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Space

Telescope Offers 'Clearest View Yet' of Milky Way - Including Plasma Filaments (ska.ac.za) 169

Posted by EditorDavid from the final-frontiers dept.
Chris Reeve writes: The MeerKAT radio telescope was inaugurated in South Africa this past Friday, revealing the clearest view yet of the center of the Milky Way. What is especially surprising about the produced image are the numerous prominent filaments which seem to appear in the foreground.

Herschel made a similar announcement just three years prior that "Observations with ESA's Herschel space observatory have revealed that our Galaxy is threaded with filamentary structures on every length scale." Intriguingly, close inspection of yesterday's SKA image show these filaments twisting around one another, yet without combining — a phenomenon observable in most novelty plasma globes when the filaments are conducting electricity... The SKA telescopes is one of the first telescopes to witness these filaments because it is 50 times more powerful than any former telescope, but also because it is apparently one of the few telescopes which can observe dark mode plasmas. For these reasons, the SKA telescope will inevitably revive the debate over the underlying physical reasons for filaments which exhibit coherent thin magnetic structure over light-year distances.
The original submission included a comment with more information about the theory of a plasma universe.
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Telescope Offers 'Clearest View Yet' of Milky Way - Including Plasma Filaments More

Telescope Offers 'Clearest View Yet' of Milky Way - Including Plasma Filaments

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  • Electric Universe (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14, 2018 @06:52PM (#56948888)

    Galactic scale magnetic fields... Is this why stars don't orbit galaxies at the velocities predicted by gravitation alone? Perhaps this will ultimately put an end to dark matter hocus pocus.

    • Re:Electric Universe (Score:5, Informative)

      by meglon ( 1001833 ) on Saturday July 14, 2018 @10:15PM (#56949566)
      You forgot to sign in Chris.

      Look, i know you electric universe dipshits have to keep pumping the con to keep the money coming in, but every little thing in the universe where electricity actually shows up doesn't prove you're con is anything more than bullshit.

      Einstein was right, and we have the WORKING technology based on his theory (an ACTUAL theory) to prove it. The Earth isn't only 6000 years old, and the grand canyon wasn't made from a super lightning bolt.... it was eroded over a lot more than 6000 years. Electric universe is bullshit.

      • Re:Electric Universe (Score:5, Informative)

        by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Saturday July 14, 2018 @11:15PM (#56949732) Homepage

        Damn you slashdot! I read the first post and saw that someone might have an answer for dark matter. I never really liked the dark matter answer ether. I thought Cool

        But I've never heard of this "Electric universe" theory. I did a quick google search and now I know why. First name I saw associated with the theory, Immanuel Velikovsky.

        Now I know why I have never heard of it. I came in here hoping for a sound scientific theory, only to leave with a pseudo scientific pile of bullshit. I can't even fertilize my petunias with this bullshit.

        • I can't even fertilize my petunias with this bullshit.

          That is one advantage of analog over digital.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Charles Proteus Steinmetz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and the field of magnetic hysteresis.

    • Galactic scale magnetic fields... Is this why stars don't orbit galaxies at the velocities predicted by gravitation alone? Perhaps this will ultimately put an end to dark matter hocus pocus.

      Science does not work the way of "hocus pocus". I practically guarantee, that the Nobel awaits anyone, who would explain dark matter phenomenon. It's not like scientists force upon each other explanations. Any publication or scientific grant proposal is reviewed by peers, who do research in the same field and are direct competitors for research grants, places in renowned journals etc. - so, when some ideas go through such a sieve it's very likely they have merit.

      Going back to the topic: there are more thin

      • Re: "Scientists are very competitive by nature and they pursue all sound ideas."

        You might try reading actual critiques of modern science, like The Twilight of the Scientific Age:

        "Creativity is blocked. It seems that the system gives the message that no ideas are needed. It seems the system, through its higher authorities, is saying that science only needs to work out the details. It is accepted that the basis of what is now known is correct, that present-day theories are more or less correct and only manpow

        • Firstly, we are talking about dark matter aka "hocus-pocus", to, which I explained that it's not like this at all, that scientists stumbled upon something they cannot explain, that they are pursuing all the sound ideas and that there is much more evidence of unexplained gravity than just speed of stars in galaxies, and that based on data the most probable explanation is dark matter as yet not discovered particle.

          Secondly, I will read the mentioned article, however despite the fact that science is not a per

          • Re: "Lastly, evidence does not support conclusions from the article, scientific books are being rewritten with revolutionary ideas much more then in the past: general relativity (time is not constant), quantum theory (all is waves of probability), quantum chromodynamics, expansion of the Universe, black holes, evaporating black holes, cosmic microwave background radiation, string theory, quantum field theory, gravitational waves, accelerating expansion of the Universe, Higgs field and Higgs bozon - if this

  • 50 times more sensitive?
    Angular separation?
    Wide spectrum?
    Post-radio computer processing power?
    I don't like the word "powerful" if you aren't talking horsepower or something.

  • The Milky Way pics are always from the side of the Galaxy - they really should take a picture from above or below.

    • I'd be happier with a wider view field of now that we know the real diameter is bigger than the traditional 100,000 light year diameter..

      They could just use the "uncrop" button on existing picture.

  • All bullshit (Score:4, Informative)

    by meglon ( 1001833 ) on Saturday July 14, 2018 @10:32PM (#56949616)
    https://motherboard.vice.com/e... [vice.com]

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nz7neg/electric-universe-theory-thunderbolts-project-wallace-thornhill

    "Electric universe" theory is at odds with everything modern science has determined about the universe.

    In physics, theories need math. That's how you predict, gather evidence, verify, disprove, and support. But EU theory isn't big on math. In fact, "Mathematics is not physics," Thornhill said. While that equation aversion makes the theory pretty much a nonstarter for "mainstream" astronomers, it is the exact thing that appeals to many adherents.

    "At best, the 'electric universe' is a solution in search of a problem; it seeks to explain things we already understand very well through gravity, plasma and nuclear physics, and the like," said astronomer Phil Plait, who runs the blog Bad Astronomy at Slate. "At worst it's sheer crackpottery like homeopathy and astrology, making claims clearly contradicted by the evidence."

    Lets get that again from a real scientist:

    making claims clearly contradicted by the evidence

    Electric universe is bullshit.

    • Yes that extra little bit about plasma universe was unnecessary and added by shill for that theory

      The filaments (having no similarity whatsoever with discharges inside globe toy nor with lightning) though are real and were discovered in mid 80s.

      • Re: "The filaments (having no similarity whatsoever with discharges inside globe toy nor with lightning) though are real and were discovered in mid 80s."

        Filamentation is a fundamental aspect of plasmas conducting charged particles, and has been observed countless times in all sorts of plasma laboratories. The novelty plasma globe has been pointed to simply because the public will be most familiar with it.

        Filamentation was also the most important prediction by Nobel laureate Hannes Alfven insofar as it dist

    • Electric universe is bullshit.

      Their assertions are complete bullshit. There is a reason they make those assertions, and that is where things get interesting.

      Pretty much everyone agrees that at The Beginning, their was nothing but energy. It is explained as being at a single point, no mass, no space. Assuming that is correct:

      Energy, for whatever reason, "knotted" or "condensed" into 'matter'. When energy became 'matter' it forced the creation of the 'compliment' of mass, which is what we call spacetime. Spacetime is a field. A field of e

      • Re: "Pretty much everyone agrees that at The Beginning, their was nothing but energy."

        The origin of this idea is clearly the Bible, no?

  • Obviously (Score:3)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Saturday July 14, 2018 @11:03PM (#56949698)

    the SKA telescope will inevitably revive the debate

    No Doubt.

  • a phenomenon observable in most novelty plasma globes

    So it turns out our universe is not a computer simulation....

    We're living in a novelty toy!

    • Funny people talk about simulation à la Matrix. If really "someone" created this kind of "simulation" our relatively very limited human brain capacity would be far from comprehending whatever it consists of.

      • . If really "someone" created this kind of "simulation" our relatively very limited human brain capacity would be far from comprehending

        I would be pretty concerned with what will happen to you when the guy who does the AI programming for our sim reads when you said about the quality of his work. :-)

  • Dummies, that's a sideways view of Kim Kardashian's vajayjay.

  • Wow!! (Score:2)

    by idji ( 984038 )
    I couldn't stop saying Wow, just Wow. This is truly stunning!
  • It's ironic that the MeerKAT telescope was designed to study black holes along with other things... as the electic universe bullshit says black holes don't exist.

    Einstein was right, and the electric universe bullshit is a con job. Thomas Roberts, Fermilab (you know, a real scientist):

    http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/... [ucr.edu]

    Note, however, that SR is not perfect (in agreement with every experiment), and there are some experiments that are in disagreement with its predictions. See Experiments that Apparently are not Consistent with SR where some of these experiments are referenced and discussed. It is clear that most, if not all, of these experiments have difficulties that are unrelated to SR. Note also that few if any standard references or textbooks even mention the possibility that some experiments might be inconsistent with SR, and there are also aspects of publication bias in the literature. That being said, as of this writing there are no reproducible and generally accepted experiments that are inconsistent with SR, within its domain of applicability.

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