The Electric Universe
Astronomy discovers solar hurricans again

What Lies Beneath a Sunspot

Awesome plasma hurricanes were one of the surprises when scientists recently peered beneath the stormy surface of our star.

With SOHO, visitors can imagine and in a 3 MB movie follow the hurricane-rotation below the sunspot. Philip Scherrer (Stanford): "We now have a hint at how [it happens]". Junwei Zhao (Stanford) states: " If you can look a bit deeper, you find material rushing inward, like a planet-sized whirlpool or hurricane."

Recently, in 2001 October 8, the famous hurricane hunter Scott Dommin http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast27sep_1.htm wrote to Koertvelyessy (author of the book The Electric Universe): "Yes I have seen sunspot pictures through hydrogen filters, and I agree they look similar to hurricanes".

Fantastically, also SOHO found the sunspot-hurricanes, but this model is not new. A century ago, G.E. Hale was the first who saw the Sun in the hydrogen alpha light and, therefore, the superpenumbra of the sunspots. These filaments are about ten times longer than the filaments of the penumbra and often suggest a rotation via their spiralled end. Hale also discovered the very strong magnetic field of 0.1-0.4 Tesla in the sunspots. He also saw that the sunspots swallow filaments as hurricanes and measured that a filament disappeared in the sunspot with a velocity of e.g. 50 km/s. He wrote in 1913:

…sun spots are closely analogous to tornados or waterspouts in the Earth´s atmosphere. If this were true, electrons caught and whirled in the spot vortex should produce a magnetic field.

This model was correct during the sunspot-cycle in 1901-1913 but not longer. More than 80% of the biggest sunspots followed the Hale law but the solar electric charge seemed to alternate: negative in 1901-1913, positive in 1913-1923, then negative-positive-negative etc. in the later cycles. Therefore, Hale discarded his own electromagnetic explanation. Richardson described these alternating charges in 1941 as "unlikely". The big problem was that the rotation of these hurricanes was not seen, only their suggestion of a rotation via their superpenumbrae was detected. Also the identical direction of this suggested rotation to the terrestrial hurricanes did not help. In our days, SOHO shows that astronomy lost the correct model shortly after it was found. (In our 23rd cycle, the big sunspots are northern on the northern hemisphere. A solar positive charge is necessary to explain them electromagnetically.)

The whole story can be read in the book: The Electric Universe (1998). In this book, also the cause of the alternating solar electric charge is suggested via alternating strengths of the cycles. 1901-1913 was a weak cycle, therefore, the Sun had its natural negative charge by its thermoelement-effect which never stops since the solar core is always hotter than its surface. However, the solar hurricanes became "superfluous" six decades ago. The cause and effect were reversed: the magnetic field of e.g. 0.4 Tesla was not the result of the rotation of electric charges but the whole sunspot should be the effect of a mysterious solar magnetic field. NASA speaks also now about a magnetic field as a hypothetical, indetectable "plug" in the sunspot whereas these magnetic tubes could not be found by SOHO. Why should a mysterious "magnetic tube" elevate from the 210 000km-depth of the alleged solar dynamo exactly to the sunspots ? There, the measured downflow of the sunspot-hurricanes would push these magnetic tubes away from the sunspots ! These hypothetical magnetic tubes would rather surface at 99.5% of the surface where there are no sunspots ! NASA does not mention that the rotation of the sunspot now clearly explains that the sunspots are dark via continual dilatation in the "eye" of the hurricane. Also terrestrial hurricane are colder there. The old magnetic explanation was unclear because it assumed an inhibition of plasma-motion in the surfaced magnetic tube. The sunspot consists of more than 99.8% not ionised hydrogen and other solar gases which do not have an interaction with magnetic fields at all.

Perhaps, NASA should take a look at Hale and The Electric Universe ?

Dr. Laszlo Koertvelyessy

physicist Candidate of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Reply on Nasa news at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast07nov_1.htm