2015: The year of the missing gravitational waves
This year was not kind to gravitational wave researchers despite multiple experiments across various instruments both on Earth and in space. Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916 using his Theory of General Relativity. He theorized that gravitational waves carry energy away from accelerating masses in the form of gravitational radiation much like photons carry away energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. But because gravity is 1039 (yes, that’s a thousand trillion […]
Pluto’s unexpected surface and moons
The New Horizons mission team reported several unusual findings concerning Pluto this week at the 47th Annual Meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Among the biggest was the discovery of two large and distinct mountains that New Horizons geologists think could be recently active “cryovolcanoes”. So-called cryovolcanoes are thought to spew a semi-frozen slurry of water ice, nitrogen or other gases instead of fire, smoke and lava […]
Dark plasma?
This gizmag article is succinct in its description of a new model of dark matter published by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The LLNL is a United States research facility primarily known for its projects involving nuclear weapons, national security, super-computing and high energy physics. This “stealth dark matter” model proposes that dark matter is currently invisible in our cold universe because it has condensed into giant electrically-neutral super-particles held together under an unknown fundamental force of interaction. But under the extremely high […]
Rosetta spacecraft observes brightest jet from Comet 67/P
The European Space Agency (ESA) reports that on July 29 the Rosetta spacecraft observed the brightest and largest eruption from Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko to date. Several of the spacecraft’s instruments took measurements from a distance of 116 miles (186 km) and the results were very interesting. The Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) detected double the amount of carbon dioxide, quadruple the methane, and seven times the hydrogen sulfide detected just a couple […]
New Horizons spacecraft detects Pluto plasma tail
NASA reports that the New Horizons spacecraft has detected a tail of plasma streaming behind Pluto at a distance between 48,000 miles (77,000 km) and 68,000 miles (109,000 km). This plasma was detected by New Horizons’ Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument and is comprised of nitrogen ions that have escaped from Pluto’s thin atmosphere. It is theorized by NASA that “escaping molecules” are ionized by solar ultraviolet light, “picked up” by the solar wind, […]
New Horizons spacecraft experiences anomaly
NASA reports that the New Horizons spacecraft, now less than 10 days from its fly-by with Pluto, experienced an “anomaly” that resulted in a loss of communications on Saturday, July 4th at 1:54 pm EDT (17:54 UTC). Communications were reestablished a little over an hour later at 3:15 pm EDT (19:15 UTC) but the spacecraft has automatically put itself into “safe mode” because of the anomaly. NASA teams are working on a recovery plan but because the spacecraft is […]
Plasma Redshift in Hercules A (3C 348)
Treating gravity as the dominate force in the Universe and extragalactic redshifts as evidence of cosmic expansion creates a lot of unnecessary headaches for astrophysicists and cosmologists. A good example of this is an object posted in the gallery, galaxy 3C 348 and its radio loud core Hercules A. Mainstream scientists calculate that this galaxy’s spectral redshift of 0.155 z (z = (observed wavelength – rest wavelength)/(rest wavelength)) puts it at distance of over 2 […]
MAVEN spacecraft observes unexpected aurora and dust cloud
NASA reports that its Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft detected some unexpected auroral activity above the red planet for several days leading up to Christmas last year. The spacecraft, using its Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS), observed a bright ultraviolet glow spanning Mar’s northern hemisphere. Observations from the spacecraft’s Solar Energetic Particle instrument points to the Sun as the source for an energetic burst of electrons detected at the beginning of the aurora. MAVEN’s Langmuir Probe and Waves […]
About this Site
The primary purpose of this website is to display examples of plasma and their related electrical activity in the Universe, from the planetary scale to the galactic. Plasma, which is hot ionized particles, makes up 99.999% of all the matter in the Universe, so there are many observed examples available for display. I will continue to add more and more as time permits. Along with these examples I have included two sets of descriptions for […]
Lab Experiments
One of the greatest strengths of a plasma dominated model of the universe is its ability to be tested in laboratories here on Earth and even in space. This is very different from a gravity dominated Big Bang model of the universe full of invisible dark matter and energy and populated by black holes, pulsars and neutron stars. This model mainly exists as mathematical constructs based on otherwise unrelated observations which will never be able […]
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