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Plasma is often called the "Fourth State of Matter," the other three being solid, liquid and gas. A plasma is a distinct state of matter containing a significant number of electrically charged particles, a number sufficient to affect its electrical properties and behavior. In addition to being important in many aspects of our daily lives, plasmas are estimated to constitute more than 99 percent of the visible universe.
Arbitrageur
reply to post by ErosA433
On a related topic as to whether gravity can attract or repel, I remember reading about some research projects that were going to try to find out if antimatter "fell up" as opposed to falling down like regular matter, but I never saw any results. Did anybody ever get conclusive results that you know of one way or the other?
I suppose that gravity is such a weak force, it's probably hard to get enough antimatter to make gravitational measurements on it, especially considering how unstable it is around matter.
How the properties of antimatter differ I thought was an unsolved problem in physics, because if they were exactly the same except charge, then doesn't theory say there should have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter (and apparently there aren't)?
dragonridr
Antimatter has almost the exact same properties as normal matter with the exception of charge. Gravity would still affect antimatter and so would magnetic fields as well. Gravity is a distortion of space time meaning it doesnt care what kind of particle it is it can affect it. As far as the experiments i think you might be talking about this one?
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...
Arbitrageur
How the properties of antimatter differ I thought was an unsolved problem in physics, because if they were exactly the same except charge, then doesn't theory say there should have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter (and apparently there aren't)?
dragonridr
Antimatter has almost the exact same properties as normal matter with the exception of charge. Gravity would still affect antimatter and so would magnetic fields as well. Gravity is a distortion of space time meaning it doesnt care what kind of particle it is it can affect it. As far as the experiments i think you might be talking about this one?
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...
But yes that's the kind of research I was looking for, thanks for the link....it's pretty much what was expected, but it's not a bad idea to confirm expectations with experiment.
poet1b
reply to post by dragonridr
The evidence that anti-matter even exists is weak at best. They think they might have found evidence of hydrogen anti-matter, and maybe helium anti-matter.
Protons in anti-matter are negative, and matter and anti-matter don't destroy each other, they turn other into ions/plasma. Being of opposite polarity, matter and anti-matter protons should bind together.
Looks like we are still talking about plasma.
Mary Rose
The video is saying that the shock front model is incorrect. It is saying the boundary is showing a more complex structure than mere mechanical impact. It is saying that the heliosheath is dominated by the galaxy's magnetic field, which in turn traces the direction of interstellar current flow in space near the sun. . .
A diffuse cloud of gas surrounds the Solar System. What is holding it together?
It is often stated that space is a vacuum. It is true that the material in space is at a far lower density than any vacuum that can be created on Earth, but matter does exist in the regions between stars and galaxies. The best pumped vacuums on Earth typically reach a 0.1 millimeter spacing between individual atoms.
Between stars, there is one atom per cubic centimeter, while in the Milky Way's galactic halo they are estimated to be ten centimeters apart. The regions of least density are in the intergalactic voids, where it is theorized that there is only one atom for every ten cubic meters.
The Interstellar Medium (ISM), through which the Solar System and all other star systems are moving, consists of a mass of gas and dust primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, with an admixture of dust grains that are less than one-tenth of a micron in size. One micron is equal to one-millionth of a meter, so the dust is almost as small as the frequency of blue light (0.450 microns).
The size of the dust particles means that blue light is scattered when it passed through the ISM, so more red light reaches Earth than it would without the dust. This phenomenon is called "interstellar reddening", and is the same effect that causes reddening of the sunrise and sunset. Dust clouds lit from the side by starlight appear blue, on the other hand, for the same reason that Earth's sky is blue: blue light is scattered by Earth's atmosphere.
What the dust is and where it came from is not known, but astrophysicists speculate that it is ejected from stars. Supergiant stars are often seen with immense clouds of dust surrounding them. However, deep space images also reveal dust lanes thousands of light-years in circumference looping around many galaxies.
One important characteristic of the ISM is that it contains ionized particles, as well as neutral molecules. It is those electrons and positive ions that are critical to understanding the behavior of the ISM and how the Solar System interacts with it.
Although the ISM is extremely diffuse, if charge separation takes place in different regions, a weak electric field will develop. An electric field, no matter how weak, will initiate an electric current. . . .
www.thunderbolts.info...
The positron is very well established, we do observe a particle with exactly the same properties as an electron but with positive charge, emitted during a magnesium 23 decay followed by a subsequent annihilation and 1.2 MeV gamma emission.
Explain the difference. Seems to me like we found the positron by looking and measuring, and it has the opposite charge as the electron and same mass. Are you suggesting calling it something other than antimatter would help somehow? It would still have the same properties.
poet1b
The existence of positrons could have a great deal more to do with other things than anti-matter. It is coming up with an idea, ANTI-MATTER, wow, and then looking for evidence to support the concept, rather than looking at what we observe and measure, and coming up with ideas as to how all of this fits together.
You can see the calculations explaining why at that link, not that you will understand them, but someone might.
If the Sun were actually powered by these currents, we would have a lot of dead astronauts.
Arbitrageur
Explain the difference. Seems to me like we found the positron by looking and measuring, and it has the opposite charge as the electron and same mass. Are you suggesting calling it something other than antimatter would help somehow? It would still have the same properties.
poet1b
The existence of positrons could have a great deal more to do with other things than anti-matter. It is coming up with an idea, ANTI-MATTER, wow, and then looking for evidence to support the concept, rather than looking at what we observe and measure, and coming up with ideas as to how all of this fits together.
reply to post by Mary Rose
One of the ways EU proponents keep people confused is they occasionally insert some true statements in with other statements that contradict observation. I don't see any contradiction with observation in a statement that weak electric fields can cause currents in a space plasma, and mainstream scientists have published papers about this topic. However note that when such electric fields form, and the current flows, the effect of the charged particles moving is to cancel the electric field, unless there is a power source that maintains the electric field. Astronauts could be subjected to weak electric currents that could make them "twitch" (aka " involuntary motor response") and this is in mainstream research:
On the Modeling of Electrical Effects Experienced by Space Explorers During Extra Vehicular Activities: Intracorporal Currents, Resistances, and Electric Fields
If you want to learn more about the REAL electric universe, you can read that and other articles like it. Try searching for:
electric currents in space
at this search site: www.science.gov...
There is a real electric universe, it's just not the one Don Scott and Wal Thornhill are lying to you about (which isn't even the same lie by the way, they both have different lies).
I got over 35,000 hits.
The problem with the electric sun idea is that the sun cannot be powered by a weak electric current because it doesn't have a "weak output", rather the output is known and measured to be quite large, and therefore the amount of current that would be needed to power an electric sun can be calculated, and further we know how to spot such a current because it would emit electromagnetic radiation at various frequencies, and we have telescopes looking at the sky in a wide range of EM frequencies, and we see no evidence of such a powerful current going into or coming out of the sun.
Getting back to the effect of electric currents on astronauts, if the sun was powered by electric current, then the astronaut who repaired the Hubble Space telescope would be dead, as calculated here:
Death by Electric Universe. II. EU's Unsolvable Problem
You can see the calculations explaining why at that link, not that you will understand them, but someone might.
If the Sun were actually powered by these currents, we would have a lot of dead astronauts.
edit on 15-3-2014 by Arbitrageur because: clarification
poet1b
reply to post by Mary Rose
This interstellar boundary follows along with the observation that when plasma is created in a laboratory, it forms like a living cell, with a nucleus and a membrane. On the stellar level, the sun would be the nucleus, and pioneer has discovered the membrane. This is just my take, but this is all new information.
While they see dust, I see plasma, and I consider that there could a lot more matter than the plasma we are seeing, we just can't detect it yet.
Mary Rose
It brought up an article, "The Interstellar Medium" dated Jan 11, 2010
According to a recent press release, there is an unexpected cloud of gas and dust that is encompassing the Sun's heliosheath. Prior to the discovery, conventional understanding did not predict that it would be there because high pressure supernova shockwaves should have blown it away.
However, according to Merav Opher of George Mason University: "Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the Solar System. This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all."
On August 20, 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 2 mission on a multiyear journey to the outer Solar System. Voyager 1 was launched on a faster, shorter trajectory on September 5, 1977. Voyager 1 passed through the Sun's termination shock in December 2004. Voyager 2, traveling a different path, did the same in August 2007. It was data from those "old-timers" that provided the information for Opher's assessment of the ISM.
What is the heliosheath? When Voyager 1 experienced "unusual events" as it approached the boundary between the Sun and interstellar space, Electric Universe advocate Wal Thornhill explained that the spacecraft was entering a "double layer", or Langmuir plasma sheath between the solar plasma and the plasma of the ISM.
It is a well-known principle that electric currents generate magnetic fields. Since Opher's research team has found magnetic fields strong enough to hold tenuous clouds of gas and dust together against the influence of hypothetical supernova explosions, then electric currents must be flowing through the ISM in order to create those fields.
Whenever an electric discharge takes place in plasma, the current flow is compressed inward by induced magnetic fields. This effect is known as a "z-pinch", and is a foundational principle of Electric Universe theory. The compression can be so intense that plasma is squeezed down into solid particles. Indeed, stars and galaxies are thought to owe their existence to massive electric currents forming cosmic z-pinches in the vast clouds of plasma that make up 99% of the Universe.
In conclusion, the ultra-fine dust, magnetic fields, influences on spacecraft, and the heliosheath, itself, are all manifestations of the electric force. Electricity will eventually supplant gravitational theory as the primum mobile of existence. Meanwhile, patient observations continue to support Electric Universe concepts.
Stephen Smith
Arbitrageur
There is a real electric universe, it's just not the one Don Scott and Wal Thornhill are lying to you about (which isn't even the same lie by the way, they both have different lies).