Text Box: The solar wind, magnetosphere, and ionosphere form a single system driven by the transfer of energy and momentum from the solar wind to the magnetosphere and ionosphere. …Understanding of the global behavior of this system has improved markedly in the recent past from coordinated observations with a constellation of satellite and ground instruments. ...the solar wind, the tenuous ionized gas that flows outward from the sun with speeds of hundreds of kilometers per second. ... Earth's magnetic field is a barrier to the solar wind, which is diverted around Earth. The region where the Earth's field dominates is the magnetosphere... Earth's magnetic field is sufficiently strong that it can usually keep the solar wind from approaching closer than about 10 Earth radii (RE) on the front side. The solar wind in turn confines Earth's magnetic field on the dayside. On the nightside, Earth's magnetic field expands into the lower pressure region, forming the magnetotail. ... Because the flow in the solar wind is almost always supersonic, the collision of the solar wind with the magnetosphere causes a bow shock in the solar wind. ... The past decade has revealed a solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere system that is more dynamic than previously thought in many ways. ... The Solar Wind-Magnetosphere-Ionosphere System, John G. Lyon (Dept of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH), Science 288, 1987-1991 (2000)
Text Box: The very thought of antigravity conjures up a fantasy world of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, with images of intergalactic travel. The underlying cause of the effect, now revealed, though, might seem an anticlimax and a let down. (Sorry, folks; and NASA!) The glamour, the intrigue, and the cost with which the study is now associated may all change with this final insight; but it's all part of the advancement of science. The countergravitational effect has revealed itself in lab experiments in some ways; but due to the simple reason that the basic cause of the effect is still unknown makes these experiments also a frustrating experience to follow up. Basically, we see the effect in the atom of hydrogen, though we do not recognize it as such today. Over the inhalation half cycle of the atomic nucleus (proton), the orbital electron gets drawn in, toward the central mass, by the influx. That's gravity at the subatomic level! Over exhalation, the electron is repelled by the efflux. And that's antigravity at that basic level! This is the fundamental reason for the electron's elliptical orbit. That is, the electron orbit is never circular even in the so-called unexcited, or ground, state of the atom. Moreover, the influx and efflux being not perfectly radial (due to the spin of the proton), the electron gets also a tangential boost from the flux. Consequently, its perihelion (the point of closest approach to the central body) would keep advancing with each cycle under the boost which peaks at perihelion. In overall view, therefore, the electron would seem like a haze, or cloud, between the levels of perihelion and aphelion (the farthest point) around the nucleus. In the macroscopic world, we see these effects between the Sun and planets, most detectably in the closest Mercury. Einstein's explanation for the perihelion shift of Mercury can thus be completely dispensed with in the final insight. That is to say, it is simply the Sun's subtle and skewed antigravity, and not some abstract space-time warp, that keeps the planets bobbing along with also a perihelion advance each cycle. To every action, there is always an equal and opposite reaction. This Newtonian truism should indeed extend across the entire realm of physics without exceptions. The action of gravity, if truly explainable, then begs also an equally viable explanation for its counteraction – antigravity. And so, despite the promise it may also have conjured up in the minds of science-fiction writers, antigravity, too, is an effect as ubiquitous and mundane as gravity. The world of science has known it, but continues not to recognize it as such. Here, we shall consider two models to illustrate the phenomenon of antigravity, of course, together with its inseparable counterpart.
Text Box: Core Issues The cosmic body absorbs and emits radiation. The energy that emanates from the body will thus have a repulsive effect which can become quite appreciable between a pair of bodies at close quarters. In the stellar body, especially, the energy emission is predominantly from the ongoing nuclear reactions within the body itself. Stars thus give out much more energy than they intercept. Consequently, apart from the gravitational effect, the stellar body generally has also a high, short-range repulsive effect on its neighbors. And it is this countergravitational influence that regulates and sustains the body's natural satellites (if any) in their precarious orbits over the eons without the satellites losing orbital energy under perturbations and spiraling into the central body. A one-dimensional analogy would be a ball balancing on a vertical jet of air. Furthermore, the radiation from a typical cosmic body such as the Sun is never isotropic, due to the inherent spin of the body. By axial symmetry, however, at any given point along the spin axis, the efflux and consequent repulsive effect will be radial, that is, with a zero tangential component at that point. With drop in latitude therefrom, the tangential component would increase – to a maximum at the equator. This occurs, though, only at the expense of the radial component, since radiation speed is constant (at c). The countergravitational effect thereby attains a minimum, or trough, at the equator. Thus, an apparent increase in the body's gravitational effect (or net radial attraction) is experienced around the equator by an orbiting body – as in a terrestrial groove – with a consequent low-potential state, or stability from perturbations. This is the sole reason why no planet, moon, disk, ring, or other long-time orbital matter is ever found outside of a cosmic body's equatorial plane region – the potential well. (There is a further factor for the countergravitational effect to be low around the equator compared to the poles – caused by the intensity of the coronal discharge. This is taken up in detail in The Sun.) Here, let us consider next just the Sun and its closest satellite, Mercury, to illustrate the gravitational and countergravitational effects a planet experiences...
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THE UNIFICATION OF PHYSICS ILLUSTRATIONS
A Synopsis The Cosmos The Spin
ADDENDA The Cosmological Redshift The Neutrino
Two-Slit Tests The Galaxy Nuclear Reactions
NASA Tests Gravity The Sun
KamLAND Test Anti-Gravity The Pulsar
UCLA Test Relativity Superconductivity
Q and A Mass-Energy Fusion Energy
 Eugene Sittampalam
 12 November 2007