Myth Upon Myth Upon Myth

"Since Newton announced his universal law of gravitation, scientists have accepted and educators taught it, and rarely has it been questioned. Occasionally one has the temerity to say that gravitation is a myth, an invented word to cover scientific ignorance." -- C.H. Kilmer, historian, October 1915

"It's not that most of the matter and energy in the universe is dark, but that most cosmologists are totally in the dark about the real nature of the universe." -- Wallace Thornhill, physicist, October 2006

Stephen Smith: MACHOs and WIMPs.

According to cosmologists, the Universe is made mostly of dark matter and dark energy, but they do not know what either is.

A recent press release opens with this question: "Dark Matter Detected for First Time?" It seems ironic to ask, since what they are "detecting" has been one of the most all pervasive, yet most highly speculative investigations since phlogiston.

In previous Pictures of the Day, it was noted that dark matter is an ad hoc theory, an addendum to the gravity-based model of the Universe. As consensus physics proposes, without adding dark matter there is insufficient gravity in the cosmos to account for galaxies bunching together. Without sufficient mass, they should also have decelerated over the eons instead of moving through space at 90% of light speed.

An exotic form of matter was proposed when astronomers realized that stars traveled around the edge of a spiral galaxy with the same angular velocity as stars close to the center. This was a quandary, since according to Newton's theory they should be slower. Therefore, astronomers assumed that a form of dark matter was imparting extra gravitational energy to the stars. It was called "dark" because the theory states that it cannot be detected, except indirectly.

This unseen matter is said to be sustaining all galaxies, preventing them from flying apart. Over the years, research groups have been trying to reconcile the lack of mass in the Universe, particularly in galaxy clusters, with their recessional velocity. There is not enough gravity in the visible stars and gas clouds to account for that velocity, as well as the consolidation of individual galaxies and clusters.

If dark matter exists, according to physicists, then it ought to be expressed through a particle. After all, gravity is based on mass attraction, so if dark matter is holding the stars in their galactic orbits, and pulling those galaxies into clusters, there must be an invisible particle (or particles) responsible for the effect.

If not particles, then perhaps cold, non-radiating matter—burned-out stars, or large planets—are exerting their influences on galactic structure. Those "normal" but invisible objects were called MAssive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs). Telescopes were scheduled to look for stellar occultations caused by MACHOs, but after years of investigation there have been no results. MACHO scientists have recently thrown in the towel, finally acknowledging that MACHOs are not dark matter candidates.

Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) theory has been the chief competitor with MACHO theory for several years. With the demise of the latter theory, scientists have now pinned their hopes on a subatomic particle to account for the necessary gravitational attraction.

In 1999, a consortium of ten research institutions from around the world known as the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) developed a detector that was supposed to "see" the sporadic impacts from WIMPs on other atomic particles.

The CDMS sensor is an array of silicon and germanium crystals that are cooled by liquid helium until they are close to absolute zero. When subatomic particles strike an atomic nucleus in the crystals, it is interpreted as ionization and heat. Since the atomic movement in the sensor is almost stopped, any tiny vibrations caused by a particle's impact are seen as "hits." The sensor has been handicapped by many false readings due to cosmic rays and other ionized particles.

For more than ten years, scientists working on the project have seen nothing to suggest that WIMPs are colliding with the detector. The current press release is simply publicizing further ambiguous results. Are they seeing WIMPs or are they continuing to witness cosmic ray impacts?

From the Electric Universe perspective, electric currents drive the galaxies and their associated stars. Laboratory experiments reveal that the magnetic vortex between twin Birkeland current filaments can create structures that resemble spiral galaxies. Birkeland currents have a longer-range attractive force than gravity, and diminish with the reciprocal of the distance rather than gravity's square of the distance. That alone could account for the anomalous movement of stars as they revolve around the galactic core.

It is the flow of electricity through plasma in space that tends to initiate the effects that we can observe with space-based telescopes and confirm in ground-based research laboratories. It is the electric currents in the cosmos and their associated magnetic fields that should be our focus and not the search for that which can never be found.

Saturnian Surprises

"When first observed by Voyager, the spoke movements [of Saturn's Rings] seemed to defy gravity and had the scientists very perplexed. Since the spokes rotate at the same rate as Saturn's magnetic field, it is apparent that the electromagnetic forces are also at work." -- Ron Baalke, astrophysicist, 1998

Stephen Smith: Spring Has Sprung.

On August 11, 2009, Saturn's rings turned edge-on to the Sun, something that happens once every 15 years as Saturn revolves. When the rings cross the equatorial plane, they cool down considerably—dropping more than 50 Kelvin in the last five years.

Many things about Saturn have changed in the 29 years since the two Voyager spacecraft passed by the giant gas planet. Saturn's magnetosphere grew larger by more than a million kilometers and then contracted, only to begin expanding again. The spokes in Saturn's B ring disappeared and then reappeared. The equatorial thunderstorm (known as the Dragon Storm) that raged continuously broke up, moved toward the poles, and then erupted again a short while ago in the lower latitudes.

The most likely explanation for the storms on Saturn is that they are equivalent to sunspots. As the Sun changes its behavior over the course of a 22 year cycle, the electrical output that connects it with its family of planets varies. If Saturn's Great White Spots, Dragon Storm, and ring spokes are driven by the same galactic Birkeland currents that drive the Sun, they should get stronger and closer to the equator as the sunspot cycle oscillates. It appears that that is just what has happened over the past three decades.

It is significant that the increases to the energetic phenomena on Saturn are occurring irrespective of whether the sunspot cycle is at maximum or minimum: the Sun is exhibiting large-scale electrical effects although it has just passed solar minimum. It was suggested in a previous Picture of the Day that it is the change in magnetic orientation that could be the key, rather than the strength of the solar magnetic field.

In 2008, scientists from the Max Planck Institute discovered partial rings around the gas planet in a nearly invisible collection of small arc segments. Using the Cassini-Equinox magnetospheric sensors, the team found two areas near Saturn where highly energetic electrons suddenly drop out, presumably because something is absorbing them.

The magnetospheric imager detected lower energy emissions from the ion torus that surrounds Saturn when the ring arc segments are oriented between Cassini and the electron flow. The region of absorption is almost 3000 kilometers wide, so Cassini mission analysts speculate that there could be unseen rings in several bands.

The invisible rings are most likely another manifestation of the electrical environment that exists near Saturn. What Cassini is detecting most likely supports the charged particle stream hypothesis originally proposed by Kristian Birkeland in 1913. He wrote: "It seems almost incredible that such a ring of cosmic dust should be able to exist for ever, so to speak, without other governing forces than gravitation..."

Seen from our planet, the view of Saturn's rings during equinox makes them invisible. However, Cassini is in orbit around Saturn 20 degrees above the ring plane. As NASA puts it, that "novel illumination geometry" causes objects above the rings to cast shadows across them. Cassini photographed the shadows from several of Saturn's moons, but also saw the shadows cast by something new: vertical structures embedded in the rings.

Planetary scientists already knew about material sticking out of the rings in a few places, but until Saturn reached its equinox it was not possible to measure how high these "ridges" are. Saturn's main rings are approximately 140,000 kilometers wide, but were only thought to be between 10 and 30 meters thick until the discovery of the vertical "walls" extending along the edges of some rings. Some of the other newly found formations are ripples over four kilometers high.

How did these strange clumps, undulations, and ridges form? According to theories presently under consideration, it is collisions and shock waves that were and are the culprits. The gravitational attraction of so-called "shepherd moons" is also said to be responsible.

As some moons, such as Daphnis, move up and down through the ring plane, they do disturb the motion of the ring particles. However, as was discussed in another Picture of the Day article, Saturn's rings and moons are electrically charged objects moving within its vast plasmasphere. The instabilities inherent in that system most likely contribute to the formation of unusual features.

As shepherd moons pass close to the rings, their effect is not like a turbulent wind, which would be expected when a gravitational field's torque effects act on a cloud of fine particles. Instead, sine waves, perpendicular "braids," and cylindrical arcs are seen. Some are multiply woven, like those in the remote F-ring.

More data needs to be recovered, but Cassini continues to provide an embarrassment of riches for Electric Universe advocates, and a box of puzzles that consensus opinions cannot assemble.