The Electric Sun/Earth Connection Confirmed

The day of this writing, December 13, 2007, is the 140th anniversary of the birth of the Norwegian-born physicist Kristian Birkeland. It was Birkeland who correctly hypothesized in the early 20th century that electric currents from the Sun power the earth's auroras. For many decades, the scientific mainstream largely rejected Birkeland’s thesis, favoring instead the idea that Earth's magnetosphere is an impenetrable envelope, "squeezed" by the solar wind to induce auroral activity. Only when satellites detected the magnetic signatures of electric currents in the aurora in 1973 was Birkeland's hypothesis irrefutably validated -- though for another two decades many astronomers resisted the implications of this discovery.

In testing his ideas about the Earth/Sun connection, Birkeland built a vacuum chamber and placed a magnetized metal ball called a terrella inside it, representing the Earth. He observed how the terrella behaved in its artificial, electrically charged atmosphere. In addition to solving the riddle of Earth's auroras, Birkeland's electrical experiments also uncannily simulated planetary rings and the energetic displays of cometary jets. Yet a full century later, astronomers continue to be mystified by these phenomena in space. (To see Birkeland's observations on the electrical properties of comets, published in 1913, read "Comets: Kristian Birkeland's theory").

More than a century after Birkeland's polar expedition to investigate the Northern Lights, mainstream scientists still express surprise or even astonishment when they observe the telltale signs of electrical circuitry connecting the earth and the Sun. That is because they still cling to theoretical models that conceptually exclude the possibility of electrical circuits in space -- even when their models are refuted by new observations that they characterize (and sometimes discard) as "impossible."

The disconnect between astronomical theory and discovery is in full display in the recent NASA press release, "NASA Spacecraft Make New Discoveries about Northern Lights".

The report discusses the THEMIS spacecraft's recent observations of "giant magnetic ropes that connect Earth's upper atmosphere to the Sun and explosions in the outskirts of Earth's magnetic field." Describing the THEMIS encounter with a "magnetic rope" NASA investigator Dave Sibeck states: "It was very large, about as wide as Earth, and located approximately 40,000 miles above Earth's surface in a region called the magnetosphere." Investigators observed that the so-called rope "formed and unraveled in just a few minutes, providing a brief but significant conduit for solar wind energy. Other ropes quickly followed: 'They seem to occur all the time,' says Sibeck."

Magnetic "ropes"? This expression begs the question of how the fluid dynamics envisioned by NASA can explain a "rope-like" structure that twists and changes dynamically, and extends all the way from Earth back to the Sun. NASA scientists often use the phrase "flux ropes" to describe these twisted filamentary pathways traversed by charged particles. But to electrical engineers, such terminology reveals a deep confusion among astronomers struggling to comprehend unexpected electrical activity. Professor Donald E Scott, author of The Electric Sky, says, "Ropes, of course, have beginnings and ends. Magnetic fields do not. So this use of language from NASA fails to explain anything, and is conceptually wrong as well as misleading." (For a synopsis of Prof. Scott's highly acclaimed book, see here).

The "ropes" to which the investigators refer are commonly described in plasma science as electrical "Birkeland currents," named after the aforementioned Kristian Birkeland. The rope-like structure is not just a curiosity; it is the structure taken by current flow due to the long-range attraction and short-range repulsion between current filaments. The "twisted magnetic fields" are simply the signature of the electric current flow. In plasma cosmology, these entwined plasma filaments act as transmission lines carrying "field-aligned" currents across interplanetary and interstellar space.

A layperson reading the NASA report might believe that the observation of these "ropes" is news -- as if they had never been seen before. But Birkeland currents have been the object of plasma research for more than a century. The term describes an electric current in a space plasma. It is this function of plasma filaments that inspires Electric Universe proponents to assert, "There are no isolated islands in space!" However, the term "Birkeland current" has never been included in the mainstream astronomical lexicon. Only in recent years have astronomers begrudgingly entertained the concept when evidence has allowed for no alternative. (Thunderbolts.info)