Scientists using NASA's Swift Satellite have spotted
a stellar flare on a nearby star so powerful that, had
it been from our sun, it would have triggered a mass
extinction on Earth.
A stellar explosion on a scale previously unimaginable
for anything other than a supernova recently erupted
on a modest star (slightly less massive than the sun)
in a two-star system called II Pegasi
in the constellation Pegasus.
According to a NASA-Goddard news release, “It
was about a hundred million times more energetic than
the sun's typical solar flare, releasing energy equivalent
to about 50 million trillion atomic bombs.” Were
a comparable event to occur on the sun, it would result
in a mass extinction due to the outpouring of lethal
X-rays. The NASA report, however, adds a comforting
observation: “Fortunately, our sun is now a stable
star that doesn't produce such powerful flares.”
But this observation may seem a little less comforting
when one realizes that, while astronomers speculate,
they do not know what caused the event. Stellar instability,
whether occurring as coronal mass ejections on our sun,
the stellar flare of II Pegasi,
or a supernova, pose numerous unresolved mysteries for
astronomers simply because they ignore the electrical
influences external to the star in question.
The II Pegasi flare, though
vastly more energetic than any recorded coronal mass
ejection on our sun, produced the same acceleration
of the ejected charged particles as was first observed
in solar eruptions. It is a compelling pointer to the
existence of a powerful electric field in the chromosphere,
just above the star's photosphere. Such fields, driven
by galactic circuits, are easily able to accelerate
particles up to a significant fraction of the speed
of light. The most dramatic example of this occurred
on January 20, 2005, when the charged particles of a
massive solar eruption were accelerated along the spiral
magnetic field between the Sun and Earth to velocities
approaching one quarter the speed of light by the time
they reached the Earth.
Particle acceleration is only half the story. Astronomers
detected “hard” x-rays, which they euphemistically
call “non-thermal” radiation. It is better
known as synchrotron radiation, and it is only produced
by electrons traveling at appreciable fractions of lightspeed
in a strong magnetic field. It can be produced in laboratories—with
electricity. Gravity or hot gas doesn’t come close.
In disregarding the laws of electricity, physicists
can offer no plausible mechanisms of gravity or gas
dynamics to explain such accelerations. They postulate
“non-electrical” mechanisms for cosmic synchrotron
radiation by extrapolating mechanical equations far
beyond the domain in which those equations have been
tested. They get away with this only because space probes
can’t check on them.
High-energy flares on the sun arise from the breakdown
of the current-regulating plasma sheath of the photosphere.
The resulting "short circuit" causes the bright
X-ray flash and acceleration of photospheric matter
in the powerful electric field of the chromosphere.
In the case of the II Pegasi
explosion, the flash of X-rays was sufficient to overwhelm
Swift’s X-Ray Telescope. In the quiet Sun, this
same field of the photospheric sheath accelerates protons
into the corona, where they collide with the coronal
plasma and raise its temperature to millions of degrees.
The high energy of the II Pegasi
flare is beyond the range of energies normally produced
by gravity and gas mechanisms, but it is well within
the range of electrical interactions. Astronomers are
shocked only because they touched the “live wire”
of cosmic plasma without donning the insulating gloves
of electric plasma theory.
Caption: A powerful coronal mass ejection. But the energy
of this event cannot compare to a spectacular stellar
eruption recently observed in space.
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