Thanks for the
Titan’s Winds article
Jerry. There may be other factors involved in planetary spin, though the idea of a movable crust is intriguing. However, the article’s explanation does not seem to hold water, since the winds are shifting.
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On Titan, the wind blows in predominantly one direction at any given time, always generally east-west, though whether the wind is easterly or westerly at the surface depends upon the season.
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Okay, we could live with this, that there is a prevailing EAST-WEST wind, though seasonality may affect this. But then it says further down in the same article:
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And he also points out that, even if Titan scientists can chalk up the apparent asynchronous rotation of Titan's surface to the atmosphere, they can't currently explain why Titan's atmosphere blows west-to-east near the surface instead of the other direction.
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So now the prevailing wind is WEST-EAST, or opposite, depending on the seasons? This sounds like a ‘zero sum’ game to me. So I must agree with Jerry’s:
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Originally Posted by Jerry
Say what? The wind direction - as exposed by the drift patterns, is exactly opposite the direction necessary to paddle the orbital rotation of Titan in the direction it is rotating? What kind of physical model of the planet can cause that? This is absurb!
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What kind of modeling is that? The same with wind caused ‘sand dunes’ where the explanation offered is murky. In effect, this article really offers no explanation.
OTOH, I realize the ‘turkey timer’ is about to go off (tomorrow?), so here’s my recap of what I think was ‘value added’ in this discussion, thanks to
Jerry and all who participated:
1. Testing for ‘anomalies’ that keep cropping up in astronomical observations, regardless of theory, demands critical examination.
2. There are many such anomalies, explored without mercy on ATM discussions, enough to warrant possible revisions in MS cosmology theories.
3. Theories are ‘models’ no matter how internally consistent, or mathematically elegant, so they should not hold greater value than empirical observations, no matter how anomalous those observations turn out to be (or how 'elegant' the theory challenged), where new theory may be called for to better explain anomalies found.
4. To defend theory based on historicity of its effectiveness in describing cosmological observations does not override anomalous observations that keep challenging such theories.
5. It is possible our scientific theoretical understandings based upon current cosmology modeling may be wrong enough to overturn some cherished MS ideas, such as: distant light redshifts as space-expansion (and BBT), Type II 1a standard candles for distance and time, gravitational anomalies such as Pioneers et al, distant body mass and density anomalies (even within the Earth’s crust) especially for Pluto and Charon system where they may be no more than dirty snow and ice balls, anomalous atmospheres on gas giants and moons, flat rotation curves for galaxies (MOND), extreme gravity at galaxy centers (black holes), extreme fast rotation for neutron stars, cometary comas defying the ‘dirty snow ball’ hypothesis, why looking back through Hubble telescope nearly 13 billion years we find fully formed galaxies, and non-falsifiable Dark Matter/Dark Energy, including non-observance of ‘gravity waves’.
6. To test for alternative theoretical models to explain this growing list of cosmology anomalies may require abandoning some presently accepted theories to make room for new ones.
On both sides of the aisle were arguments, where on one side were those arguing for holding current theory and looking to better explain such anomalous observations within context of known astrophysical models (sometimes rigorously defended with MS theories), and the other side calling for major rejections of some aspects of modern theory models and look for new ones. The
demise argument in "Demise of ATM Discussions" would favor the first argument, that we need to better study and understand current cosmology rather than challenging it, especially by those not really qualified to do so; while those who favor a
non-demise of ATM call for more questioning and brain-storming to find new theoretical explanations that better fit the patterns of anomalous observations streaming in from the latest data. That’s about where I think we are right now, but mine is only an opinion of one. I vote for ATM’s non-demise, and welcome participants to take their positions as far as they can go, arguing for what they think they understand, even if it means sometimes not having the necessary tools to make a full case robust enough to stand up to MS. But keep trying and do not feel bullied because those who argue on the basis of scientific ‘historicity’ had done this before, and in the end theirs were the theories that failed. The Copernican revolution was the end result of new modeling that completely overturned the old. We may now be entering a period in astrophysics that will dramatically change what we had come to accept as seen through General Relativity and supersymmetry. There may be a better way, one that will combine not only strange anamolies but eventually explain Maxwellian theory with a better model down to the Quantum level. And when that happens, when and if it happens, a whole new world of scientific discoveries, and possibly a whole new means of space exploration with new forms of propulsion (beyond rocket science) may take what is today ATM into the Mainstream.
Thanks Jerry, and all who participated in this very interesting seminal discussion.
