ‘B’ – occurred together. That does not mean B caused A or vice versa. Did this guy see this once or several times? Event A and B might be resultants of some other cause ‘C.’
It also sounds to me like the rope is a resultant of the “channel.”
From what is said, it isn’t clear how vetted this is.
The BBCs Richard Black has written an article on the predictions of a solar minimum and dismissed its influence on the climate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13792479
M White says:
June 16, 2011 at 11:26 am
The BBCs Richard Black has written an article on the predictions of a solar minimum and dismissed its influence on the climate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13792479
When somebody says he knows the truth, be aware of your money. Nobody knows how Sun affects earth’s climate, so i’ts just hope, quess or religion.
Re: “Another item not mentioned in the article is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-pinch
Z-pinch has been the bane of nuclear fusion experiments since I was in HS and writing a report on the original Tokamak type device.”
What’s rather ironic, actually, is that the Tokamak experiments have led to confirmations of plasma scaling (an important Electric Universe claim), as well as the observation of “skeletal” structures within dusty plasmas that (AI-based) probabilistic reasoning algorithms have also noticed within interstellar space (another important EU claim, which is further bolstered by the work of Gerrit Verschuur, one of the world’s most famous radio astronomers).
The Bayesian probabilistic reasoning algorithms offer a startlingly unbiased perspective on the existence of complex plasma structures in space, as they are impervious to the ideological pull towards conventional theory which humans are susceptible to. What the computers are telling us is that the Faraday motor and filamentary structures common to the plasma laboratory are “very likely” there within interstellar space as well. Moving forward, artificial intelligence algorithms offer a promising new technique for challenging the objections of plasma universe skeptics.
See any of the various papers by A.B. Kukushkin, V.A. Rantsev-Kartinov:
“Wild Cables in Tokamak Plasmas (Experiment)”
“Similarity of Skeletal Structures in Laboratory and Space and the Probable Role of Self-Assembling of a Fractal Dust in Fusion Devices”
“Evidences for and the Models of Self-Similar Skeletal Structures in Fusion Devices, Severe Weather Phenomena and Space”
“Large-Scale Self-Similar Skeletal Structure of the Universe”
“Skeletal Structures in the Images of Cosmic Dust Clouds and Solar System Planets”
““Waterspout” as a Special Type of Atmospheric Aerosol Dusty Plasma”
These are very important considerations because we know that the Earth is immersed within the electrical environment of the heliosphere. The largely non-electrical space which we occupy is in fact a very thin shell immersed within this immense electrical environment. Furthermore, we see “flows” all over the surface of this “non-electrical” environment, similar to the Sun. We even see flows of “underwater rivers” in the oceans.
To automatically rule out the possibility that these flows are perhaps electrical connections to the electrical universe which surrounds our thin non-electrical shell of existence should not be heresy on a forum which appears to pride itself so much on individual thought. If we constrain the questions we ask — like, do the underwater rivers rotate? — then we artificially support our pre-existing conventional views of the universe through a process of financially starving the competing claims.
Chris Reeve says:
June 16, 2011 at 12:57 pm
These are very important considerations because we know that the Earth is immersed within the electrical environment of the heliosphere.
We are immersed in the magnetic environment of the heliosphere.
To automatically rule out the possibility that these flows
Nobody is ‘automatically’ ruling out this. Sound physics shows us that the magnetic field is the important element. Plasma moving across magnetic fields and magnetic fields changing create electric currents locally.
Mac the Knife says:
Thanks again, for your kindness PJ !!
Hey, not a problem! Glad to help! 🙂 I’ve been learning so much since I started reading WUWT (from Anthony, guest authors and commenters) that I can only try to give my best back to this community.
@pete
> As for the ‘magnetic ropes’, they are Birkelund currents.
@Leif
>They are not Birkeland currents in any shape or form.
>Perhaps you would care to describe what you think a Birkeland current is …
Since ‘pete’ hasn’t responded I’ll offer this insight: the term “Birkeland current” seems to have been expanded or generalized (“hijacked”?) in recent years to include any “magnetic field aligned current”, departing from the old definition specifying auroral-related electrojets around the Earth.
For example, from the Wikipedia article on this topic:
“Birkeland currents are also one of a class of plasma phenomena called a z-pinch, so named because the azimuthal magnetic fields produced by the current pinches the current into a filamentary cable. This can also twist, producing a helical pinch that spirals like a twisted or braided rope, and this most closely corresponds to a Birkeland current. ”
Seems reasonable to me, because it was Kristian Birkeland himself who first surmised (back in 1903!) that auroras were caused by magnetic effects from charged particles streaming from the Sun, many decades before the existence of solar wind plasmas were confirmed by the rest of the world.
Re: “Sound physics shows us that the magnetic field is the important element. Plasma moving across magnetic fields and magnetic fields changing create electric currents locally.”
Yes, the key word here is “locally.” There is very strong historical precedent for man assuming the local nature of electricity (Birkeland vs. Chapman, for instance), even as the most fundamental fact of electricity is that it flows from one place to another. At what scale of existence does electricity transition from that of flowing, to not? I desperately want to understand the answer to that question.
John Day says:
June 16, 2011 at 1:27 pm
the term “Birkeland current” seems to have been expanded or generalized (“hijacked”?) in recent years to include any “magnetic field aligned current”
Except in a z-pinch, the current is not along the field lines: http://wwwppd.nrl.navy.mil/branches/6720/gif/pinch.GIF
Chris Reeve says:
June 16, 2011 at 1:30 pm
At what scale of existence does electricity transition from that of flowing, to not? I desperately want to understand the answer to that question.
For ‘electricity’ to flow there must be an electromotive force, e.g. an imbalance of charges of opposite signs. If you have a more of one sign at point A than at point B a current will flow from A to B neutralizing the difference. A plasma has high conductivity so the neutralization happens very quickly, unless you continuously regenerate the charge imbalance. The way Nature does that is to move a plasma a magnetic field, that separates the two charges, positive is deflected one way, negative the other way. So, in general, move a conductor relative to a magnetic field and you get a current, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo
Chris Reeve says:
June 16, 2011 at 1:30 pm
There is very strong historical precedent for man assuming the local nature of electricity
As in this hilarious paper:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14145750/Anthony-Peratt-Characteristics-for-the-Occurrence-of-a-HighCurrent-ZPinch-Aurora-as-Recorded-in-Antiquity
Re: “As in this hilarious paper:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14145750/Anthony-Peratt-Characteristics-for-the-Occurrence-of-a-HighCurrent-ZPinch-Aurora-as-Recorded-in-Antiquity”
What’s hilarious about trying to make sense of 5,000 years of written human record? Peratt is a former adviser to the Department of Energy, a reviewer for IEEE (the world’s largest scientific institution), and he works on the world’s largest plasma experiment (which gives him a unique view of how high-intensity plasma discharges look). His plasma structures corroborate the Tokamak structures I just posted by A.B. Kukushkin and V.A. Rantsev-Kartinov, which in turn corroborate Verschuur’s finding that interstellar space is permeated by incredibly long filaments — an observation which was predicted by Hannes Alfven himself when he learned that plasma was the universe’s preferred state of matter.
To bolster the case even further, Verschuur even confirms Alfven’s prediction that critical ionization velocities will be observed in interstellar space at 50 km/s, 35 km/s, 13 km/s and 6 km/s. He notes that the 35 km/s signal is particularly widespread. It should be noted that the “anomalous high-velocity clouds” are labeled “anomalous” specifically because of their redshift of 35 km/s — which is thought to be impossible amongst astronomers, given the inferred location of these “clouds”. Thus far, you have two options for the high-velocity clouds: Either accept the enigma without explanation, or accept that it’s a critical ionization velocity — the result of slamming charged particles at enormous speeds into neutral clouds of gas, in the process ionizing the neutral gas. Conventional scientists still dismiss Verschuur’s findings, even though the CIV’s can be easily created in the laboratory with the same exact values.
Are you doubting that Peratt can make the plasma structures in the laboratory? Or, are you suggesting that it must be a coincidence that the same drawings appear all over the world? You seem to not be very familiar or concerned with the enigmatic similarities in the creation myths of the world. But, I also sense that you’ve not really read enough about it to grasp the enigma. Even if you think that ancient man was too ignorant to pay attention to their stories, the enigma of the *similarities* in both drawings and mythological stories over the entire world nevertheless demand explanation. By ignoring 5,000 years of written record, conventional thinkers like to imagine that they are not bound to explaining its inherent enigmas.
Others who took the mythology problem seriously — like Campbell and Jung — were not ridiculed for doing so, but only because they came to uniformitarian conclusions. What’s become clear to those who take the stories seriously enough to compare them against one another is that “creation” does not refer to the origin of the universe. It’s an ancient reference to an Earth which was dramatically transformed by violent catastrophe. Adam and Eve weren’t the first humans; they were some of the only survivors. The Tree of Life is the Birkeland Current. It’s really quite silly that the structures which we now see in heliospheric space regularly connecting the Sun to the Earth every few minutes are somehow thought to never be capable of touching down to the Earth’s surface. The atmosphere is an incredibly thin shell. Is it really that preposterous to imagine that man drew these symbols all over the world because he saw these things in the sky? No, not really.
The ridicule only begins at the point of questioning the uniformitarian assumptions. But, the point of assumptions is that we are supposed to question them. Upon what basis can man claim that the Earth went through a simplistic, strictly linear sequence of events which is luckily easy for us to rewind backwards like a movie? Does that not sound rather convenient for the study of the Earth? Is that truly the undeniable foundation for building entire disciplines of science that we are told it is?
No, it’s sloppy, self-serving science. History is not like a movie with a plot. It’s chaotic, and we should expect it to be more complicated than the uniformitarian assumption.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 16, 2011 at 2:04 pm
“As in this hilarious paper:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14145750/Anthony-Peratt-Characteristics-for-the-Occurrence-of-a-HighCurrent-ZPinch-Aurora-as-Recorded-in-Antiquity”
This article says in 1962 a thermo nuclear device was detonated in the atmosphere at an altitude of 400 km. Seems kinda of high to me as the shuttle orbits at about 330 km. Has this been verified?
Chris Reeve says:
June 16, 2011 at 3:32 pm
What’s hilarious about trying to make sense of 5,000 years of written human record?
Because there is no sense in thinking those represent plasma structures, anymore than Elvis on Mars and the Virgin Mary in a hamburger.
that interstellar space is permeated by incredibly long filaments
Gravity does that easily.
because of their redshift of 35 km/s — which is thought to be impossible amongst astronomers
Lots of stars have redshift of 35 km/s. E.g. the stars
104 GJ 1014
276 Gl 57.1B
645 LP413-18A
in the Reid, Hawley & Gizis 1995 Catalog.
you have two options for the high-velocity clouds:
35 km/s is not particularly high velocity. Actually extremely low.
Are you doubting that Peratt can make the plasma structures in the laboratory?
lots of physicists can make plasma structure. It takes a genius like Peratt to make one that looks just like Kokopelli [complete with flute and erect penis]
enigmatic similarities in the creation myths of the world.
Yeah, aliens from outer space are responsible.
Jung
Thought such images were innate to the human mind. As the collective consciousness, http://www.nndb.com/people/910/000031817/
Adam and Eve weren’t the first humans; they were some of the only survivors. The Tree of Life is the Birkeland Current.
Now you are getting somewhere. But most people won’t be able to follow you there.
It’s chaotic, and we should expect it to be more complicated than the uniformitarian assumption.
It is indeed much more contingent and beset with various disasters that have to be overcome, but we made it.
Tom in Florida says:
June 16, 2011 at 4:03 pm
This article says in 1962 a thermo nuclear device was detonated in the atmosphere at an altitude of 400 km. Seems kinda of high to me as the shuttle orbits at about 330 km. Has this been verified?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
For the sake of clarity …
Re: “Because there is no sense in thinking those represent plasma structures, anymore than Elvis on Mars and the Virgin Mary in a hamburger.”
Plasmas can take on a very wide range of appearances. Compare the auroras to terrestrial lightning to upper-atmospheric lightning to a flame. They are all matter in the plasma state. The key components of the twisting and the synchrotron are present in the ancient squatter man drawings. And man’s tendency to anthropomorphize things seen in the sky should be completely beyond reproach.
Re: “that interstellar space is permeated by incredibly long filaments
Gravity does that easily.”
That is misleading. Gravity is a radial force. Within the conventional view, interstellar filaments are presumed to be caused by stellar explosions. They are supposed to be shock waves which have been lucky enough to hold together since the original explosion. But, the problem is the twisting. How does a shock wave both prevent dispersion of the matter into space, and simultaneously twist into a perfectly braided rope? There is nothing “easy” about this for gravity to be the cause. The perfect twists of the Cygnus Loop:
http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/~wpb/cygloop/cloop_bw_lin.gif
In laboratory plasma physics, separate plasma filaments carrying current will possess both long-range attraction and short-range repulsion with the strength of the electric force with one another. The long range attraction is a result of parallel axial currents, while the circular (or helical) currents within the filaments (as the electrons gyrate along the axial magnetic field) contribute to the short-range repulsion. This combination causes the filaments to twist around one another, but it’s the double layer which acts to prevent these filaments from combining, and which insulates the moving charges from dispersing into space. All of the elements are there, based upon laboratory experimentation, to explain the morphology.
Re: “because of their redshift of 35 km/s — which is thought to be impossible amongst astronomers
Lots of stars have redshift of 35 km/s. E.g. the stars
104 GJ 1014
276 Gl 57.1B
645 LP413-18A
in the Reid, Hawley & Gizis 1995 Catalog.”
Verschuur is a radio astronomer who observes interstellar matter at the 21-cm wavelength (aka “HI hydrogen”). He states:
“Not all is understood about the distribution of HI in the Milky Way. For example, large areas of sky are found to contain HI [hydrogen] moving at velocities that are not expected if the gas is confined to the plane of the Galaxy. In particular, when a radio telescope is pointed above or below the galactic plane, only relatively local gas traveling at velocities between +-20 km/s with respect to zero, defined in terms of the average random motion of stars near the sun, should be observed. However, HI at very high negative velocities, which indicates motion toward us, is found at high galactic latitudes. These structures are known as high-velocity clouds, although detailed maps of such features show them to be filamentary instead of cloud-like. Their distance and origin continue to be the subject of controversy. The bulk of these HI structures in the northern sky follow an arc defined by a weak radio shell found in radio surveys …” (The Invisible Universe: The Story of Radio Astronomy, Gerrit L. Verschuur, p55)
The conventional explanation for the HI signal, for those who are wondering, is as follows:
“The neutral hydrogen atom consists of a proton with an electron in an orbit about it. Both the proton and the electron have a property called spin, which can be in the same direction (called parallel spin) or in opposite directions (antiparallel) relative to one another. The total energy contained by the atom in these two conditions is different. When the spin state flips from the parallel condition to the antiparallel, which contains less energy, the atom gets rid of the excess energy by radiating a spectral line at a frequency of 1420.405 MHz, generally known as the 21-cm line referring to its wavelength in the radio band. The 21-cm line is the signature of HI and makes the gas observable to astronomers on earth.” (The Invisible Universe: The Story of Radio Astronomy, Gerrit L. Verschuur, p52)
Chris Reeve says:
June 16, 2011 at 7:08 pm
And man’s tendency to anthropomorphize things seen in the sky should be completely beyond reproach.
Man will do that with anything, in the sky or not, e.g. http://www.budoniambiente.org/053/02.jpg
That is misleading. Gravity is a radial force.
so is an electric field.
Within the conventional view, interstellar filaments are presumed to be caused by stellar explosions. They are supposed to be shock waves which have been lucky enough to hold together since the original explosion.
They are not ‘lucky enough’, they are compression fronts. The shock waves are so thin, less than one part in 50,000 of the radius that the waves are visible only when viewed edge-on, giving the appearance of a filament. Undulations in the surface of the shock front lead to multiple filamentary images, which appear to be intertwined.
For example, large areas of sky are found to contain HI [hydrogen] moving at velocities that are not expected if the gas is confined to the plane of the Galaxy.
So, simply shows that the gas is not so confined.
You have been taken in by the Electric/Plasma Universe cult. This is pseudo-science of high caliber. You should make an effort to free yourself from this nonsense. Coming to WUWT willing to learn about this wonderful universe of ours should be a help in this regard.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 16, 2011 at 2:14 am
A large auroral substorm I calculated expended 5E14 J or a 6.7 Richter scale earthquake. Tiny…
Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse which was far larger than expected, so much larger that it drove much of the instrumentation off scale, causing great difficulty in getting accurate measurements. The Starfish Prime electromagnetic pulse also made those effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 1,445 kilometres (898 mi) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms and damaging a telephone company microwave link. The EMP-damaged microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian islands.[4]
Seems that electromagnetic effects constantly surprise each new generation of physicists by being much bigger than theory says they should be.
There may acutally be some filiments out there, based on actual observation.
This doesn’e mean that they dominate the universe with electricity. If they have some charges (this article doesn’t mention anything about intertwining or such) they are probably not enough to have any effect such as in a Electrical/plasma Universe. However, they may have charge or magnetism or such, it may only be enough to effect the plasma itself (which is thin and pretty much uneffected by much else in the dark between the galaxies), but there may be some.
Like Leif said, it just shows that there is some non confined gas out there.
http://www.monash.edu.au/news/show/monash-student-finds-universes-missing-mass
“It was thought from a theoretical viewpoint that there should be about double the amount of matter in the local Universe compared to what was observed. It was predicted that the majority of this missing mass should be located in large-scale cosmic structures called filaments – a bit like thick shoelaces,” said Dr Pimbblet.
Astrophysicists also predicted that the mass would be low in density, but high in temperature – approximately one million degrees Celsius. This meant that, in theory, the matter should have been observable at X-ray wavelengths. Amelia Fraser-McKelvie’s discovery has proved that prediction correct.
Ms Fraser-McKelvie said the ‘Eureka moment’ came when Dr Lazendic-Galloway closely examined the data they had collected.
“Using her expert knowledge in the X-ray astronomy field, Jasmina reanalysed our results to find that we had in fact detected the filaments in our data, where previously we believed we had not.”