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On this series, a clear picture of cosmic scale phenomena has emerged.
Networks of filaments pervade space
and are closely linked to the formation and evolution of stars and galaxies.
The Electric Universe and Plasma Cosmology have always predicted
that these filaments are in fact electrical Birkeland currents
which light the stars and connect celestial bodies across vast cosmic distances.
Recently, two separate teams of scientists,
both of whom were attempting to resolve the so-called missing baryon problem,
have published papers identifying vast intergalactic plasma filaments.
In this episode, our guest Eugene Bagashov
analyzes the significance of these independent findings.
Eugene Bagashov: I would like to talk about two recently published papers
discussing the large scale properties of cosmic plasma.
What is interesting in this case is that both teams worked independently
but ended up using the same methods and instruments.
Somewhat encouraging is the fact that their conclusions are also very similar
meaning that at least the technique is reproducible
and, as far as the assumptions are correct,
there have been no mistakes made in the process.
Now that I've mentioned it,
I personally have serious doubts about the assumptions themselves,
so let us take a closer look at the picture presented by this research
and see if we could make some alternative conclusions.
The research addresses one of the key problems of observations of cosmic processes,
the so-called missing baryon problem.
It has been known for some time that if one considers the Big Bang cosmology,
with its model for primordial nucleosynthesis,
and at the same time look at the properties of the so-called Cosmic Microwave Background,
one would get a figure for the matter content in the observable universe
that is at least 30% too high with respect to the observations
that is, if we directly sum up all the known mass content.
I should note that this is not to be confused with dark matter problem
that we've discussed in detail in some of the previous episodes.
Dark matter was invented to solve the smaller scale problems
with incorrect description of galactic rotation curves
which roughly corresponds to spatial scales of 100,000 light years or so
whereas in the case of missing baryons we're talking about intergalactic scales
that are hundreds to thousands of times bigger.
So in these two papers the researchers have tried to implement a new method of detection
that potentially could solve the missing baryon problem
capturing the yet unobserved fraction of matter
and thus reconciling the observations with Big Bang hypothesis
and hypothetical Cosmic Microwave Background.
It is supposed in their work that one might observe the missing matter
by looking for its emissions in consequence of the so-called Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect.
The effect is quite simple.
Plainly put, when a low-energy photon encounters a high-energy charged particles,
such as electron, it might interact with it and become more energetic.
It is the so-called Inverse Compton scattering.
So it is supposed that photons of the hypothesized Cosmic Microwave Background
could also be scattered in such a way by the hot intergalactic plasma,
thus increasing in energy and we might detect this more energetic signal
on top of the supposed background radiation.
Both research teams have devoted their efforts
to looking for the electromagnetic signal of such sort.
They've been looking at the data from Planck satellite
in the frequency range from 30 to 857 gigahertz, that is microwave to far infrared range,
for which the Planck research team have released the Compton scattering maps.
They've compared these maps with the data from Sloan Digital Sky Survey
to identify the actual sources of the signals received by Planck.
The main attention was focused on the regions in-between galaxies
where the contamination of the signal by the known sources, such as stars,
is supposed to be minimal.
The total sample used in the research included over a million of pairs of galaxies
with average separation of about 30 million light-years.
So what they found was a quite noticeable signal
coming from the regions in-between galaxies.
The authors conclude that these galaxies must be connected by the plasma filaments
that are supposedly providing additional energy to the Cosmic Microwave Background photons,
so in these areas we see a stronger signal from it.
So the minimalistic conclusion that one might make from this research
is that it confirms the existence of intergalactic plasma filaments
which is of course no surprise from the Electric Universe perspective.
The authors claim that the supposed density of those filaments
is enough to solve the missing baryon problem in the standard cosmological scenario.
Be that as it may, as I've noted before,
for our purposes it might be productive to analyze the assumptions that have been made
and see if their revision might provide additional insights.
In order to do that, I would like to remember Pierre Marie Robitaille's work
on Cosmic Microwave Background.
In short, his independent research shows that the signal
that is considered to be a Cosmic Microwave Background,
might actually be generated by the Earth's oceans.
These oceanic emissions are then scattered by the Earth's atmosphere
and are thus apparently coming from all directions.
The microwave background was also observed from low Earth orbit by COBE mission
but, as Robitaille has shown, the signals received in this case
resemble the ones that will be coming from Earth
and undergoing diffraction on the edges of the horn-antennas.
One has to remember that even at about 900 kilometers altitude,
where the COBE satellite was positioned,
the Earth still blocks more than the quarter of the whole celestial sphere.
Planck satellite was positioned much farther than that,
about 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, at the Lagrange L2 point.
An independent analysis shows that it should detect virtually no microwaves from Earth,
so there should be no Cosmic Microwave Background
detected by Planck in Robitaille's theory.
Contrary to that, the research team working on the Planck mission
have claimed to have detected the microwave background signal.
But Robitaille's analysis of the Planck's instrument layout
seemed to indicate that its readings have been misinterpreted
because of the flaws in the design of the reference loads onboard the satellite.
These loads were supposed to be giving off thermal radiation at about 4 Kelvin temperature
but because of the almost perfect heat conduction,
allowed by the design of the instrument,
the favorable way of transmitting heat and achieving thermal equilibrium
was through conduction, not radiation,
making the laws of thermal radiation inapplicable in this case.
So according to Robitaille, Planck satellite reference loads
were giving off near-zero thermal radiative signal
and as the instrument was matching this near-zero signal
to the signal received by the antenna pointed into space,
which also yielded near-zero reading,
the detector showed a good match and a strong output signal.
I should note that there was another mission
that supposedly observed Cosmic Microwave Background far from Earth.
It was a Soviet experiment RELIKT-1 on board of the Prognoz 9 spacecraft.
It had an apogee of about 700,000 kilometers
from where it made observations of the background radiation
as well as some other measurements.
It would be interesting to hear Dr. Robitaille's comment on that.
Anyway, if Robitaille's theory is correct,
then of course Big Bang Theory loses one of its main arguments.
Well, Big Bang contradicts all the known physics laws,
namely the conservation laws and the causality, so it's not that big of a loss.
But let us look at the findings outlined before, to see what the complete absence
or at least the significant weakness of the Microwave Background would mean.
First of all, the Compton scattering maps, used in aforementioned research,
come from the combination of data from both the high frequency
and low frequency instruments of the Planck satellite,
and it was the low frequency instrument
that supposedly detected the background signal in the first place.
Now, let us imagine that we subtract this low frequency background signal from the map since,
according to Robitaille's theory, it is false.
This would leave us a lower near-zero background
but the higher frequency part characteristic of the detected filaments would remain in place
and become even stronger in comparison to the now lower baseline signal.
It's as if one would look at Hawaiian mountain Mauna Kea
after lowering the water line to the ocean floor level.
The mountain would actually stand higher than the Mount Everest.
Though if it is partly hidden by the so-to-speak background of the surrounding water,
it would appear to be much less prominent as it does now.
So if Robitaille is correct, their observations seem to show
that the detected filaments are actually brighter
than what would be expected otherwise.
Now the question arises about the nature of the observed emissions.
They might indeed be caused by the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect
but now the initial low-energy photons
would not come from a hypothetical remnant of the Big Bang
but rather be produced by real objects
such as dust, stars, galaxies and other plasma structures
emitting electromagnetic waves over the whole spectral range.
These emissions might not bear the thermal spectrum
that is expected for the Cosmic Microwave Background in the Big Bang scenario.
Moreover, if these background emissions would, on average,
yield a lower photonic flux in the given range,
then the model used by the authors
would underestimate the density of the filaments and their temperature.
There are other possibilities, of course.
The registered photons might not result from some scattering process
but actually be emitted by these plasma filaments themselves.
In fact, in this case they could be subject to Regular, not Inverse, Compton effect
and initially have a higher energy than that detected by Planck.
They might give off some portion of their energy
to the charged particles in the filaments and the colder surrounding plasma.
This, of course, also leads to the conclusion that the detected filaments
could be more dense and more energetic than what follows from the Big Bang interpretation.
Then there is also a scenario in which these photons might be the result
of the intergalactic currents that shape the filaments in the first place.
The energy range of photons, that Planck was able to detect,
corresponds to one milli-electron volts or so.
So any of those photons could be emitted by an electron
that was accelerated by one milli-volt of potential difference
and here we assume that it has lost all of its energy to the outcoming photon.
But in reality, this emission might represent only a tiny fraction of the electron energy.
We don't really know any of that,
and depending on the actual nature of the processes that lead to this emission,
it might have very different directional distribution.
The filaments described in the mentioned research
are observed in the direction perpendicular to the line of sight.
Maybe when observed head-on, looking into the filament like into a barrel of a gun,
one would get completely different readings etc.
Now the energy gained from the electric potential
would also depend on the length of the acceleration path.
So if one underestimates the filament density
and thus overestimates the acceleration length,
one would come with a smaller overall potential difference measure than otherwise.
So, to conclude my notes on this subject, I would like to repeat two key points;
Firstly, under any possible scenario,
this research acknowledges the existence of intergalactic plasma filaments
that make up a significant portion of the matter in the universe.
And secondly, depending on the used assumptions,
one might get dramatically different picture of the parameters of those filaments
and draw different conclusions about the processes that take place in these regions.
Outside the Big Bang framework, the filaments might demonstrate higher temperatures,
higher plasma densities and significant electric current and potential values.
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