Stellar Oscillations across Spiral Arms

Tom Van Flandern has explained under "Energy Parameters for 'New Comet' Orbits" at

www.metaresearch.org/solar%20system/eph/eph2000.asp

how cometary energies are consistent with his Exploded Planet hypothesis, inconsistent with the Oort Cloud:

"Astonishingly, a great many comets are discovered that have energy parameter values close to zero, the threshold of gravitational escape . . ."

Such "close to zero" values would also be consistent with the theory just referred to in this topic because, as C Johnston explains at

mb-soft.com/public/extinct.html ,
referred to in

groups.google.com.au/group/sci.geo.geolo...=en#100156d842c805ea ,

the Sun is currently in an extreme inner position of the local spiral arm of the Galactic System, consistent with virtually zero transverse velocity.

Peter Nielsen

Email: uusi@hotkey.net.au
Post: 12 View St, Sandy Bay 7005, Australia

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Peter Nielsen</i> <br />Such "close to zero" values would also be consistent with the theory just referred to in this topic because ... the Sun is currently in an extreme inner position of the local spiral arm of the Galactic System, consistent with virtually zero transverse velocity.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">On its face, this claim appears to be nonsensical. There is a continuum of stars around the Sun at all distances for several kiloparsecs in every direction, showing that the Sun is not at any "extreme inner position". Moreover, the mean speed of these stars relative to the Sun is 25 km/s, which is a very high relative energy. And the laws of dynamics forbid 2-body capture, so comets cannot arise from outside the Sun's gravitational sphere of influence.

Can you explain your meaning in the light of these considerations?

Then there is the list of over 100 lines of evidence in chapter 11 of <i>Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets</i> showing that the EPH, and only that theory, can explain the data without ad hoc helper hypotheses. -|Tom|-

[still on travel until end of June]

Dear Tom,
I have enormous respect for Astronomy and other Science, including dissident Science, for all the measurements made and organised so impressively . . .

As a physicist, I must say that it is not quite true that "the laws of dynamics forbid 2-body capture". In any case, when we are talking about putative "Sosah" (Stellar Oscillations across Spiral Arms Hypothesis) cometary capture, the idea of comets being swept up from across the local spiral arm in the path of the Sun, the Solar System is far from being a 2-body system.

The gravitational slingshot effect which makes 2-body capture unlikely, is complicated for objects as small as comets by the slingshot effects of the Solar System's planets, especially its "gas giants". Sosah-style cometary capture thus becomes much more likely.

This would be especially so for the eph-candidate comets observed by astronomers having "energy parameter values close to zero, the threshold of gravitational escape . . ."

Tellingly, while this observation has been used to corroborate eph, it is very much a side issue for Sosah, or my S1, S2, even eph in my mutualistic explanation at . . . metaresearch.org/msgboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=691 and
metaresearch.org/msgboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=692

I am discussing it on this MessageBoard, because of such apparent mutualities, which brings me to: The Solar System's cometary capture cross-section would be much larger for the "slow" comets predicted by eph and actually observed, than the generally faster comets that Sosah is compatible with . . .

An analogous phenomenon occurs in nuclear reactors: A "moderator" (usually water or heavy water) is used to slow "fast" neutrons down. Neutron collision cross-sections are thus increased and this increases nuclear reaction rates.

Has this biasing phenomenon been taken into account? . . . If such bias has not been accounted for, then cometary observations of "energy parameter values close to zero, the threshold of gravitational escape . . ." would be exagerrations . . .

The trajectories of slow eph-candidate comets are bent towards the Sun across a huge cross-section, to be so seen while faster comets, their trajectories much less attracted towards the Sun, generally pass more quickly, much further away unseen . . .

Sosah's spiral arm oscillations are transverse, so the fact that the "mean speed of . . . stars relative to the Sun is 25 km/s" may not be relevant, particularly because the volume referred to is "several kiloparsecs in every direction", hardly the local region.

As for "the Sun's position at the inner edge of the Orion spiral arm ...", this again is hardly critical, and I do not pretend to be an astronomer. I got this preceding quote amongst similar quotes by Googling, at
www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread75002/pg1 - 99k

I got the idea originally from Sosah's mb-soft.com/public/extinct.html :
". . . We happen to currently be near the inner edge of the Arm we are in, so there are a lot of nearby stars all gravitationally pulling us toward them toward the centerline of the Arm . . ."

Peter Nielsen

Email: uusi@hotkey.net.au
Post: 12 View St, Sandy Bay 7005, Australia

What is the law that forbids two body capture? Is there an equation that show how this process of forbiden capture plays out? What kind of capture is allowed?

I just now Googled on '"two body capture" forbids' and this was all that came up, a nuclear physics reference: physics.ut.ac.ir/~bayegan/publications/article1.pdf

In this paper, "Forbids" refers to the Quantum Mechanical Pauli Exclusion Principle, not at all relevant to Astronomy.

"Forbids" is too strong a word for any dynamical use beyond Quantum Mechanics, relevant to the extremely small . . . I was quoting you in my last post, and assuming you were alluding to the gravitational Slingshot Effect, which confounds two body capture in astronomical contexts . . .

The particles fired at atoms in Rutherford's historic experiment were similarly Slingshot Effect-ed. They were strongly scattered in all directions, proving that atoms are mostly empty space instead of "plum puddings". Atoms were thus obviously nucleii surrounded by thin clouds of electrons.

The electrons had little effect on projectile trajectories because they were 1,000s of times smaller than projectile and target nuclear particles, nucleii.

In the case of Solar System cometary capture, the collisional scenario is very different. The relevant Physics is Newtonian, worked out incrementally, in little steps by computers, the Relativistic effects being negligible:

The Solar System's capture cross-section is much larger to planetary-sized cometary "projectiles" than the Solar cross-section, because of strong interactions between comets and planets. Also, as explained in my last post, there is an additional effect relevant to capture:

More easily deflected than fast comets, slow comets would have greater capture cross-sections, just as in nuclear interactions, slow neutrons have greater fusion/fission cross-sections than fast neutrons.

This speed dependence of cometary capture probabilities would give rise to an important observational bias; slow comets would be more observable than fast comets.

Has this bias been fully accounted for by astronomers? . . . A well-meant, important question relevant to eph, Sosah, S1-2 . . .

Peter Nielsen

Email: uusi@hotkey.net.au
Post: 12 View St, Sandy Bay 7005, Australia

There seems to be two laws being used here-one law forbids two body capture and the other law permits the capture. TVF said the law of dynamics forbids the capture and Peter says the law permits it. I don't know what either law is. Can you tell me what laws are cited?