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posted by martyb on Saturday December 22 2018, @02:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-farts-given? dept.

Phys.org:

In 2003, scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Center made the first-ever detection of trace amounts of methane in Mars' atmosphere, a find which was confirmed a year later by the ESA's Mars Express orbiter. In December of 2014, the Curiosity rover detected a tenfold spike of methane at the base of the Gale Crater, and uncovered evidence that indicated that Mars has a seasonal methane cycle, where levels peak in the late northern summer.

The existence of methane gas on Mars has been long been held to be potential evidence for the existence of past or present life. So it was quite the downer last week (on Dec. 12th) when the science team behind one of the ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spectrometers announced that they had found no traces of methane in Mars' atmosphere.

Maybe the Martians are hiding.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 23 2018, @05:01AM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 23 2018, @05:01AM (#777751) Journal

    I don't think you are very familiar with the "Electric Universe" concept. The rosetta mission went exactly how the electric universe people predicted. They said the comet would be black as coal and the philae lander would bounce off the surface because it would be rock instead of ice, and it did.

    I can google. They make predictions like the Sun is externally powered and comets are just very little suns powered in the same way. The difference between Electric Theory and traditional theories is not whether spacecraft landers bounce off comets, but rather whether those spacecraft can even survive to get near a comet.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @07:00AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @07:00AM (#777769)
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 23 2018, @01:26PM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 23 2018, @01:26PM (#777810) Journal
      For example, here [electricuniverse.info]:

      The Electric Sun theory (also Electric Star theory, and Electric Sun Model and Electric Sun Hypothesis) is the idea that the Sun (and stars) derives the main sources of its power electrically from its surroundings, rather than from within by nuclear fusion (the mainstream view).

      The Electric Sun is often attributed to a 1972 article by Ralph Juergens,[1] who acknowledges priority to a 1958 Melvin Cook monograph, and inspiration from Immanuel Velikovsky‘s 1946 monograph, Cosmos Without Gravitation (though Velikovsky himself did not endorse it, see below). Others who have continued to research and promote the Electron Sun theory include Wal Thornhill, and Don Scott.

      The Electric Sun model is a part of the Electric Universe theory, and is being scientifically tested by the Safire Project.

      That demonstrates the claim that the Sun is externally powered. (And a claim that Velikovsky didn't support the theory!) And here [holoscience.com]:

      The only reason for suggesting the comets are ‘mantled with non-volatile material’ is that the dirty ice ball model demands it. They are ‘the darkest objects in the solar system’ so, ipso facto, the bright ices must be hidden inside. Comet Wild 2 is supposed to have been diverted into its current orbit by Jupiter only 30 years ago so it is surprising that it seems to be as dark as comet Halley, which is thought to have passed through the inner solar system hundreds or thousands of times.

      The dark mantle hypothesis is symptomatic of pathological science, where ad hoc adjustments are made to save a theory and the adjustments are not testable. The observation that comet Borrelly was ‘dry and hot’ can be regarded as evidence that comets do not have a mantle. Comet surface features and composition are indicative of their bulk composition. Electrical arcs burning the surface may explain their remarkable darkness. A similar effect can be seen on Io, where wandering cathode arcs similarly cause dark depressions, Io’s so-called ‘volcanic calderas’.

      These aren't delicate phenomena. If you have "electric arcs burning the surface" of a comet, you have electric arcs that will arc to any spacecraft that travel near. If the Sun is externally powered via electromagnetism, then the power has to come from somewhere just as it goes somewhere. We have never seen this incoming power despite it being of similar strength as sunlight and the solar wind, and being electromagnetic in origin, which let us note, is both very well understood and very easy to observe. In the case of the Sun, this phenomena would be strong enough that it probably would warp the orbits of planets and kill life on Earth.

      Electric Theory is not the theory that modern science is slightly off about the relative importance of electromagnetism or the surface of some comets. It makes concrete predictions which have already been shown false.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:12PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:12PM (#777826)

        The electric arcs were (supposedly) something happening when the comets were created and other exceptional circumstances, not happening all the time. However, they due suggest that equipment failures could be more common near the comets since they basically build up negative charge at the far end of their journey.

        I dont know much about their theory regarding the sun (only became interested due to the correct predictions regarding rosetta), but you dont seem to have read the comet theories very closely (and I would agree that much of the info is not very acessible, being "hidden" away in random blog/forum posts and rambling youtube videos).

        The correct predictions regarding rosetta really dont require the rest to be correct as well, they basically just predict that comets are like asteroids because they arent unhealthily married to the dirty snowball idea.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 24 2018, @06:42AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 24 2018, @06:42AM (#778042) Journal

          but you dont seem to have read the comet theories very closely

          You keep saying that, but what is the point of reading the "comet theories" very closely when the theory doesn't fit evidence? And is deeply wrong in closely related areas?

          The correct predictions regarding rosetta really dont require the rest to be correct as well, they basically just predict that comets are like asteroids because they arent unhealthily married to the dirty snowball idea.

          Were those predictions actually made before the fact? And the dirty snowball idea hasn't actually been disproven. The comet's tail is coming from somewhere.