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A Beginner's View of Our Electric Universe - New

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Consider the electricity available around us. Have you ever seen a powerful<br />

electric welding spark or a simple electric fuse wire blow in a sudden flash<br />

at home? If you have, then you will know that there certainly seems to be<br />

a lot <strong>of</strong> instantaneous energy involved. This is because significant levels <strong>of</strong><br />

electric current will vaporise metal and send debris flying as sparks in all<br />

directions. It can also result in surrounding surfaces becoming blackened<br />

with fine soot and splattered with tiny metal spheres. This may be the only<br />

evidence left behind when an old fashioned fuse wire ‘blows’ in the home,<br />

for it is common for those wire safety devices to totally disintegrate.<br />

That example is on a tiny scale but it highlights the effect that electric<br />

currents have when allowed to flow instantly and in great quantity. We need<br />

also to keep in mind that this example would involve only a few amps <strong>of</strong> electric current at the level we use<br />

in the domestic setting and not at the scales <strong>of</strong> millions and possibly billions <strong>of</strong> amps <strong>of</strong> current that would<br />

be released in space. Now consider the potential effect <strong>of</strong> those exceptionally dense Birkeland currents on a<br />

planetary scale. The idea <strong>of</strong> these operating within our solar system could easily provoke a mental picture <strong>of</strong><br />

great damage being done to the surfaces <strong>of</strong> our planets and moons. We would not need to expand this picture<br />

much further to also appreciate that material broken up by these currents and ionised could also be removed<br />

from the surfaces <strong>of</strong> comets and asteroids by such EM forces. Is it not then likely that the craters, channels,<br />

ridges and other geological features seen on comets and asteroids, might also be products <strong>of</strong> this process?<br />

The concept <strong>of</strong> an asteroid or comet-like body being<br />

‘machined’ by a Birkeland current © author<br />

This is the type <strong>of</strong> event that indeed seems to happen<br />

when comets get near the Sun and become electrically<br />

over-stressed or when they get too close to other charged<br />

bodies that have vastly different charge levels. It surely<br />

appears through logic and observation to be the case<br />

that when voltage difference between areas <strong>of</strong> a comet’s<br />

negative surface and its surrounding positive environment<br />

is great enough, then classic Birkeland currents will spin<br />

up from their surfaces to produce with powerful ease and<br />

also gentle erosion, the range <strong>of</strong> features we see.<br />

132 | The <strong>Electric</strong> <strong>Universe</strong> answers I see<br />

<strong>Electric</strong> Arc Welding © www.electrical-picture.com

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