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M87 Jet

Black hole

A Black hole is a theoretical cosmic object with a tremendous mass, and hence gravitational force, from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The Plasma Universe is agnostic on the existence of black holes, proposing that well-known laboratory plasma physics and electromagnetic forces are responsible for certain cosmic phenomena that others attribute to black … Read more

Charged particle drifts

Charged particle drift

In many cases of practical interest, the motion in a magnetic field of an electrically charged particle (such as an electron or ion in a plasma) can be treated as the superposition of a relatively fast circular motion around a point called the guiding center and a relatively slow drift of this point. The drift … Read more

CER Bruce: Cosmic Thunderstorms
Charles Bruce's 1959 paper "Cosmic Thunderstorms", which was awarded the Journal Fund Silver Pen Awards for Learned Publications

Charles Bruce bibliography

Charles E. R. Bruce bibliography Astrophysical and other Papers, Notes, etc. (1927 – 1969) An “A-ref” (eg. A1) indicates that the contribution has some reference to astrophysics (R) denotes that reprints are or were available.   “A Rapid and Convenient Method of Sampling”. With W.B. Whitney. “Nature”, 119, p. 892, 18 June 1927. “The Rupturing … Read more

Hale Bopp with 3 tails

Comet

A comet is a body in the solar system that orbits the Sun. It consists of a nucleus that is perhaps made of rock, dust, and ice, and may exhibits a coma (atmosphere, with associated ionosphere, magnetosphere, sometimes called a plasmasphere), and/or one or more tails: an ion tail (or plasma tail) and dust tail. … Read more

Giotto Halley jets

Comets: Kristian Birkeland’s theory

Kristian Birkeland‘s theory of comets derives from his laboratory experiments with rarefied gases in a discharge tube. He presented his theories in his book, The Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition 1902-1903 published in 1913. [1] (See reference for download link to section full text). Birkeland’s theory describes how comets interact with “corpuscle rays” (the plasma of … Read more

NGC 6751

Complex dusty plasmas

A gas as little as 1% ionized may behave as a plasma (e.g. the ionosphere). In addition to light and friction, dust and grains are charged inside a plasma, and behave as one, such as the Glowing Eye Nebula, above Introduction   1. What is plasma?   2. Where is plasma?   3. Why is … Read more

Cosmic Plasma book
Cosmic Plasma by Hannes Alfvén

Cosmic Plasma (Book)

By Hannes Alfvén Publ. 1981. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, Vol. 82 (1981) Springer Verlag. ISBN 90-277-1151-8. Buy Extract: The aims of the present monograph may be summarized as follows: (1) Attention will be given to the question of how much knowledge can be gained by a systematic comparison of different regions of plasma. We … Read more

Critical Ionization Velocity

Critical ionization velocity

Critical ionization velocity (CIV, also called Critical velocity, CV) is the relative velocity between a neutral gas and plasma (an ionized gas), at which the neutral gas will start to ionize. If more energy is supplied, the velocity of the atoms or molecules will not exceed the critical ionization velocity until the gas becomes almost … Read more

Heliospheric current sheet
The heliospheric current sheet results from the influence of the Sun's rotating magnetic field on the plasma in the interplanetary medium [1]

Current sheet

A current sheet is an electrical current that is confined to a surface, rather than being spread through a volume of space. Current sheets feature in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), the study of the behavior of electrically conductive fluids: if an electric current flows through part of the volume of such a fluid, magnetic forces tend to … Read more

Debye length

In plasma physics, the Debye length, named after the Dutch physical chemist Peter Debye, is the scale over which mobile charge carriers (e.g. electrons) screen out electric fields in plasmas and other conductors. In other words, the Debye length is the distance over which significant charge separation can occur. A Debye sphere is a volume … Read more