THOTH A Catastrophics Newsletter VOL III, No. 13 Oct 15, 1999 EDITOR: Amy Acheson PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS QUOTE OF THE DAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Trevor Palmer GRAVITY VS. PLASMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Mel Acheson STAR WORDS . . . . . . . . . . . . ..by Ted Bond, Roger Wescott, Ev Cochrane, Dave Talbott STATE OF THE UNIVERSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Amy Acheson ACTION AT A DISTANCE . . . . . by Simon Tressman, Wal Thornhill SULFURIC ACID ON EUROPA . .NASA report, comments by Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- QUOTE OF THE DAY Whilst scientists will agree about certain key principles, they will, inevitably, have honest disagreements amongst themselves about matters of detail. In consequence, clever lawyers . . . can easily make it appear that 'the scientists' are in disarray. Yet, to those who care to think about it, that is one of science's greatest strengths. Only those who are not trying to learn from the evidence but to use it indiscriminately in support of a preconceived position can avoid such disagreements. Trevor Palmer, C&C Review, 1997:1 ---------------------------------------------- GRAVITY VS. PLASMA By Mel Acheson Kuhn's 1962 essay (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) exploring the nature of changes in scientific theories, and a plethora of commentaries since, have made it out to be a Big Deal and to be also somewhat mysterious: "revolution", "incommensurability of paradigms", "new world", etc. It seems to me the essence of it is simply different viewpoints. Just as the landscape looks different when viewed from different locations, the facts and theories of the sciences appear different when understood from different conceptual locations in the intellectual landscape. Ptolemy drew a picture of what the universe looked like from the Earth. Copernicus described how it looked from the Sun. Newton depicted the view from gravity. Notice that the terms "Earth", "Sun", and "gravity" are not "something out there" but are concepts that make sense of or create meaning from a selection of observations. Gravity, for example, made sense of falling apples and revolving planets. The other viewpoints "saw" no connection between apples and planets. Definitions changed: The observations once considered important in the term "planet" were replaced with other observations. New mathematical techniques were developed which would have seemed nonsensical to people occupying the old viewpoints. The resulting view of the "gravity universe" was that of isolated "billiard balls" occasionally perturbing each other. This replaced the old views of a system of nested spheres or an assembly of epicycles. Now the "Electric Universe" is a different viewpoint. Notice, for example, that its definition of "plasma" is not the conventional one of "ionized gas". That latter definition jumps to the conclusion that you can understand something about plasma by falling back on what you know about ideal gasses and thermal ionization. The ideal gas law is an important insight in the conventional view, but it becomes a blindfold in the electric view, preventing you from seeing what's before your eyes. Rather, "plasma" is an emergent (i.e., higher-level or statistical-level) orderliness of complex electrical forces: such properties as filamentation, long-range attraction and short-range repulsion, braiding, characteristic velocities, formation and decay of plasmoids, and identity of properties at different scales. The mathematical shorthand that was developed for articulating the gravity view and for using the technologies based on it doesn't work for the plasma view. A new mathematics-and new technologies-will need to be invented. The view of the universe from a plasma vantage point is one of persistently interacting aggregates with wide-spread resonance effects: a "driven" universe rather than one rolling to a stop. So the definitions are different, the facts are different, the math is different, the theories are different: The universe looks different because the plasma physicist is standing in a different conceptual location from the gravity physicist. And although the content of each paradigm can't be compared with the other, the respective viewpoints can be compared. B. J. F. Lonergan's 1957 work (Insight) on the nature of understanding provides one ground upon which different viewpoints can be compared. Theories come and go, but the underlying function, purpose, and construction of theories arise from the nature of cognition. As one of the ways in which people relate to the universe, cognition fashions intellectual tools-theories- to accomplish particular goals. Hence, from a selection of theories, one can be preferred on the basis of its utility value- the one which seems most likely to achieve the goal with the greatest efficiency and least effort. One criterion for the efficient achievement of the goal of understanding the universe is comprehensiveness. Again comparing the intellectual landscape with the physical, the higher the viewpoint the greater the purview. In this sense, Kuhn's process of periods of cumulation of knowledge within a paradigm separated by episodes of paradigm shifts can be understood as the progressive achievement of higher viewpoints affording greater purviews. Notice that from this understanding the often-used (and abused when applied outside a paradigm) judgements of "right/wrong", "correct/incorrect", even "true/false", are meaningless. Upon this ground for comparing viewpoints, the case can be made that the plasma paradigm is "higher" than the gravity one in that it encompasses a larger domain of evidence. Not only does it explain more phenomena, it explains those phenomena with a comprehensive and unitary theory. It "sees" more landscape, more features of that landscape, and more relationships among those features. Gravity, in contrast, "sees" fewer features and "sees" them as disparate events, each requiring a separate ad hoc explanation. For example, every feature on every planet has its own theory: impact craters, volcanoes, tidal cracks, floods of disappearing water, lava that runs uphill, runaway greenhouses, etc. The generality of gravity is obscured with ad hoc inventions, and those inventions fail to account for details intrinsic in the plasma view. Gravity fails to account for entire new observations, extrapolating itself beyond reality and into denial: Super-massive stars spinning super-fast, exploding stars whose shock-waves create intricate structures, cannibalistic galaxies, dark matter that overwhelms observed matter, photos cropped between galaxies and connected quasars, silence in the face of the quantization of redshifts, etc. More and more evidence is being ignored. Newton was unaware of plasma. Today his disciples spend years in training learning when and how to shut their eyes to it. It's not just the Big Bang, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics that are in trouble but the foundation of them all: Gravity is an exhausted and bankrupt concept. A higher, more comprehensive foundation is needed. The technologies of gravity have lifted us to a viewpoint that's bigger than gravity, and we need new ideas and new tools to make sense of the new vistas. Mel Acheson [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------- STAR WORDS A Kronia discussion TED BOND says: I have just discovered that throughout the whole range of the Indo-European language group, the words for star are cognate, starting (!) with the Sanskrit 'star' (yes!). It is clear that these words are also cognate with many of the names (Ishtar, Astarte, Asherah, Ashteroth) of the goddess identified with the planet Venus. The radiant Venus may have been at one time the only star-shaped light visible in the sky, and the star-words may be derived from the proper name rather than vice versa. A most extraordinary thing however, is that the word 'disaster' said to derive, via French from the _Italian_ disastro derived in turn from the Latin 'astrum', a star OR planet. But 'dis-' is a _Latin_ prefix signifying deviation. Is there no attestation for a Latin 'disastrum' (deviating star or planet)? (The suggestion here should be obvious.) The Shorter Oxford Dictionary (based on the O.E.D.) does not mention an Italian origin for the French, but goes directly from the French to Latin 'astrum' and Greek 'astron'. In fact, according to this dictionary, until 1669, 'disaster' had the sense 'an obnoxious planet'! ROGER WESCOTT jumps in: Ted Bond rightly perceives a connection between Indo-European nouns cognate with English "star" and Semitic names like Akkadian Ishtar. Most historical linguists, adhering to conventional chronology, either descry lexical coincidence here or derive the I.E. from the Sem. forms. I am inclined, rather, to regard the Sem. forms as borrowings from I.E., for 4 reasons: (1) these forms are wide-spread in I.E. but not in Sem.; (2)revised chronology no longer requires us to regard written Akkadian as older than Hittite; (3) I.E., unlike Sem., permits an internal etymology for "star", relating it to English "stare" and other verbs expressing strength and persistence; and (4) Afrasian language families related to Sem., such as Cushitic and Ancient Egyptian, fail to exhibit forms with this shape and meaning (as they should if the form were primarily Afrasian). EV COCHRANE adds: As a matter of fact, I was just researching this particular issue this past month. According to Wilhelm Eilers' book on planet- names, there is no connection between the IE word "star" and the Semitic words Ishtar/Astarte/etc. As is well-known, such a derivation has been proposed on several occasions in this century but has long since been abandoned. So far as I'm aware, there is no agreed upon root for Ishtar/Astarte. According to Eilers and the other authorities I've consulted, the English word "star" is derived from the same root as "strewn", although I don't have the root in front of me at the moment. Thus I would be most interested to learn how Dr. Wescott relates "star" to the word "stare" (which root?) and which Semitic root he would offer as a source for Ishtar/Astarte. ROGER clarifies: All etymologies are probabilistic at best. Besides "strew", the English forms most likely to be cognate with "star" are "strong" and "steady", to either or both of which "stare" may be related. EV says: It goes without saying, of course (but I'll go ahead and say it just the same), that the Saturn theory would expect a relation between early words for "star" and Venus, since Venus presented the appearance of a giant star against the backdrop of Saturn. In this sense, Venus was the original prototype for "star" and could serve as the "star" par excellence in ancient nomenclature. As I have documented elsewhere, in various languages--such as Mayan and Polynesian-- the word for "star" also means "Venus." Thus I would love to see Dr. Wescott (or anyone else) prove that the IE word "star" is cognate with Ishtar/Astarte. DAVE TALBOTT adds: Here is a personal opinion concerning S-T-R roots in the Indo- European languages. Virtually ALL are related, but in many cases the relationships will not be evident to the experts because these experts remain unaware of the archetype around which entire complexes of meanings arose. The source of the archetype was in the sky, but it is not there now, and the experts have not even suspected that a celestial reference might have existed--once- which could unify the picture completely. So they search about "down here," wrestling with concepts that cannot (on their own, in the absence of the celestial reference) be reconciled. They do not believe that "cataSTRophe" has anything to do with "STaR" because it is known that the former derives from the Greek _STRrophe_, meaning a turning or twisting motion with specific references to the turning motions of dancers in Greek choral odes. They cannot imagine any linkage between this meaning and the root concept "STRength," to which the word STaR does appear to be clearly related. Nor does the "turning" motion of dancers suggest any connection to the concept "to STaRe," with which the word STaR is also connected. The Saturn theory, on the other hand, reconstructs an archetype which can account for the full range of STR-meanings. The subject is Venus and Mars in conjunction, together constituting the Great Star, the prototypical star depicted in the center of the archaic "sun" god (Saturn). The radiant STReams or STRahlen [German "rays"] of this StaR are the life and "STRength" of the sun. This star can be said to "STaRe" only because it is the sun god's central eye. When considering the origins of the word "catastrophe" and the meaning of the Greek _strophe_, it is inappropriate for the experts to ignore the connection of sacred dances to celestial phenomena, since all such ritual performances repeated critical junctures in the lives of GODS. The turning, twisting motion (_strophe_) of the prototypical star is legendary and is the basis of the global connection of this star, Venus, to the simple curl, spiral, and whorl. And speaking of the turning motion of Venus, if cataSTRophe is in fact connected to the same root as STaR, then so must the word apoSTRophe, since it expresses the same Greek root. The expected connection is definitely there. Aphrodite (Venus) was CALLED Apostrophia. A loose counterpart would be the Latin Venus as Verticordia--the turning or whirling heart. Our apostrophe is a mark or STRoke made with a STRophe or turning motion. Its form is virtually identical to the more elementary forms of the ancient Sumerian Venus-sign. And of course it has the same form as our COMMA which is surely linked to the "cometary" COMA of the Great Star. The archetypal Great Star is strictly synonymous with the archetypal Great Comet, But what is unified at the level of archetypes is too easily fragmented with the specialization and fragmentation of language in the ABSENCE of the original celestial references. To sort through the maze of modern words expressing the S-T-R root I would STaRt :) with these most fundamental associations of the Great Star: 1, It is the life, power, glory, strength, and majesty of the archaic sun god: the god's central, radiant eye, heart, and soul. In rites and symbols of kingship it will be represented as the feminine _anima_ of kings, the very force which Jung himself identified with the goddess Venus. The radiant streamers of the central star, the "Queen of heaven", ANIMATE the sun god. In the waxing and waning of these streamers in the daily cycle, the ancient symbolists saw the nuances of "life"--of being and non- being. I cannot see how the Latin _exsiSTeRe_ from which our word "existence" is derived, could have its root in any concept other than the "appearance" or "coming out" of the STaR that was the life of the sun god. It also seems abundantly clear that our word "is", Latin _est_, Greek _esti_, Sanskrit _asti_ related to the life-giving "presence" of the central star. 2. The definitive motion of Venus is represented pictographically by the curl, spiral, and whorl. That is the motion to which to the Greek STRophe must be referred. Hence, the STRophe cannot be legitimately separated from the language of the Great Star. 3. The dominant activity of the Great Star includes scattering and clearing. The explosion of radiating material is a STRewing of luminous ejecta into surrounding space, but in the subsequent clearing of the sky, the Great Star is the "broom" (comet) sweeping away the clouds of chaos. The broom is a clump of STRaw, German STRoh, an acknowledged hieroglyph for the COMET. (The hieroglyphic twisted STRoh or STRaw of the "comet" will be the STRahlen, or STReaming radiance.) 4. The coming into existence (Latin _exsiSTeRe_) of the Great Star is the first "activity" in the history of the gods. The first form of "divinity" in Mesopotamia is the Sumerian sign of An. It is the 8-pointed star, signifying the "life" and "radiance" in the center of An. The "tears" shed by the central, solitary "Eye" of Atum in the opening event of the Egyptian creation legend will denote the same celestial form. The event means (in the words of the Egyptians themselves) "the beginning of coming into existence".) In calling this central star the "GREAT star" we refer specifically to its role as the "first", the primeval model, the prototype. Invariably, cosmic history will STaRt with this effusion of radiant STReamers or STRahlen. Most fundamentally, our word "STaRt" means the beginning of motion or activity, and that is a core concept in the Great Star imagery. ---------------------------------------------- STATE OF THE UNIVERSE by Amy Acheson THE BIG BANG is dead. It's a theory based on a theory based on an assumption made nearly 75 years ago, that THE ONLY CAUSE OF REDSHIFT IS RECESSIONAL VELOCITY. And that assumption was wrong. Observations in 1911 of intrinsic redshift in young stars crippled the recessional redshift of galaxies before it was imagined. Halton Arp's identification of physical connections between high-redshift quasars and low-redshift active galaxies in the late 60's dealt the mortal blow. The discovery of quantization of redshifts signed the death certificate. Still the Big Bang rises, vampire-like, to haunt the night, sapping the vitality and the integrity of astronomy. Photos are cropped between active galaxies and their ejected quasars. Dark matter spawns dark energy. Unquestioned superstitions and ritual mathematics adorn a conceptual graveyard into which are interred billions of dollars of public funds. The time has come to look at the universe from an entirely different paradigm. An intrinsic interpretation of the redshift will imply a much different universe. For example, in the middle of the constellation of Virgo, the brightest galaxies, the brightest quasars and brightest clusters of galaxies are connected by the strongest radio and x-ray fields in the sky. The expanding universe assumption -- that redshift equals velocity equals distance -- separates these objects by billions of light-years, and assumes their side-by-side position is a coincidental. But it's not coincidence. These objects belong together. They make up an evolving galactic family whose genealogy can be traced through four generations. We'll never "see" this universe as long as we remain captive in the coffin of the Big Bang viewpoint. The assumption that redshift can only be caused by recessional velocity predetermines a distorted understanding of the shape, age, size, and physical characteristics of most of the extragalactic universe. A different - intrinsic - interpretation of the redshift will imply a much different universe. Even the meaning of the terms we use to describe that universe will have to change. Take, for example, the term, "galactic cluster." That term is currently defined by the yardstick of Big Bang expansion: at least 30 galaxies (in addition to the brightest two) within a range of 2 magnitudes and approximately the same redshift. According to this definition, there are 4,073 clusters (listed in the revised northern and southern Abell Catalogue.) Now let's look at a galactic cluster in the non-Big Bang universe. Let's assume (as Halton Arp's observations seem to suggest) that a galactic cluster is a family of galaxies and quasars and gaseous clouds of varying redshifts. At the center, we find a dominant galaxy - it's usually the largest galaxy, and the galaxy with the lowest redshift of the cluster. This dominant galaxy is surrounded by low-to-medium redshift galaxies, and toward the edges of the cluster we find the highest redshift galaxies, HII regions, BL Lac objects and quasars. If we try to force this configuration into a redshift-equals- velocity-equals-distance relationship, as Big Bang cosmologists do, the cluster will be distorted. What was once a sphere becomes an elongated bubble. The central dominant galaxy drops to the front of the bubble, followed by a spike of low-to-medium redshift galaxies stretching away from the earth (see illustrations). Every cluster in the sky does this, like starfish arms pointed away from the earth in every direction. Because we used redshift distance as the criteria for determining which galaxies belong in the cluster, we then draw an arbitrary line where the redshift gets higher than a predetermined level and, voile, everything beyond that line becomes BO: background objects. The Big Bang vampire has amputated the majority of galaxies from our original cluster. Now compare this to an actual plot of Virgo Cluster members set at their assumed velocity-redshift distance. There's a spike of galaxies (in fact, there are two of them, associated with two generations of the galactic family), pointing directly at the earth. You can see the front end of the bubble spreading out. Even as long ago as Copernicus we knew the Earth wasn't the center of anything. But this diagram, based on Big Bang assumptions, says it's the center of the universe! What you don't see in the Virgo Cluster plot, because of the arbitrary assumption that higher redshift objects are too far away to belong to the cluster, are the sides and the back of the bubble, where young groups of galaxies are artificially clumped into background clusters on the basis of their redshifts. The highest-redshift objects, the quasars, are also stretched out of this picture. Yet, when observed through our earth-based telescopes, they are "coincidentally" embedded in nearby hydrogen clouds, at the exact centers of x-ray fields and lined up in pairs across the spin axes of active foreground galaxies. The Big Bang universe will be restructured by intrinsic redshift into an entirely different form. Instead of a finite 12 billion light-year radius sphere centered on the earth, the limits of the intrinsic redshift universe are undefined, possibly infinite. But the extent of what we have observed is smaller, probably organized into two superclusters a few hundred megaparsecs across. Beyond that lie unknown amounts of extragalactica incognito. In this new paradigm, the collapsing concepts of the Big Bang fall into entirely different places. Here's a sample glossary from the Intrinsic Redshift Universe: 1) When speaking of extragalactic objects, the term "high redshift" means "young". It does not imply "far away", "high velocity" or "expanding universe." 2) Background objects probably aren't. 3) Our local cluster of galaxies has more members than presently believed. Before Arp, only objects with redshifts below 300 km/sec were admitted to the local cluster. From Arp's observations, higher-redshift dwarf galaxies and galaxies interacting with local-group nebulosity are also part of the local group. Even quasar-like 3C 120, with its superluminal (faster-than-light) ejections, becomes a local group member. Corollary of 3) The superluminal expansion of 3C 120 no longer needs an ad hoc explanation. If it is a member of the local cluster, then it is nearby, not at the edge of the universe, and its ejections become normal sub- lightspeed ejections. 4) The oft-invoked concept "colliding galaxies" (or "merging galaxies") is a fake. It's especially misleading when called upon to explain a priori assumptions, for example "quasar activity is induced in host galaxies by galactic collisions." In most cases, it is accurate to replace the randomly occurring "colliding galaxy" with the evolutionary process "ejecting galaxy." 5) The concept of black holes, mass so tightly packed that everything falls in, is a poor explanation for an active galactic nucleus, where observations show that everything appears to be falling out. 6) Cannibalistic black holes ambushing passing galaxies are Big Bang fantasies. When we see galaxies tangled together in a high- energy mass, we're witnessing the birth of a new generation of quasars, galactic groups and companion galaxies. 7) The unobservable and undetectable "missing mass" that Big Bang theory claims makes up 90% of the universe isn't "missing". It simply isn't there. 8) The age of the universe can no longer be counted by retrocalculating an expanding universe back to a singularity. 9) Distances, masses and luminosities of high-redshift quasars, galaxies and clusters need to be recomputed as a function of something other than their redshift. Corollaries of 9) Quasars are not the "brightest objects in the universe" - their magnitude is brighter than stars, but not as bright as most galaxies. Gamma Ray Bursters don't "release more energy than the Big Bang". When placed at their proper close-by distance, their energy output becomes more reasonable. 10) So-called "gravitational lensing" of background quasars and galaxies becomes ejection phenomena. This is especially true in the most notorious case of gravitational lensing, the "Einstein cross": Supposedly, four images of the same quasar wrap around the nucleus of a low-redshift galaxy. However, a bridge of high redshift hydrogen connects two of the "quasar images" and crosses in front of a lobe of the low-redshift galaxy. This proves conclusively that these images are not the same quasar, nor are they background objects. THE STATE OF THE UNIVERSE -- 1999: The universe as we understand it is badly in need of repair and re-evaluation. Observations do not support the theoretical constructs and mathematical ad hocery of expanding universe/Big Bang cosmology. The time has come to take off our doppler-colored glasses and reexamine the pin-points of light beyond the Milky Way. ---------------------------------------------- ACTION AT A DISTANCE Simon Tressman, Wal Thornhill SIMON TRESSMAN asks: I'm not sure if they're still looking for it but the Higgs particle was supposed to explain action at a distance in the quantum world. At least it was after reading 'The God Particle' by Leon Lederman. This involves a very small particle shooting off from a source...to a destination and back again to somehow cause attraction between a-toms. Yuk! (I think!..not that its yuk but that's how it works) Tom Van Flandern's Meta Universe model has very small particle whizzing around and hitting everything else (except themselves...very often) causing 'attraction' by the shielding of one body by another from the particles. A neater idea. (I like the concept of infinite scale in the model). I read some of the reciprocity theory that Jan talks about and that makes a little sense. No action at a distance. (I can't describe it as I can't remember it but it made sense) What is the mechanism in the 'Electric Universe'? WAL THORNHILL replies: The model used in the Electric Universe is that proposed by Ralph Sansbury. The reason for that is that it offers a simple classical model of the atom with only two additions: 1. The electron has structure. (There is experimental evidence for this now). 2. The electrostatic force operating between the sub-particles (quarks?) that make up nucleons and electrons acts near instantaneously. This simple model offers an explanation for magnetism, electromagnetism, gravity, quantum theory, etc., and provides a mechanism for the stabilisation of the solar system after an episode of chaos. ( Very important given the wealth of evidence for recent electrical scarring of planetary bodies). It also offers a simple mechanism to explain Halton Arp's epochal discovery of quantised red shifts of quasars. Of course that doesn't explain how action at a distance, mediated by something we call the electrostatic force, actually occurs. It is a postulate that fits the observations - including the "spooky" instantaneous connection between fundamental particles discovered in recent years. It has not been found necessary in Sansbury's model to make any further complicating assumptions about action at a distance to save the model. That is not to say that it may not be found necessary in future. He is currently organising a repeat of his pulsed laser experiment (as shown on my CD) but this time including the inverse of the experiment where the shutter is open during the instantaneous excitation but closed when the pulse of light is expected to arrive at the shutter. Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- SULFURIC ACID ON EUROPA NASA report, comments by Wal Thornhill The following NASA Science news report lends considerable support to my suggestion, published in November 1997 as workshop notes for my slide presentation of The Electric Universe, that: "Interplanetary discharges are energetic enough to cause transmutation of elements. A common possibility is the production of sulphur from two atoms of oxygen. It seems a distinct possibility that the red colouration of the ice is due to the formation of elemental sulphur from oxygen in the ice." Jupiter's innermost moon Io is covered in sulphur by the same mechanism and it is still happening, unrecognised, under the gaze of the Galileo cameras. Wal Thornhill .................... BATTERY ACID CHEMICAL FOUND ON JUPITER'S MOON EUROPA Sulfuric acid -- a corrosive chemical found on Earth in car batteries -- exists on the frozen surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa. "This demonstrates once again that Europa is a really bizarre place," said Dr. Robert Carlson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA. "Sulfuric acid occurs in nature, but it isn't plentiful. You're not likely to find sulfuric acid on Earth's beaches, but on Europa, it covers large portions of the surface." The new findings from NASA's Galileo spacecraft are reported in the Oct. 1 issue of the journal Science. Carlson, the principal investigator for the near-infrared mapping spectrometer aboard Galileo, is the lead author of the paper. Although there is no evidence of life on Europa, pictures and other scientific information gathered by the Galileo spacecraft indicate a liquid ocean may lie beneath Europa's icy crust. Water is one key ingredient essential for life. At first, Carlson thought the spectrometer's findings of sulfuric acid on Europa would quash any talk that life might exist there. "After all, even though we know there are acid- loving bacteria on Earth, sulfuric acid is a nasty chemical," he said. Those thoughts were quickly negated by a colleague, Dr. Kenneth Nealson, head of JPL's astrobiology unit, who was excited by the findings. "Although sulfur may seem like a harsh chemical, its presence on Europa doesn't in any way rule out the possibility of life," Nealson said. "In fact, to make energy, which is essential to life, you need fuel and something with which to burn it. Sulfur and sulfuric acid are known oxidants, or energy sources, for living things on Earth. These new findings encourage us to hunt for any possible links between the sulfur oxidants on Europa's surface, and natural fuels produced from Europa's hot interior." "These findings have helped solve a puzzle that has been nagging at me for a long time," Carlson said. "Data gathered by the spectrometer during observations of Europa had shown a chemical that we couldn't identify. I kept wondering, 'What the heck is this stuff?' Lab measurements now tell us that it is sulfuric acid, and we can start investigating where it comes from and what other materials might be there." For example, some reddish-brown areas on Europa might be caused by sulfur that co- exists with the sulfuric acid. One theory proposed by Carlson is that the sulfur atoms originate with the volcanoes on Jupiter's fiery moon Io, with the material being ejected into the magnetic environment around Jupiter and eventually whirled toward Europa. Another idea is that the sulfuric acid comes from Europa's interior, beneath the moon's icy crust, ejected by sulfuric acid geysers or oozing up through cracks in the ice. Another theory comes from Carlson's co-author, Professor Robert Johnson of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who noted that sodium and magnesium sulfates may have leached onto Europa's surface from underground oceans and then were altered by the intense radiation field. This would produce the frozen sulfuric acid and other sulfur compounds. The new finding is also consistent with earlier Galileo spectrometer data analyses reported by Thomas McCord of the University of Hawaii and other members of the instrument team, who suggested that sulfate salts of this type were present on Europa. Carlson, Johnson and co-author Mark Anderson, a chemist in JPL's Analytical Chemistry Laboratory, plan to study Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, to see if it also contains sulfuric acid. The near-infrared mapping spectrometer works like a prism to break up infrared light not visible to the naked eye. Scientists can study the resulting light patterns to determine what chemicals are present, since different chemicals absorb infrared light differently. Galileo has been orbiting Jupiter and its moons for nearly four years. More information on the Galileo mission is available on the World Wide Web at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo An image depicting sulfuric acid on Europa is available on the World Wide Web at: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/ ---------------------------------------------- PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA COMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE: http://www.kronia.com Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about Catastrophics: Subscriptions to AEON, a journal of myth and science, may be ordered at the I-net address below: http://www.ames.net/aeon/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/ http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/velikovskian/ http://www.bearfabrique.org http://www.grazian-archive.com/ Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered, 10 Pensée Journals may be ordered at the I-net address below: http://www.e-z.net/~mikamar/default.html ----------------------------------------------- The THOTH electronic newsletter is an outgrowth of scientific and scholarly discussions in the emerging field of astral catastrophics. Our focus is on a reconstruction of ancient astral myths and symbols in relation to a new theory of planetary history. Serious readers must allow some time for these radically different ideas to be fleshed out and for the relevant background to be developed. The general tenor of the ideas and information presented in THOTH is supported by the editor and publisher, but there will always be plenty of room for differences of interpretation. We welcome your comments and responses. [EMAIL PROTECTED] New readers are referred to earlier issues of THOTH posted on the Kronia website listed above. Go to the free newsletter page and double click on the image of Thoth, the Egyptian God of Knowledge, to access the back issues.
