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NGC 891. Credit: R. Jay Gabany

 

Corona Discharges
Jan 26, 2011

From galaxies to the laboratory, transverse electric currents accompany a main discharge channel.

That "main discharge channel" experienced by most people comes in the form of a terrestrial lighting bolt. Slow-motion studies reveal that each flash is a complex episode. Multiple leader strokes descend from the clouds, while similar, less visible potential contacts rise from the ground. Once two points of contact are made, the electrical energy stored in the cloud-to-ground capacitor discharges, drawing current from several square kilometers.

On Earth, a surface lightning stroke is accompanied by transverse or "corona discharges" at right angles to the main channel. They appear to be “tributaries” joining the primary discharge. Surface lightning forces close tributaries to be parallel because of electromagnetic forces between them. Brachiated burns or cuts in various materials at different scales are sometimes called "Lichtenberg figures."

Lichtenberg figures are named after Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. They form when lightning bolts strike some material on Earth – it can be soil or even human tissue. They have also been artificially generated in blocks of acrylic plastic. Many Lichtenberg figures have been discovered in the south polar region of Mars and have been discussed in previous Pictures of the Day as Martian "spiders."

To understand the connection that plasma formations in space have with laboratory experiments the scalability of plasma phenomena must be considered. Plasma discharges can produce the same formations irrespective of size. The same patterns appear in laboratories, on planets, around stars, and inside galaxies.

What have been called "streamers" were seen inside the shell of gas and dust that makes up the haze around the nucleus of Comet Holmes 17P. They remain in the same alignment as they had since their initial formation. Despite several months of travel, they did not rotate to stay aligned with the Sun. As has been discussed in previous Picture of the Day articles, the braided filaments are the sign of helical Birkeland currents.

A few years ago, scientists analyzing data from the Subaru Telescope announced the discovery of a "threadlike structure" emerging from RB199, one of the larger elliptical galaxies inhabiting the Coma cluster. The filament extends approximately 260,000 light years and contains groups of stars enclosed by glowing, ionized shells. Researchers refer to these rapidly moving star cluster knots as "fireballs," because they look like flaming projectiles shooting out from the galaxy.

Duration is also directly proportional to size. Sparks lasting two or three microseconds in the laboratory might scale up to decade-long events at stellar scales, or millions of years at the galactic scale. Filamentary shapes appear to exist no matter where investigators search.

Forces exerted by electrified plasma contained in the twisting filaments of Birkeland currents dominate the Universe. They flow in a cosmic circuit that comes into our field of view and then goes back out into the void with long-range attraction between them

In the image at the top of the page, NGC 891 also displays streamers of material moving away from its equatorial plane at right angles. Could it be that corona arc discharges, an electrical phenomenon associated with terrestrial lightning, are occurring on a thousands of light-years scale?

 

Stephen Smith


Multimedia

 
The Lightning-Scarred Planet Mars
Symbols of an Alien Sky DVD episode 2
A video documentary that could change everything you thought you knew about ancient times and symbols.

The Symbols of an Alien Sky video series will introduce you to celestial spectacles and earth-shaking events once remembered around the world. Archaic symbols of these events still surround us, some as icons of the world’s great religions, though the origins of the symbols appear to be lost in obscurity.

In this second episode of Symbols of an Alien Sky, David Talbott takes the viewer on an odyssey across the surface of Mars. Exploring feature after feature of the planet, he finds that only electric arcs could produce the observed patterns. The high resolution images reveal massive channels and gouges, great mounds, and crater chains, none finding an explanation in traditional geology, but all matching the scars from electric discharge experiments in the laboratory.  (Approximately 85 minutes) See: Lightning-Scarred Planet info


 

 
 

"The Cosmic Thunderbolt"

YouTube video, first glimpses of Episode Two in the "Symbols of an Alien Sky" series.
 

 

And don't forget: "The Universe Electric"

Three ebooks in the Universe Electric series are now available. Consistently praised for easily understandable text and exquisite graphics.
 
 
 
 
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Authors David Talbott and Wallace Thornhill introduce the reader to an age of planetary instability and earthshaking electrical events in ancient times. If their hypothesis is correct, it could not fail to alter many paths of scientific investigation.
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Professor of engineering Donald Scott systematically unravels the myths of the "Big Bang" cosmology, and he does so without resorting to black holes, dark matter, dark energy, neutron stars, magnetic "reconnection", or any other fictions needed to prop up a failed theory.
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In language designed for scientists and non-scientists alike, authors Wallace Thornhill and David Talbott show that even the greatest surprises of the space age are predictable patterns in an electric universe.
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