Topics Include :-
- The Sun's Magnetic Field
- Differential Rotation
The Sun generates a complex magnetic field to form the interplanetary magnetic field. Although solar and terrestrial magnetic fields behave differently, during solar minimum the Sun's field, like Earth's, resembles that of an iron bar magnet, with great closed loops near the equator and open field lines near the poles. Scientists call such a field a "dipole." The Sun's dipolar field is about as strong as a refrigerator magnet, or 50 gauss (a unit of magnetic intensity).
Field strengths in sunspots are in the range 1000 - 4000 Gauss, with the stronger fields in the larger sunspots; this is much larger than the average 0.5 Gauss of the Earth's surface magnetic field. Diffuse magnetic fields of lesser strengths are also present all over the solar surface, with moderately strong (~ 100 Gauss) fields most often associated with plages.
Instead of a dipole field, the sun has a field made up of large numbers of localised flux elements spread throughout the outer layers of its globe. Nevertheless there are usually large areas of net polarity at the polar regions, with the north polarity being opposite the south.
During the minimum phase of a cycle, most of the surface magnetic fields form a pattern of mixed polarities. The polar regions, however, are covered by predominately unipolar fields that are of opposite polarity in each hemisphere and extend to latitudes of around 50 degrees.
With increasing activity, the mixed-polarity fields at lower latitudes are replaced by active regions and at higher latitude by the large-scale patterns of unipolar magnetic flux that develop as the active region magnetic fields decay and disperse. These large scale magnetic flux patterns appear to be transported systematically toward the poles by a random-walk dispersal mechanism, merdidional motions, differential rotation.
The net effect of this process in the rise of the cycle and into the maximum phase is a succession of large-scale patterns of magnetic flux of both polarities extending from the activity belts to higher latitudes. Those of the same polarity augment the polar fields, while those of opposite polarity cancel with and eventually reverse the polar fields during the sunspot cycle maximum.
As cycle activity declines, the unipolar fields in the polar regions increase in area and strength, while the large-scale unipolar fields are replaced by the time of sunspot minimum with patterns of mixed-polarity fields.
The magnetic field is primarily directed outward from the Sun in one of its hemispheres, and inward in the other. The thin layer between the different field directions is described as the neutral current sheet (ie. between the positive and negative layers). Since this dividing line between the outward and inward field directions is not exactly on the solar equator, the rotation of the Sun causes the current sheet to become "wavy", and this waviness is carried out into interplanetary space by the solar wind.
If you go to the SOHO website you can see daily images of the sunspots as in various formats.
Magnetograms are images of magnetic field polarity. They show regions of opposite ploarity.
Check the date against the solar cycle chart (right). 
The dots on a magnetogram indicate that the sun's field is scattered over the surface with apparently random polarity. When these are averaged, patches or sectors of alternate polarity are distinguished. Sectors are rooted in large scale regions of the photosphere, which have a net single polarity.
Near the equator the field is found to be divided into 2 to 4 sectors of alternate polarity. The sectors are rooted in large scale regions of the photosphere, which have a net single polarity. The interplanetary field mirrors these sector polarities.
The simple pattern [of a dipole field with magnetic field lines closed at the equator and opening emerging at higher altitudes, bending over equatorial loops, and extending radially above and below a neutral sheet at the magnetic equator] is disturbed by sectors of net single polarity in the photosphere which warp the neutral sheet. Instead of following a straight line along thee equator the neutral line at the solar surface waves to and fro across the equator in a very rough sinusoidal form between the +/- 40 deg. latitudes.
The pattern extends outward to produce the warped neutral sheet in interplanetary space. As the sun rotates, the warped boundary passes the earth at regular intervals giving an earth based impression of sectors of opposite magnetic polarity (depending on whether the neutral sheet passes above or below the earth.
Solar wind speed is low over any neutral line or sector boundary, and attains high speed away from such a boundary. If warps are great, a high speed stream will be observed when each sector passes by. These sectors are often filled by a coronal hole. Since large coronal holes are usually present at each pole, it may be that a major part of the solar wind flows from these holes.
The sun's photosphere rotates faster at the equator than the poles. This is called differential rotation. Although the earth doesn't have differential rotation, the wind and ocean currents in Earth's weather systems are similar and are said to be caused by a combination of the Earth's rotation and convection resulting in alternate bands.
C. E. R. Bruce proposed in 1944 that the Sun’s "photosphere has the appearance, temperature and spectrum of an electric arc; it has arc characteristics because it is an electric arc, or a large number of arcs in parallel." This discharge characteristic, he claimed, "accounts for the observed granulation of the solar surface."
The following Oahspe passage suggests these "arcs in parallel", or that which are viewed from earth telescopes as granulations, are like the "great lights" (Borealis) at the earth's magnetic poles, but acting "all around".
1.23. In the beginning of the earth‘s vortex, the current concentrated into its center, certain substances, where, by friction, the vortexya manifested in heat, so that when the congregation of materials of the earth‘s substance were together, they were as a molten mass of fire.
1.24. And for a long period of time after the fire disappeared, two great lights manifested, one at the north and one at the south.
1.25. Were the earth a central planet, like the sun, the light would have been all around, in which case it would have been called a photosphere.
1.26. By vortexya the earth was first formed as a ball of fire. By the same power (vortexya) the warmth of the surface of the earth is manufactured to this day.
The difference with the case of the earth would be that while the earth's entry point for vortexya would be only from the east and west [I assume], creating north and south poles, the sun's entry points come radially down to the spherical sun as rain falling towards the earth, and all around, simultaneously. In this case the sun is like a heliospheric anode acting like a focus for negative charge from all directions of the heliosphere, so creating, collectively, a coronal glow discharge or 'anode glow', which becomes the bright photosphere, as has been hypothosized as follows:
In 1972, Juergens suggested that the Sun is not an electrically isolated body in space, but the most positively charged object in the solar system, the center of a radial electric field lying within a larger galactic field, hypothesising an external power source of the Sun.
Juergens felt that a glow discharge tube, in particular the anode and 'anode glow', shared characteristics with the Sun (the anode) and its atmosphere (the anode glow). Also, that the Sun's "granules might be akin to certain highly luminous tufts of discharge plasma variously described as anode glows, anode tufts, and anode arcs".
Irving Lanmuir described anode glows as plasma sheaths:
"as we decrease the size of an anode in a tube the sheath breaks down and an anode glow appears usually in the form of a sharply defined globular or semispherical region several times more highly luminous that the surrounding region."
"With anodes of small size compared to the tube diameter strong ionization occurs and the anode sheath breaks down. A ball or sharply defined region of intense glow thus appears on the anode"
Physicist Wal Thornhill has noted that an extended postive column has similarities to interplanetary space. Electrical engineer J. D. Cobine writes that, "The positive column is a region of almost equal concentrations of positive ions and electrons and is characterized by a very low voltage gradient".
The positive column also features a weak radial electric field which may explain the anomalous deceleration of the Pioneer spacecraft.
Juergens proposed that the Sun is the focus of a "coronal glow discharge" fed by galactic currents. Throughout most of the volume of a glow discharge the plasma is nearly neutral, with almost equal numbers of protons and electrons. The charge differential at the Earth’s distance from the Sun is smaller than our present ability to measure—perhaps one or two electrons per cubic meter. But the charge density is far higher closer to the Sun, and at the solar corona and surface, the electric field is of sufficient strength to generate all of the energetic phenomena we observe.
Closer looks at the Sun have revealed the pervasive influence of magnetic fields, which are the effect of electric currents. Sunspots, prominences, coronal mass ejections, and other features imply an anode in a coronal glow discharge behaviour. The Sun is the anode or positively charged body in the electrical exchange, while the negatively charged contributor is the invisible “virtual cathode” at the limit of the Sun’s coronal discharge, just as coronal discharges are sometimes seen as a glow surrounding high-voltage transmission wires, where the wire discharges into the surrounding air.
A corona discharge is an electrical discharge brought on by the ionization of a fluid surrounding a conductor, which occurs when the potential gradient (the strength of the electric field) exceeds a certain value, but conditions are insufficient to cause complete electrical breakdown or arcing.
A corona develops when a sustained current from an electrode with a high potential in a neutral fluid, usually air, ionizes that fluid so as to create a plasma around the electrode. When the potential gradient is large enough at a point in the fluid, the fluid at that point ionizes and it becomes conductive.
If a charged object has a sharp point, the air around that point will be at a much higher gradient than elsewhere. Air near the electrode can become ionized (partially conductive), while regions more distant do not. When the air near the point becomes conductive, it has the effect of increasing the apparent size of the conductor. Since the new conductive region is less sharp, the ionization may not extend past this local region. Outside of this region of ionization and conductivity, the charged particles slowly find their way to an oppositely charged object and are neutralized.
If the geometry and gradient are such that the ionized region continues to grow instead of stopping at a certain radius, a completely conductive path may be formed, resulting in a momentary spark, or a continuous arc.
Corona discharge usually involves two asymmetric electrodes; one highly curved (such as the tip of a needle, or a small diameter wire) and one of low curvature (such as a plate, or the ground). The high curvature ensures a high potential gradient around one electrode, for the generation of a plasma.
Coronas may be positive or negative. This is determined by the polarity of the voltage on the highly-curved electrode. The physics of positive and negative coronas are strikingly different. This asymmetry is a result of the great difference in mass between electrons and positively charged ions, with only the electron having the ability to undergo a significant degree of ionising inelastic collision at common temperatures and pressures. An important reason for considering coronas is the production of ozone around conductors undergoing corona processes. A negative corona generates much more ozone than the corresponding positive corona.
Applications of corona discharge include improving wetability or 'surface tension energy' of polymer films to improve compatibility with adhesives. Kirlian photography uses photons produced by the discharge to expose photographic film. An electrical discharge (a spark) splits an oxygen molecule into two oxygen atoms. (Electrical discharge is also referred to as corona discharge.) These unstable oxygen atoms combine with other oxygen molecules. This combination forms ozone.
Any separation of charge in space is quickly neutralized as electrons rush to neutralize the charge imbalance. As a result, electricity in space is almost never mentioned, except as a transient effect. It is always assumed that there is a source of electrons to meet any deficiency and that they can be supplied faster than the charging process. However, space is a far better vacuum than any we can achieve on Earth, so the assumption that there are sufficient electrons available may not be true. And where there are sufficient electrons, in their rush to neutralize the electric field they may undergo the magnetic “Z pinch” effect that cuts off the current at some maximum value before recovering and beginning the cycle once more. Observations of energetic activity in space on all scales show this kind of “bursty” behavior. An example was a mysterious X-ray ‘hot spot’ that flares up like a beacon every 45 minutes at Jupiter. In our electric universe the forces between charged objects is of the same form as Newton's equation, with charge replacing mass. The BIG difference is that the electrical force is about 10^39 times stronger than gravity. An electric field in space can give rise to electric discharge phenomena like those seen in a low-pressure gas. Examples are the neon tube and the aurora.
This is a diagram showing a discharge tube with all of the important features annotated above the tube. In the Sun’s huge environment, the only bright regions are very close to the Sun because the energy density is too low to excite a glow. Below the tube are graphs showing the variation of important variables along the tube length. The discharge tube demonstrates complexity of electric discharges in near vacuum. And there floated within etherea certain types of densities, called ji‘ay, a‘ji, and nebula, which sometimes augmented the size of the traveling corporeal worlds, and sometimes illumed them on the borders of the vortices, and these corporeal worlds were called photospheres, because they were the places of the generation of light.
3.3 ... As you see the power of the whirlwind gathering up the dust of the earth, and driving it together, know that likewise I bring together the ji‘ay, a‘ji and nebulae in the firmament of heaven; by the power of the whirlwind I create the corporeal suns, moons and stars. And man named the whirlwinds according to their shape, calling them vortices and wark ...
6.5. These that you saw are the ji‘ay, the a‘ji, and the nebulae; and amid them, in places, there is se‘mu also. Let no man say: Over there is hydrogen only, and over here, oxygen only. All the elements are to be found not only in places close by, but in distant places also.
04/6.6. When the Father drives forth His worlds in the heavens, they gather a sufficiency of all things. And when a corporeal world is yet new and young it is carried forth not by random, but purposely, in the regions suited to it. Accordingly, as there is a time for se‘mu; and a time for falling nebulae to bury deep the forests and se‘muan beds, to provide coal and manure for a time afterward; so is there a time when the earth passes a region in the firmament when sand and oil are rained upon it, then covered up, and gases bound and sealed for the coming generations of men.
The electrical model predicts that additional anomalies will be found when a spacecraft encounters the heliopause. Pioneer 10 is now 7.4 billion miles from Earth, maybe 90 percent of the way to the heliopause. The heliopause is the “cathode drop” region of the Sun’s electrical influence. It is a region of strong radial electric field, which will tend to decelerate the spacecraft more strongly. Almost the full difference between the Sun’s voltage and that of the local arm of the galaxy is present across the heliopause boundary. As a result, it is the region where so-called “anomalous” cosmic rays are generated by the strong field.
Spiral arms of a galaxy must carry the electric current that lights the stars. The force between parallel currents varies inversely with distance, instead of the much more rapid fall-off of gravity with the square of the distance. The result is that the longest-range force law in the universe governs galactic motions, and short-range repulsion maintains the integrity of the spiral arms.
A star is a pinpoint object at the center of a vast plasma sheath. The plasma sheath forms the boundary of the electrical influence of the star, where it meets the electrical environment of the galaxy.
In the immense volume of the heliosphere an unmeasurably small drift of electrons toward the Sun and ions away from the Sun (the solar wind) can satisfy the electrical power required to light the Sun. It is only when we get very close to the Sun that the current density becomes appreciable and plasma discharge effects become visible. The enigma of the Sun’s millions-of-degrees corona above a relatively cold photosphere is solved when the Sun’s power comes from the galaxy and not the center of the Sun.
It is clear from the behavior of its relatively cool photosphere that the Sun is an anode, or positively charged electrode, in a galactic discharge. The red chromosphere is the counterpart to the glow above the anode surface in a discharge tube. When the current density is too high for the anode surface to accommodate, a bright secondary plasma forms within the primary plasma. It is termed “anode tufting.” On the Sun, the tufts are packed together tightly so that their tops give the appearance of “granulation.”
The modern belief is that the granules are "the changing tops of convection currents bringing light and heat from an unstable layer beneath. The enormous flood of radiant energy generated within the sun pours forth at last into space".
A granule may be viewed as a relatively dense, highly luminous, secondary plasma that springs into being in the embrace of a thinner, less luminous, primary plasma.
The electric-sun hypothesis assigns the sun the role of anode (the higher-potential electrode) in a cosmical electric discharge. The term anode glow is applied to the formation of a continuous, glowing "skin" or "film" of plasma-like sheathing on an anode surface. There are similarities between anode tufts and photospheric granules. Anode tufts appear at localized points of electric breakdown in an anode sheath. When the electric current to the anode becomes excessive, breakdown - further ionization of the medium - takes place, and "a second plasma will form within the first".
To follow Langmuir's argument, we must first recall that the particles of matter in a discharge plasma have two kinds of motion. First are the random (thermal) motions reflected in the "temperatures" of the several populations of particles: electrons, positive ions and electrically neutral atoms and molecules. Typically, electrons, the least massive of all these particles, have the highest random velocities.
In addition to the thermal motions, and superimposed upon them, there are drift motions among the electrically charged particles in response to weak electric fields that pervade the plasma regions of any electric discharge. The electrons "sense" these electric fields of the discharge and tend to drift toward the anode. Positive ions tend to drift in the opposite direction, away from the anode and toward the cathode. This combined drift of negative charges in one direction and positive charges in the other direction constitutes a drift current - the entire electric current of the discharge through the plasma.
To maintain a steady discharge, the anode must collect an uninterrupted stream of electrons whose electric current, or flow of charge per unit time, equals the total drift current in the full cross section of the discharge plasma. (The discharge "cross-section" may be thought of as a closed, spherical surface in space, outside the Sun at some distance beyond the reach of "anode" phenomena; say, arbitrarily, at perhaps a few solar radii from the photosphere.)
Now, the random motions of the plasma electrons are usually much more energetic (faster) than their drift motions. In any case, they complicate matters for an anode bent on maintaining a stable discharge.
Suppose, for example, that the area of the anode surface equalled the plasma cross-section. (For the Sun, this would mean that the interplanetary plasma extended all the way to the solar "surface".) If the anode were in direct contact with the plasma, it would tend to receive not only the electron drift current but also a random current delivered by those electrons whose thermal motions within the plasma happened to be toward the anode at a given instant. With the electron random current exceeding the drift-current component due to the positive ions (moving in the opposite direction), the total current collected by the anode would be more than the discharge could sustain, and an instability would result. (This suggests, perhaps, one possible explanation for the highly variable behavior of certain stars.)
The remedy is for the anode to disengage itself from the plasma. Initially, it accepts a certain number of excess electrons and takes on a slightly negative charge (relative to the plasma) - a slightly lower relative potential - which repels all but the most energetic of the electrons approaching thereafter. The anode adjusts its potential to a value that permits the further arrival of only enough electrons to deliver a current equalling that carried by the discharge plasma. Rejected electrons return to the plasma, leaving behind a thin sheath of positive space charge - a region "overpopulated" by positive ions - between the plasma and the anode surface.
Due to this adjustment, the anode electric potential is now somewhat lower than that of the plasma being held at bay. The region that Langmuir named the sheath bridges the distance between anode and plasma, as well as the difference in potential between them. The sheath thus "contains" (limits) the electric field due to the excess negative charge on the anode. In other words, the positive space charge of the sheath counterbalances the excess negative charge taken on by the anode in making its adjustment.
W. P. Allis has described the tufting process as raising the anode potential with respect to the primary plasma, thus increasing the discharge current while keeping the anode surface area constant. As the anode potential is raised past the excitation level of the gas, the electrons approaching the anode have enough energy to excite the gas, and a sheath of anode glow forms. Then as the current is raised still further the anode voltage suddenly drops. It decreases while the current increases, and a tufted anode is formed.
Stars with a thermonuclear core are not likely to be stable.
The tufted plasma sheath above the stellar anode seems to be the cosmic equivalent of a ‘PNP transistor,’ a simple electronic device using small changes in voltage to control large changes in electrical power output. The tufted sheath thus regulates the solar discharge and provides stability of radiated heat and light output, while the power to the Sun varies throughout the sunspot cycle.
The Sun is a variable X-ray star; it is fortunate for us that the variability is not reflected in the energy flux in the visible. We rely on the Sun to shine steadily. The variation in light and heat is measured to be a fraction of one percent from year to year. Yet the Sun is a variable star when viewed in X-rays. And X-rays are emitted where electrical activity is most intense.
This ability of the Sun’s plasma sheath to modulate the solar current was demonstrated dramatically in May 1999, when the solar wind stopped for two days. The bizarre event makes no sense if the solar wind is being ‘boiled off’ by the hot solar corona. But in electrical terms, its regulating plasma sheath performed normally and there was no noticeable change in the Sun’s radiant output.
Sunspots are a phenomenon that is not expected in the standard thermonuclear model of stars. “The very existence of sunspots is intriguing. They should be heated quickly from the sides and disappear. They should never have formed — but they do form.
Sunspots are a clearing of the tufts where a dark discharge from an equatorial plasma toroid encircling the Sun punches through them. The dark center, or umbra, of the sunspot shows the cooler temperature of the Sun beneath the bright plasma. The sunspot penumbra, in which we are looking at the sides of the “hole” punched through the tuft layer, shows the structure of the tufts. They are bright tornadic cylinders of plasma, thousands of kilometers long. Tornadoes are constrained by strong electromagnetic forces to be a slow form of lightning discharge. This explains why solar granulations last for about 10 minutes before slowly fading to be replaced by others.
If the main magnetic field that induces the surface currents is growing in strength, the surface current will point in one direction. If the main magnetic field weakens, the secondary surface currents will reverse direction.
Stars are like neon lights, gas discharge lamps and arc lights. The difference between these types of lights are the power density of the discharge and the location in the gas discharge path where most of the light comes from. For example, in a neon tube the light comes from the extensive plasma column between the electrodes at each end of the tube. In an arc light, the light is concentrated at the electrode. As the power of an arc light is increased its color changes from yellow-white to white to blue-white. The sharp discontinuities in the nature of the light from an electric discharge as it switches from a red glow to a bright arc explain many of the mysteries of starlight.
Astronomers use the Herzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram to categorize stars. It is a plot of the absolute brightness of stars against their spectral class (temperature). As you increase the current density to an electric arc, the light becomes brighter, hotter, and therefore bluer. In other words, the current density is responsible for both the luminosity (y-axis) and the color temperature (x axis) of the H-R diagram. That explains the near 45°slope of the so-called ‘main sequence’ stars in the corrected H-R diagram (right).
At the lower left-hand end of the main sequence, where the current density has such a low value that double layers (photospheric granules) are not needed by the plasma surrounding the (anode) star, we find the red dwarfs – small stars under low electrical stress, in which anode tufting is sparse and the light from the tufts is emitted at low energies, brown dwarfs and giant gas planets, toward the red end of the spectrum.
Recent discoveries of extremely cool L - Type and T - Type dwarfs has required the original diagram to be extended to the lower right. These 'stars' have extremely low absolute luminosity and temperature. The surface temperature of the T - Type dwarfs is in the range of 1000 K or less! T - Type spectra have features due mostly to Methane - they resemble Jupiter's spectrum. For fusion reactions to occur, standard theory requires that the temperature in a star's core must reach at least three million K. And because core temperature rises with gravitational pressure, the star must have a minimum mass of about 75 times the mass of the planet Jupiter, or about 7 percent of the mass of our sun. Many of the dwarfs do not meet these requirements. The X-ray telescope, Chandra, recently discovered an X-ray flare being emitted by a brown dwarf. A star this cool should not be capable of X-ray flare production.
An example is the nearby double star system of Sirius, which is the brightest star in the sky and one of the closest. Sirius also has a partner called Sirius B, a white dwarf. To our eyes, it is 10,000 times fainter than the primary star, Sirius A. However, when astronomers pointed the Chandra X-ray telescope at Sirius, in the the X-ray image (right), Sirius A was the lesser of the two lights. It is the reverse of what we see with human eyes.
Red stars cannot satisfy their hunger for electrons from the surrounding plasma. So the star expands the surface area over which it collects electrons by growing a large plasma sheath that becomes the effective anode in space. The growth process is self-limiting because, as the sheath expands, its electric field will grow stronger. Electrons caught up in the field are accelerated to ever-greater energies. Before long, they become energetic enough to excite neutral particles they chance to collide with, and the huge sheath takes on a uniform ‘red anode glow.’ It becomes a red giant star.
The electric field driving this process will also give rise to a massive flow of positive ions away from the star, a prodigious stellar wind. Indeed, such mass loss is a characteristic feature of red giants. Standard stellar theory is at a loss to explain this since the star is said to be too ‘cold’ to ‘boil off’ a stellar wind. So when seen in electric terms, instead of being near the end point of its life, a red giant may be a ‘child’ losing sufficient mass and charge to begin the next phase of its existence— on the main sequence.
Electric stars offer radically new ideas about life on other worlds and the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. A galactic source of electrical energy provides more possibilities for sustaining life in the universe than the lottery of finding an Earth-like planet orbiting in a narrow ‘habitable zone’ about a bright star like the Sun. The probability of the latter occurrence is very low. But with electric stars, we can turn to the most numerous stars in the galaxy as likely incubators of life — the brown ‘dwarfs’ —which are actually red in color. They could be described as ‘cosmic plasma eggs.’
Imagine giant Jupiter and its moons floating independently in deep space. Outside the Sun’s dominating electrical influence, Jupiter would become a dim electric star enclosed in the huge radiant red plasma shell of its ‘anode glow’ — a brown dwarf. Inside the glowing sheath is the most hospitable environment in the universe for life because the radiant energy received by each satellite is evenly distributed over its entire surface. There are no seasons, no tropics and no ice caps.
2.6. In the ALL HIGHEST places I created the etherean worlds, and I made them of all shapes and sizes, similar to My corporeal worlds. But I made the etherean worlds inhabitable both within and without, with entrances and exits, in arches and curves, thousands of miles high and wide; and in colors, movable chasms and mountains in endless change and brilliancy; and over them I ruled with ALL PERFECT mechanism. To them I gave motions, orbits and courses of their own; and I made them independent, and above all other worlds in potency and majesty.
[Plasma Cosmology Part 1 ]
[Part 2 ]
[Part 3 ]
[The Sun Part 4 ]
[The Magnetosphere Part 7]
[Bits and Pieces Part 8]
[Cosmogony and Pseudo-Science]
