Excellent and informative thread - 5*
Yep. That's it. That's all they've ever offered pre-event. They aren't very good at prediction, but they are crackerjack at postdiction as described by your recap of the Deep Impact mission where DI wasn't destroyed by Giant Space Welding Arcs™.
This time they are predicting 'Something New Will Be Found'™ and if it is and it involves the words "new", "unusual", "unknown", "electric", "magnetic", etc. they will declare VICTORY.
Why, it may even involve troubles in the mission.
If there are any troubles in the mission, they will declare VICTORY™ because they predicted them.
Transmitter failure? - EC Victorious!
Computer glitch? - EC Victorious!
Any failure or glitch? - EC Victorious!
Giant Space Welding Arcs™? ... errrrrr, ignore that one.
I mean, it's not like the Rosetta Mission was sent to a comet to discover something new, was it? Scientists already know everything about comets.
They never expect to find anything New™. All those instruments are on there only for the weight.
The Rosetta mission wasn't sent to discover anything new, it is just scientist's way of wasting a pile of excess budget monies giving a lot of expensive hardware a nice vacation trip to a comet.
It takes real Outside-the-Box Thinkers like the Thunderdolts to predict Something New Will Be Discovered as, obviously, the mainstream scientists are oblivious to this possibility.
Have fun.
R.
kOOks lie. Constantly. It's part of the job description.
Quoting: Reality420 Glad you like the thread. I had always assumed that guys behind electric universe would actually believe in their stuff, but their unwillingness to make predictions about huge dielectric breakdown events makes me think otherwise now. I admit I knew very little about them and their stories compared to you.
It all looks so cynical and grubby now. They have a $750 workshop coming up to learn what skill I wonder? EU believers ( not marketers ) do look like cult members. It seems nothing can falsify their belief system, so a lack of lightning boltzz from 67P will not be a problem for them. I have had more than one conversation with them where I have asked simple questions about what EU means/implies/predicts, they have no idea but they do know they believe in it.
As far as I am concerned, there is one central axiom of electric comet and that is that comets hold and maintain huge charge differentials to other solar system bodies and that results in dramatic and obvious discharge events, no lesser proof will do. So I have calculated the pd necessary to make lightning boltzz today, based on field emission discharge in a high vacuum and the distance of the spacecraft to the comet. I stick that number in the thread title. No thudingbolts yet but we can only hope. By next week Rosetta will be within 30km of the surface.
It will be interesting to see what is discovered about the physical properties of the comet.
Perhaps one of the better explanations of what cometary surfaces may be like that I've come across was along this line:
If you live in a snowy area a comet may be similar to the snowbank along the side of the road after there's been a long spell of clear weather.
The snow bank has gained a black crust on its surface from the melting/evaporating snow leaving behind the sand/ashes which were spread by the sanding trucks.
The only difference is that comets are thought to generally have a majority of dust/sand/gravel and a lot of empty air space in the snowy ices that make up the rest. Also, comets may have an organic tar-like residue from the small %age of organics they contain.
It should be interesting to learn what Rosetta discovers.
Have fun.
R.
kOOks lie. &c., &c.
Quoting: Reality420 Good analogy.
Its interesting to note that Whipple in his 1950 paper on 2P/Encke states; "Vaporization of the ices leaves an outer matrix of non-volatile insulating meteoric material" In other words the surface of comets are dry and dusty. So anyone who picked up the journalist phrase "dirty snowball" and expected to see an iceberg in space can't blame Fred Whipple.
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link to adsabs.harvard.edu]
As for the very dark organic residues, Fred Jansen in the talk this week described 67P as being "blacker than the blackest t-shirt you can buy in a shop".
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link to www.youtube.com]
The albedo is around 4%, about 1/3 that of the Moon. In the night sky of course 67P would still be bright but here is a mock up of it on the edge of Earth's atmosphere by day.
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link to i.imgur.com]
As for what Rosetta will add to the body of knowledge about comets, it's going to hugely expand, improve and correct our understanding. Although I suspect it won't have a happy ending for EC people.
K
