Potpourri of “Meta Science in the News” for 2007

With the discontinuation of our Extended Meta-notes by E-mail (EME) series this year (16-year collection now available on CD), we have accumulated many news-worthy stories not getting the attention they deserve. This issue just skims the surface of many such developments, most of which have the character of puzzles to the mainstream while fitting nicely into Meta Science without need of ad hoc patchwork or new free parameters. When introduced to accommodate unexpected findings, added patches and free parameters are the leading indicators of bad theories.

Most of these reports will cite the findings and mainstream interpretations of the authors, then show what the same data would mean under Meta Science premises.

Moon Origin: Earth’s Moon is a cosmic rarity

A new study indicates that moons like the Earth's, which are believed to have formed in catastrophic collisions, must be rare. Such collisions would create considerable dust. But a search for the dusty signs of similar collisions around 400 very young stars of roughly the same age our Sun was when the Moon was formed turned up little evidence of such dust. This search used infrared measurements to separate heat signatures of stars from those of surrounding dust. Only 1% of the stars examined were dusty, and only one of the 400 fit the expected characteristics of a moon-forming collision. Considering all caveats, moons like our own could form in only about 5-10% of planetary systems, and possibly far fewer. In fact, the amount of debris seen around young stars doesn’t fit well with the theory, and more debris is seen around older stars. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7104558.stm]

In Meta Science, our Moon formed the same way as all other major moons and planets, by fission from a parent body. So our Moon is no rarity at all, and no low-probability cosmic collisions are needed. Most of the dust in our present solar system is left over from relatively recent planetary and moon explosions, consistent with the observation that it is the older stars that have the dustier environments.

However, the primary problems with the “Big Whack” theory (that a Mars-size-or-larger body impacted Earth with a glancing blow and knocked off the Moon) are several, and go much deeper than the incompatibility with stellar dust signatures. Basaltic material from Earth, which is the primary ingredient in the Moon, cannot achieve orbit without a second event because its orbital trajectory following a single impact event would be an ellipse that still intersected the Earth. And once in orbit, it cannot reassemble into a Moon because bodies on similar orbits are forced to librate and avoid subsequent close approaches, while bodies on dissimilar orbits collide destructively. Moreover, all orbits would pass inside the Roche limit, wherein tidal forces would tear apart significant-sized bodies lacking cohesive strength. So the forces operating would tend to spread debris into rings, the opposite of what forming the Moon that way would require.

Did the Moon form from Earth?

In another study of lunar origin, tungsten isotopes in lunar metals indicate a late formation and prolonged differentiation of the Moon. Again, the Big Whack theory was assumed. However, the timescales for formation and solidification of the Moon lead to contradictory results. Previous studies concluded that the Moon formed within 60 Myr of solar system formation. But identical ¹⁸²W/¹⁸⁴W (tungsten) ratios indicate that the lunar magma ocean probably did not crystallize within the first

60 Myr of the solar system. That ratio is the same for both lunar and terrestrial mantles. The identical oxygen and tungsten isotope ratios of the lunar and terrestrial mantles require either that the Moon is derived mainly from terrestrial material or that oxygen and tungsten isotopes in the Moon and Earth's mantle equilibrated through some unspecified mechanism in the aftermath of the giant impact. [Nature 450:1206-1209 (2007).]

In Meta Science, the results again confirm that the Earth was apparently the only parent of the Moon, and there is no hard chemical evidence for involvement of another body. The Moon’s fission-origin event is not a destructive one, and need not have reset these radiometric clocks, which then measure the time from solar system formation to the Moon fission event. As long as the early, hot, over-spinning Earth was at least 8500 km in radius (as compared to 6400 km today), the fissioned Moon would be outside the Roche limit, and tidal forces would operated to compact it in the along-orbit direction. The lunar magma ocean is subsequently created by strong tidal forces on the early Moon while still in close proximity to Earth. Such forces are similar to those acting on Jupiter’s moon Io today, but would have been even more intense for a time soon after the Moon’s fission. As the early Moon receded from Earth through tidal friction, the magma ocean would have cooled and solidified.

This a priori fission scenario remains fully consistent with the idea that formation and solidification ages should be significantly different, just as observed. There is no injection problem, and the Moon does not need to capture or accrete anything once it has fissioned. There are no events of low probability in the entire scenario. And given the mathematical models for formation of Maclaurin spheroids followed by fissioning from overspin, and given how well the fission model works for many other applications, there are no events of low plausibility either.

H-fusion may not be the main heat source inside stars

“A report on hot carbon stars in the 22 Nov 07 issue of Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7169/abs/nature06318.html) and another report in a 21 Nov 2007 Space Ref news story (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=24089) may raise awareness of a possible stellar heat source in stars other than hydrogen fusion. The surface of the Sun is 91% hydrogen and 9% helium. We are told that H-fusion in its core generates luminosity and a surface temperature near 5,800 degrees Kelvin. The study reported in Nature and Space Ref finds that stars with ‘pure carbon atmospheres’ and ‘no detectable traces of helium and hydrogen’ have much higher surface temperatures ‘between about 18,000 degrees and 23,000 degrees Kelvin’. The authors of this study suggest that carbon stars may be the cooler remains of massive stars with surface temperatures of 200,000 degrees Kelvin. However, an even higher surface temperature of 700,000 degrees Kelvin was reported seven years ago on a neutron star. (http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2000/pr-19-00.html)” [Communicated by Oliver Manuel, http://www.omatumr.com.]

Possible asteroid impact on Mars could produce major dust storm

A newly discovered asteroid is now on an orbit that will carry it very close to Mars on 2008 January 30, with a non-negligible chance of hitting the planet. (http://www.examiner.com/a-1117129~Scientists_say_asteroid_may_hit_Mars_in_late_January.html) The chances of an impact as of this writing in early January are 1 in 25. Although an impact is still improbable, impact probabilities that high are rare, so the possibility is stirring considerable interest. The asteroid is known as 2007 WD5 and was discovered in late November. It is probably a few tens of meters in diameter, comparable to the size of the asteroid impact at Tunguska in an uninhabited part of Siberia in 1908. The energy unleased by that event, as evidenced by flattened trees lying in circles around the impact focus point, was the equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb. But Earth’s atmosphere caused the asteroid to explode while still about 8-10 km above the surface, preventing even greater damage if the object had reached the ground intact. If the new asteroid did hit Mars, it might create a new crater up to perhaps half the size of the famous Meteor Crater in Arizona.

The most probable impact area is not too far from where the rover Opportunity has been exploring the Martian plains since 2004. The rover itself is not in direct danger because it lies outside the impact zone. However, Mars has so little atmosphere that the object would certainly make it to the ground at nearly full speed (~ 13 km/s), and would create a major global dust storm. So much dust in the atmosphere, combined with the decrease in available solar energy as the rovers enter the Martian winter season, has the potential to coat the solar panels on either or both rovers with dust and endanger the rovers by draining their batteries. [Story first communicated by Mitchell Swartz.]

Conventional thinking is that Martian dust storms and dust devils are created by surface winds. However, Meta Science notes that Martian winds have extremely little lifting power because the air is so thin, even when blowing at what would be hurricane speeds on Earth. And another consequence of this thin air is that even small space rocks entering Mars’s atmosphere do reach the surface and must kick up some dust, which winds would then blow about. Even the so-called seasonal dust storms may be meteor-associated. Although most impacts are from sporadic meteors and would occur at random, we now know that meteor showers, outbursts, and storms can occur on nearly the same date annually. And these would be excellent candidates to kick up some Martian dust.

Hopefully, if an impact onto Mars does happen in January or anytime soon, the expected association of meteors with dust storms on that planet will get the attention of more astronomers.

Claims of Martian bacterial life

(http://www.resa.net/nasa/mars_life_viking.htm) In 1976, two Viking spacecraft placed landers on Mars, and each operated four life-detection experiments in soil obtained by a scoop. These four were:

1. Gas exchange experiment (GEx): looked for changes in the makeup of gases in a test chamber that would indicate biological activity.

2. Labeled release experiment (LR): attempted to detect the uptake of a radioactively-tagged liquid nutrient by microbes.

3. Pyrolytic release experiment (PR): "cooked" soil samples that had been exposed to radioactively-tagged carbon dioxide to see if the chemical had been used by organisms to make organic compounds.

4. Gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer experiment (GCMS): heated a soil sample to detect organic compounds, essential to life as we know it.

Experiments	Response for sample	Response for heat- sterilized control
GEx	oxygen emitted	oxygen emitted
LR	labeled gas emitted	none
PR	carbon detected	carbon detected

As a control, the first three experiments were run both before and after the soil sample was heated enough to kill terrestrial organisms. A brief summary of the results follows:

· For the GEx experiment, oxygen was emitted, which is a biological indicator. But it was also emitted after heating, which might indicate a non-biological mechanism at work in addition to, or instead of, biological organisms.

· For the LR experiment, the labeled gas was emitted before heating, and none was emitted after heating to the highest temperatures, although some labeled gas still appeared after heating to lower temperatures that would have killed terrestrial organisms. These results are consistent with a rugged form of biology. Subsequent extensive attempts to get any similar result in a non-biological way failed.

· For the PR experiment, labeled carbon was detected before and after heating. Seven of nine experimental runs seemed to show small concentrations of micro-organisms but the results were later discounted, giving the same ambiguous conclusion as the GEX experiment.

· For the GCMS experiment, an unexpectedly large amount of water was detected, but no organic compounds. This implies that biology as we know it could not be operating. However, a subsequent repetition of the test on a terrestrial sample containing a known virus also produced a negative reading, showing that the experiment was simply not sensitive enough. Unfortunately, that was not known at the time, leading to “no life” as the conclusion that prevailed. Ironically, the “extreme dryness of Mars” was cited as supporting that conclusion, contrary to what the experiment actually showed.

Now, another scientist has reanalyzed data from the GEx and PR experiments and concluded that they detected biological cells filled with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and water. (http://www.space.com/news/070823_mars_life.html) The indicated density of such cells would be about one part per thousand by weight, which is comparable to what is found in some permafrost in Antarctica. But the idea was called “non-credible in view of the harsh conditions on Mars”. However, what we have learned in the past decade about organisms called “extremophiles” is that biological organisms can survive in conditions far more extreme than exist on Earth. It is proposed that the hydrogen peroxide would act like antifreeze for the cell, preventing its insides from crystallizing due to the cold. The proposed microbes might be detected by NASA's Phoenix lander, scheduled to arrive at Mars in May. [But it won’t be looking for such organisms – Ed.] While rare on Earth, terrestrial organisms are known to use hydrogen peroxide. There does not appear to be any basic reason why hydrogen peroxide could not be used by adaptable systems if it gave an environmental advantage. While organisms on Earth have found it advantageous to include salt in their intracellular fluids, hydrogen peroxide may have been more suitable for organisms adapting to the cold, dry environment of Mars. On the other hand, hydrogen peroxide inside cells is deadly in terrestrial kinds of cells, and is one way that our cells combat bacteria, by producing hydrogen peroxide locally. [Communicated by Tim Seward.]

In summary, all Viking lander test results would be in agreement if the soil of Mars contained living small organisms that were resistant to being cooked at all but the highest temperatures used.

Dino-killing asteroid traced to cosmic collision

According to a new analysis by a group at Southwest Research Institute, a chance encounter between two asteroids 160 million years ago extinguished 90% of Earth's marine species, as well as the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. This conclusion was based on noticing that 40-km asteroid Baptistina is accompanied by progressively smaller asteroids to either side, which is the expected pattern to result from a cloud of debris following a collision. The other Baptistina asteroid family members also share Baptistina's color, a dark reddish. The dating of the collision comes from estimating the drift of the orbits from solar radiation pressure.

‘Body C’ gets a name

Those familiar with the exploded planet hypothesis and fission theory in Meta Science will also be familiar with reasons why we have concluded that Mars was one of a pair of moons that originally orbited “Planet V” near the present orbit of Mars in the inner main asteroid belt. (http://metaresearch.org/publications/bulletin/2007issues/0315/Mrb07ap3.asp#T1) I have used generic names for hypothetical former planets and moons because naming tends to generate considerable controversy all by itself. However, that controversy might be avoided by following the established convention approved by the International Astronomical Union of naming major solar system bodies after characters in Greek and Roman mythology.

We have been using the generic “Body C” as the name for the other moon of Planet V that co-orbited Mars for 62 million years following the explosion of the parent planet. This second moon itself exploded 3.2 million years ago, creating one class of asteroids and all comets still part of the solar system. The obvious choice of name would then be “Bellona”, who is alternately described as the wife or sister or daughter of Mars. Whereas Mars in Roman mythology is the god of war, Bellona was the goddess of war. And using our best inferences from the Mars anomaly evidence, Bellona appears to be the most likely home world for the builders of the reputed artificial structures on Mars.

Discovery of first NEO-producing meteorites

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.12503.x; CCNet 198/2007 - 28 November 2007; MNRAS (doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.12503.x). The possible existence of meteoroid streams formed by asteroidal debris, and capable of producing meteorite-dropping bolides was proposed long ago, but evidence to support meteor streams from asteroids is scarce. The main objection of the scientific community is the very short time that such streams can avoid being scattered by gravitational and radiation pressure forces. In spite of this, the authors have found evidence for an unequivocal association between recently discovered Near Earth Object (NEO) 2002NY40 and at least one bright fireball detected over Finland in August 2006. Another fireball recorded from Spain in 2006 seems to be related to this same asteroid, and another fireball imaged from Finland seems related to NEO 2004NL8. While impacts are invoked as the physical mechanism for releasing large rocks from main belt asteroid surfaces, the relatively low number of objects forming the NEO population makes this option unlikely. [Meta Research associate Esko Lyytinen is a co-author of this report.]

In Meta Science, no collisions or rubble-pile break-ups are required to produce these streams. Just stripping off the debris cloud of satellites by a small collision or a moderate close approach would nicely do the trick. This means that meteors from NEOs will undoubtedly be more common than the mainstream models can accommodate.

Astronomers baffled by basalt in the outer asteroid belt

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070824130652.htm. Analysis of the chemical makeup of two asteroids in the outer asteroid belt has thrown the classification system for these small bodies into disorder. The detection of basalt on the surface of two asteroids is very unusual for this part of the asteroid belt. The presence of basalt means that the asteroid must have melted partially at some time in the past, which implies that it was once part of a larger body which had internal heating processes. However, there do not appear to be other basaltic fragments in the region and, from spectral analysis, it is not clear whether the two are fragments of the same parent body or not.

Until recently, most of the known basaltic asteroids, which are classified as V-type, were thought to be fragments of Vesta, the second largest object in the asteroid belt. Since 2001, several V-type asteroids have been identified as not belonging to this Vesta family, including (1459) Magnya, the first basaltic object to be detected in the outer asteroid belt. The two asteroids (7472) Kumakiri and (10537) 1991 RY16 were selected for detailed study from a group of six candidate V-type non-Vesta-family asteroids. A shallow absorption band around the wavelength of red visible light was detected, a band never before observed in other V-type spectra. This means that these objects have a slightly different chemical composition and do not fit into any existing category of asteroid. The unexpected dip in the spectra could have two sources: it could be due to impacts with other asteroids or comets "shocking" iron-rich compounds into a oxidized state, or it could indicate the presence of olivine – another indicator of a large parent body capable of something like volcanic processes. [Communicated by Peter Ness.]

In Meta Science, Vesta was a former moon of “Planet K”. These new asteroids might be impact debris from a twin of Vesta, because moons of Planet K should have occurred in twin pairs. Or they might simply have been too close to Planet K when it exploded. But the key point of interest is that parent bodies large enough to produce high-temperature, high-pressure minerals must have existed where the asteroid belt is presently located.

Evidence for the origin of Ceres as a moon of ‘Planet K’

(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050909073548.htm) Hubble Space Telescope observations of 1 Ceres, the largest known asteroid, have revealed that the object may be a "mini planet," and may contain large amounts of pure water ice beneath its surface. The astronomers suspect that water ice may be buried under the asteroid's crust because the density of Ceres is less than that of the Earth's crust, and because the surface bears spectral evidence of water-bearing minerals. They estimate that if Ceres Text Box:

were composed of 25 percent water, it may have more water than all the fresh water on Earth. Ceres' water, unlike Earth's, would be in the form of water ice and located in the mantle, which wraps around the asteroid's solid core. See sample HST photos of Ceres as it rotates.

http://metaresearch.org/publications/bulletin/2007issues/0315/Mrb07ap3.asp#T1 (before the appendices). We gave this description there: “Generalizing this scenario’s methodology, we expect that something similar happened with former Planet K in the outer main asteroid belt. This leads to the expectation that Ceres was a former moon, and that its twin moon met the same kind of fate as Body C. So when close-up spacecraft views of Ceres become available, we expect they will show a hemispheric dichotomy and other explosion-related similarities to Mars. The lack of atmosphere would probably mean hard, melting or vaporizing impacts leaving lava-like deposits all over one hemisphere, but with no obvious source volcanoes on that hemisphere.”

A belt of moonlets in Saturn's A ring

Nature 449:1019-1021 (2007). “The origin and evolution of planetary rings is one of the prominent unsolved problems of planetary sciences, with direct implications for planet-forming processes in pre-planetary disks. The recent detection of four propeller-shaped features in Saturn's A ring proved the presence of large boulder-sized moonlets in the rings. Their existence favors ring creation in a catastrophic disruption of an icy satellite rather than a co-genetic origin with Saturn, because bodies of this size are unlikely to have accreted inside the rings. Here we report the detection of eight new propeller features in an image sequence that covers the complete A ring, indicating embedded moonlets with radii between 30 m and 70 m. We show that the moonlets found are concentrated in a narrow 3,000-km-wide annulus 130,000 km from Saturn. Compared to the main population of ring particles (radius s < 10 m), such embedded moonlets have a short lifetime with respect to meteoroid impacts. Therefore, they are probably the remnants of a shattered ring-moon of Pan size or larger², locally contributing new material to the older ring. This supports the theory of catastrophic ring creation in a collisional cascade.”

In Meta Science, we long ago recognized that ring stability required moonlets embedded in the rings. The idea of “shepherding” moons inside and outside rings would create odd effects not seen here, such as the corkscrew effect in the “F”-ring. This controlling moonlet possibility was predicted in our article “New Saturnian satellites?” in The Observatory 99:8-9 (1979). We now suspect that major ring-forming events occurred with the explosion of Titan’s twin and other former major moons of Saturn. These would have sent large bodies close to Saturn, eventually breaking up as a result of repeated passages inside the Roche limit. Tidal and collisional forces would evolve these inward and into circular orbits and a flat plane, producing the various major rings, each stabilized by the largest masses therein.

Evidence for two populations of classical trans-Neptunian objects:
The strong inclination dependence of classical binaries

http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.1545; to appear in Icarus. In a search of 101 classical trans-Neptunian objects for companions with the Hubble Space Telescope, at least 21 are binary. The heliocentric inclinations of the orbits of these objects around the Sun were in the range from 0.6°-34°. A very strong anti-correlation of binaries with inclination was found. Of the 58 targets that have inclinations of less than 5.5°, 17 are binary, a binary fraction of 29%. All 17 are similar-brightness systems. By contrast, only 4 of the 42 objects with inclinations greater than 5.5° have satellites and only 1 of these is a similar-brightness binary. This striking dichotomy appears to agree with other indications that the low eccentricity, non-resonant Classical trans-Neptunian objects include two overlapping populations with significantly different physical properties and dynamical histories.

In Meta Science, asteroidal binaries are the result of an exploded parent planet, which leaves a debris cloud in orbit around every fragment of significant size. Many of these debris clouds are removed by subsequent collisions or by tidal forces, or by gravitational field instabilities in the case of very irregular shapes. Where none of these are acting, each asteroid should still be surrounded by a debris cloud. But our ability to discover these multiple moons is limited by the lack of resolving power of our telescopes for objects so distant.

The reason for the inclination correlation is simple. Bodies from an explosion that achieve higher inclinations were ejected with higher speeds. That means the parent fragment raced ahead of the main debris cloud from the explosion, so there were fewer secondary objects accompanying it inside its expanding gravitational sphere of influence. In particular, the larger fragments tend to be given smaller ejection speeds than smaller fragments, other things being equal, because they have greater mass to cross-sectional area ratios and therefore greater resistance to acceleration by the explosion. So lower ejection speeds favor both lower inclinations and greater availability of larger fragments to become both the primary and its moons.

Formation mechanisms for Kuiper Belt Binaries

http://arxiv.org/abs/0709.3107; to appear in ApJ. The discovery that a substantial fraction of Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) [same as trans-Neptunian objects] exists in binaries with wide separations and roughly equal masses has motivated a variety of new theories explaining their formation. Two formation scenarios have been proposed. In the first, a transient binary is formed, which becomes bound with the aid of dynamical friction from the sea of small bodies. In the second, a binary is formed by three-body gravitational deflection. Formation rates for these two cases are estimated.

In Meta Science, the prediction was made nearly three decades ago, based on the exploded planet hypothesis, that minor planet moons would be “numerous and commonplace”. [“Minor planets: the discovery of minor satellites”, R.P. Binzel and T.C. Van Flandern, Science 203:903-905 (1979).] This prediction may now be seen as qualitatively correct. A central explosion appears to be the only way to create so many multiple systems without invoking events of low intrinsic probability. Both mechanisms described in this article are events of low intrinsic probability. Unfortunately, only relative rates between the two mechanisms were provided in the abstract, making that overall low probability less obvious.

“Blowing a hole in a comet: Take 2”, NASA Science News for 2007 Sept. 26, http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/26sep_next.htm. “In July 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft dropped an 820-pound copper projectile onto Comet Tempel 1, unleashing an explosion that made headlines around the world. Exploding comets tend to have that effect. But how many people know what happened after the blast? The surprising answer is none--not even NASA. Deep Impact's prime mission was to punch a hole in Tempel 1 and look inside, giving researchers their first glimpse of a comet's internal structure. But they were never able to see the crater because the cloud of debris was so thick. Why didn't Deep Impact wait until the dust cleared? It couldn't. The mission was designed from the beginning as a high-speed flyby, giving extra velocity to the ‘bullet’. Orbiting was not an option. Carried by its own momentum, Deep Impact sailed away before Text Box:

the cloud had time to dissipate.

“Take 2: NASA is going back for a second look. The plan is to send the Stardust spacecraft to Tempel 1 to take a second look in 2011. At first, Stardust was simply retired, sailing the void with nothing to do. But now it is being recycled as ‘Stardust-NExT,’ short for New Exploration of Tempel 1. By the time it reaches the comet, the debris cloud will be long gone and we should get a clear view of the crater.

“But there are other mysteries too. Before the dust cloud spoiled the view, Deep Impact's cameras saw a comet ringed by a strangely-layered ‘sedimentary’ terrain. There are no rivers on comets, so what causes these features? One possibility: comets might be formed in layers, perhaps created by some form of hot erosion when the comet swings past the sun every 6.5 years. Another surprise was landslides. Deep Impact saw an enormous flow of smooth, powdery material completely covering about a kilometer of underlying terrain. This feature is as mysterious as the layers, but it could explain one thing: why Deep Impact's debris cloud was so troublesome, for example if the projectile hit a patch of deep powder." [Communicated by Ron Baalke.]

In Meta Science, we made an unambiguous prediction that the projectile’s crater in the hard surface would be small, ~20-30 m. Of course, the explosion may blast a much larger volume of loose dust away. If that dust is truly a kilometer thick, then the crater blasted will be mainly into loose dust rather than a hard surface, and will be several times larger in diameter than our prediction for a crater in a hard surface. Nonetheless, an asteroid-like hard surface lying underneath the dust, as opposed to dust or powder all the way through the comet, is the essence of the prediction. The standard model is puzzled about how there could be so much dust, especially because impacts over many millions of years should continually eject the dust because of the comet’s low escape velocity. However, under exploded planet hypothesis premises, most of the dust began in the coma directly from the explosion, and later tidally decayed onto the surface only a few million years ago. The apparent sedimentary terrain is a weathering indicator, again suggestive of a planetary parent body. The dust would readily produce landslides in response to the jostling from small impacts.

The Pioneer Anomaly: non-existent in outer solar system

http://aps.arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0705/0705.3408v1.pdf. “Testing Gravity in the Outer Solar System: Results from Trans-Neptunian Objects” by John F. Wallin, David S. Dixon & Gary L. Page. “In this paper, we have presented a new method using orbital measurements of an ensemble of TNOs to measure deviations from the inverse square law of gravity in the outer solar system. The method relies on doing separate orbital fits for each object, and then characterizing the accuracy of each fit using the bootstrap technique. Since no significant systematic trends were detected in our sample, we combined the data from all the objects using a weighted average to place limits on deviations from the gravitational inverse square law in the outer solar system. Using existing data, we have measured the deviation from the inverse square law to be δa = (0.87±1.6)×10⁻⁸ cm s⁻² directed outward from the Sun for objects at heliocentric distances of 20 to 100 au. This result is consistent with zero at the 1σ limit. Based on our analysis of the observational data of TNOs, we find that the gravitational acceleration in the outer solar system is inconsistent with the Pioneer anomaly at the ~ 5σ level using both variations of the bootstrap analysis. All of our results were consistent (within 1σ) with Newtonian gravity without any additional radial perturbative forces. This suggests that the deceleration seen in the Pioneer tracking data was probably the result of spacecraft systematics rather than exotic physics. Even so, we cannot rule out the possibility that exotic physics is affecting the Pioneer spacecraft trajectories. Our work only shows that the trajectory data from the Pioneer spacecraft is inconsistent to what we see in large, slowly moving rocks in the outer solar system.”

Giant void casts doubt on current models of the universe

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/070823_void.htm; AP wire story on 24 August 2007; ScienceExpress www.sciencexpress.org, 25 October 2007; also to be published in ApJ. Astronomers have found the largest void yet, nearly a billion light-years across, located in the direction of the constellation Eridanus, southwest of Orion. It has an angular radius of about 5° and is centered on Galactic coordinates l = 209°, b = -57°. This will be hard to explain in standard cosmology (although not in Meta Science) because it contradicts the expected homogeneity of the Big Bang initial fireball, and because computer simulations have difficulty reproducing it. The anomaly shows up as a cold spot in WMAP microwave temperature data and as an absence of galaxies in VLA radio telescope data. It is believed to lie 6-10 billion light years from Earth. For comparison, the nearest void is only about 2 million light years away.

The reasoning behind a void being associated with a cold spot rests on some other Big Bang premises. Without “dark energy”, rays approaching a large mass, such as a cluster of galaxies, would gain energy from the cluster’s gravity, which draws them in. As the rays leave the area, the gravity pulls back on them, sapping their energy. They wind up with the same energy that they started with. But since dark energy became dominant, rays crossing matter-rich space don’t return to their original energy level – because dark energy counteracts gravity. Thus, these photons arrive at Earth with a slightly higher energy, or temperature, than they would otherwise have. This phenomenon doesn’t occur when light rays cross a large void, so microwave radiation from a void area reaches us with less energy and appears colder. [Communicated by Chuck Mauro.]

Dark Matter Mystery Deepens in Cosmic 'Train Wreck'

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/07-090.html; NASA News release: 07-090 of 16 August 2007; ApJ for 20 October 2007. “Astronomers have discovered a chaotic scene unlike any witnessed before in a cosmic ‘train wreck’ between giant galaxy clusters. Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical telescopes revealed a dark matter core that was mostly devoid of galaxies, which may pose problems for current theories of dark matter behavior.

“There are three main components to galaxy clusters: individual galaxies composed of billions of stars, hot gas in between the galaxies, and dark matter, a mysterious substance that dominates the cluster mass and can be detected only through its gravitational effects. Optical telescopes can observe the starlight from the individual galaxies, and can infer the location of dark matter by its subtle light-bending effects on distant galaxies. X-ray telescopes like Chandra detect the multimillion-degree gas.”

“A popular theory of dark matter predicts that dark matter and galaxies should stay together, even during a violent collision, as observed in the case of the so-called Bullet Cluster. However, when the Chandra data of the galaxy cluster system known as Abell 520 was mapped along with the optical data from two ground-based telescopes, a puzzling picture emerged. A dark matter core was found, which also contained hot gas but no bright galaxies. The galaxies are removed from the densest core of dark matter, which is contrary to theories of how dark matter behaves. In addition to the dark matter core, a corresponding ‘light region’ containing a group of galaxies with little or no dark matter was also detected. The dark matter appears to have separated from the galaxies.

“In the Bullet Cluster, known as 1E 0657-56, the hot gas is slowed down during the collision but the galaxies and dark matter appear to continue on unimpeded. In Abell 520, it appears that the galaxies were unimpeded by the collision, as expected, while a significant amount of dark matter has remained in the middle of the cluster along with the hot gas.

“Two possible explanations have been proposed, both of which are uncomfortable for prevailing theories. The first option is that the galaxies were separated from the dark matter through a complex set of gravitational ‘slingshots’. This explanation is problematic because computer simulations have not been able to produce slingshots that are nearly powerful enough to cause such a separation. The second option is that dark matter is affected not only by gravity, but also by an as-yet-unknown interaction between dark matter particles. This exciting alternative would require new physics and could be difficult to reconcile with observations of other galaxies and galaxy clusters, such as the aforementioned Bullet Cluster.”

In Meta Science, there is no “dark matter”. The effects attributed to it are instead explained by a change in the inverse square character of the law of gravitation at scales larger than the mean free path of gravitons before colliding with other gravitons and being scattered.

Galactic Halo: Two stellar components in the halo of the Milky Way

Nature 450:1020-1025 (2007). The halo of our Galaxy was once considered a single component. But evidence for a dichotomy has slowly emerged in recent years from inspection of small samples of halo objects. The halo is indeed clearly divisible into two broadly overlapping structural components – an inner and an outer halo – that exhibit different spatial density profiles, stellar orbits and stellar metallicities. The inner halo has a modest net prograde rotation, whereas the outer halo exhibits a net retrograde rotation and a peak metallicity one-third that of the inner halo.

In Meta Science, this represents the transition between the Newtonian inverse square gravity zone (inner halo) and the inverse linear gravity zone (outer halo).

The Edge at the Edge of the Universe

http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/objects/heapow/archive/active_galaxies/quasar_fe_edge_xmm.html. “In a recent study of the X-ray emission from a very distant quasar known as APM 8279+5255, astronomers found a feature which they interpreted as absorption from iron atoms in a cloud of gas between the quasar and us. This absorption is called the iron (Fe) K edge, and it can be seen in the bottom part of the image above as a reduction in the amount of detected X-rays compared to a model of the emission. From the energy at which the edge was observed, astronomers determined that the absorbing material is near the quasar, i.e. about 13.5 billion light years from earth, so that this material existed when the universe was only a fraction of its present age. From the depth of the iron K edge astronomers deduced the abundance of iron in the absorbing medium and they were shocked to note that a huge amount of iron, about 3 times the abundance in the sun, must be present in the absorbing material. This is strange because iron is thought to be produced in the cores of massive stars, and according to conventional thinking there shouldn't have been enough massive stars to produce the observed amount of iron in the very early Universe. Either there were many more massive stars in the early universe than previously believed, or perhaps the Universe knows of another way to make iron – or maybe the Universe is actually much older than it appears.” [Communicated by Dan Iezzi.]

In Meta Science, the redshift of the main class of quasars is intrinsic, and those objects are relatively nearby supermassive stars or Galaxy cores. So a high iron abundance is not at all surprising. Moreover, the universe is infinitely large and infinitely old.

Reports from the Alternative Cosmology Group newsletter

Editor Brendan K. Puthoff writes: “The November 2007 issue of the Alternative Cosmology Group Newsletter has been posted at:

http://www.cosmology.info/newsletter/2007.11.htm.” Are quasar redshifts distance-related or intrinsic? M. B. Bell uses the apparent motion of the jets emitted from quasars and active galactic nuclei (the smaller version of the same objects) to argue that redshifts are intrinsic, not indicative of distance. Radio observations over periods of years have shown bright knots of plasma moving outwards from quasars along narrow jets. Bell contends that the relationship between the maximum angular velocity observed in the jets for a quasar of a given apparent magnitude is most easily explained if the sources have intrinsic redshifts. (http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.2607v1)

NGC4319 & Markarian 205: connected by a luminous bridge?

http://uanews.ua.edu/oct02/astro100802.htm. Dr. Jack Sulentic, a professor of astronomy at The University of Alabama, says a release from the Hubble Heritage (an organization connected with the Space Telescope Science Institute) incorrectly reports that there is no bridge between the famous galaxy-quasar pair NGC4319-Markarian 205. In 1983, Sulentic reported that both low-redshift Galaxy NGC4319 and high-redshift quasar Markarian 205 were connected, which supported a claim presented in 1972 by astronomer H.C. Arp at the Max Planck Institut fur Astrophysik, Munich, Germany. Many astronomers argued that Arp’s data had to be either incorrect or due to something other than a physical connection, since the redshift-implied distances of both objects are significantly different. Through image enhancement and analysis, Sulentic directly confirmed Arp’s findings of a luminous connection between the two. His evidence was based on processing Arp’s Palomar and Kitt Peak telescope images.

At the time, two alternate explanations for the connection had been proposed: a foreground star or background galaxy located between galaxy NGC4319 and the Markarian 205 quasar giving the appearance of a connection; or, the fuzzy edges of the two objects overlap when viewed through the telescopes. Sulentic analyzed the light distribution in the area between the quasar and the galaxy and showed mathematically that neither theory was possible. He stands by his finding. The new news release claims that the most recent Hubble Space Telescope images of this system do not show a connection. Sulentic notes that a quick glance at the HST composite image reveals that the image of the galaxy-quasar pair is presented in a way that emphasizes the brightest parts of the galaxy and the quasar so that the impression is given that there is no light between the two objects. However, the filamentary connection is of low surface brightness, requiring contrast adjustment to see it. The human eye cannot see all the needed light levels at once without such a contrast change to “burn out” the bright parts of the image and emphasize the fainter light levels. When that is done, the new Hubble picture actually does show the luminous connection exactly where it was seen in the earlier studies.

The right image on the cover of this Bulletin issue shows the galaxy and quasar, with a rectangular box drawn around the area where the connecting bridge should be. The box alone is then contrast-adjusted to bring up anything of low surface brightness, allowing the bridge to be seen. And the existence of this bridge means the redshift is not indicating the correct distance for at least one of these two objects.

Universal ‘axis of evil’ starting to look real

http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19425994.000-axis-of-evil-a-cause-for-cosmic-concern.html. Evidence is growing that the so-called "axis of evil" – a pattern apparently imprinted on the radiation left behind by the big bang – may be real, posing a threat to standard cosmology. Two scientists noticed a curious pattern in the map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) created by NASA's WMAP satellite. It seemed to show that some hot and cold spots in the CMB are not distributed randomly, as expected, but are aligned along what has been dubbed the axis of evil.

Now, two independent studies seem to confirm that this surprising pattern really exists. Analysis of the polarization of light from 355 quasars found that as the quasars get near the axis, the polarization becomes more ordered than expected. Taken together, the polarization angles from the quasars seem to corkscrew around the axis. And another analysis of 1660 spiral galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey found that the axes of rotation of most galaxies appear to line up with the axis of evil (http://www.arxiv.org/astro-ph/0703325). The probability of this happening by chance is less than 0.4 per cent. [Communicated by Robert Turner.]

Do high-energy gamma rays travel slower than low-energy rays?

The photons started their life more than 300 million light years away in Markarian 501, a galaxy with a black hole at its center. From time to time, Markarian 501 sends out bursts of gamma rays in the direction of Earth. The scientists working with the MAGIC telescope analyzed two kinds of photons interacting with the Earth's atmosphere. Both kinds of photons were believed to have been emitted at the same time, yet high-energy photons arrived four minutes later than low-energy photons. These observed results contradict Einstein's general theory of relativity, which claims that all photons travel at the same speed. [Communicated by David de Hilster and by Roy Keys.]

In Meta Science, the source is not a black hole but rather a supermassive star or cluster of stars. So there is no need for the high-energy photons and the low-energy photons to originate from the same layer within the star or cluster. And because such objects have extremely strong gravity, propagation delays near the source can be quite extreme. So none of this delay need have accumulated along the journey through open space to Earth.

NeWiki: A new science supplement to Wikipedia

http://www.newiki.org/main/index.php?title=Main_Page. “The purpose of NeWiki is to provide a place for new knowledge to be written and catalogued that is not allowed by other Wiki's who do not publish outside of the mainstream. The advance of science even today most often operates without the support or permission of the establishment and often is chastised by it. Yet it is the fringe and often unrecognized champions of human ingenuity that take the chances and propel the human race forward despite the rest of us. For the first time in history, we have the technological means to catalogue this work for the rest of the world to instantly access these new discoveries and directions in an encyclopedia. The human race since the beginning of time, has done itself a great disservice by not providing a place for the free flow of ideas that are not under the pressure of fear from going against convention. Sadly, in the beginning part of the 21st century, this has yet to change - until now. We hope this NeWiki will break this chain of intolerance. If Copernicus or Galileo were alive today, this is where you would find their work.”