2011 - Seeking the Inevitable

Cygnus x3

Known for its unique cosmic rays 

The Potential Missing Link

It has been suggested by some of the leading scholars that the dawn of mankind - the most cognitive species on our planet - had an extraterrestrial power standing behind it. As far back as 1973, science writer and astronomer Carl Sagan proposed that cosmic rays reaching Earth from some far off neutron star might well have been responsible for sudden leaps in human development. More recently scientists are beginning to consider that high-energy cosmic rays might have played such a role, causing alterations in DNA sequences that become are carried forwards through subsequent generations. Evidence also suggests that human cognitive ability is much more directly affected by cosmic-ray effects as many of the great geniuses in modern history emerged in times of increased cosmic-ray density. I have produced a study of this interrelationship under the title: "Mankind: Children of the Universe -  cosmic rays and mental development."

It is being suggested that a powerful cosmic-ray generator 37,000 light years distant (app of 10 kiloparsec) in our own galaxy might have contributed to the effect, which has been designated as the binary-star quasar Cygnus X3, located roughly in the middle of the Cygnus Constellation (also called the swan). 

Cygnus x3 'seen' with NASA's the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The perception is that Cygnus X3 is a neutron star that remained after a star explosion app. 700,000 years ago. It is deemed to be spinning at a rate of 4.79 hrs per revolution, producing gamma-ray and x-ray bursts at such intervals, and cosmic-ray emissions, and in addition for 'unknown' reasons also releases a radio wave shower ever 367 days. Since in general perception the recognition of electric forces in cosmology is ruled out, the entire phenomenon is explained by rendering the central object of Cygnus x3 a "spinning neutron star."

(The term neutron star is contradiction in language, akin to 'black light,' since neutrons decay into protons outside the environment of an atomic nucleus where they exist to fulfill a critical role. The concept of a neutron star involves an exception from universal reality - akin to the Ptolemy's epicycle - in order to fit certain aspects of observed evidence into the box of pre-determined assumptions, such as the assumption that the electric force plays no role in the cosmic context where gravity is deemed to be only acting force.)

Since the concept of the neutron star is mythical concept of the gravity-only-universe perception, where it is needed to explain pulsating energy emanating from a typically binary star configuration, a different concept for pulsars and quasars comes to light in the electric cosmology where the powering force of the Universe is recognized to be nearly entirely electric energy flowing in plasma. In this context the pulsating energy patterns are recognized as the result of repetitive electric discharge events between two closely related stellar bodies. 
(I have explored the concept under the title: "The Crab Nebula - an enigma in boxed-in perception.")

All indications suggest that Cygnus X3 falls into the functional category that the Crab Nebula belongs to, except in a much more extreme manner, resulting from its location in an extremely energy-dense region of space as is the region marked by the cross of constellation Cygnus that is associated with the flight of a swan along the galactic ecliptic.

CYGNUS Constellation map

The Cygnus region of space (along the ecliptic) contains a vast network of immensely energetic Birkeland current filaments that light up the entire region, called in astronomy the "Cygnus Loop" or in another part of it, the "Cygnus Crescent."

NASA Hubble Heritage The Cygnus Loop - 2,600 light years distant (See Large)

NASA Hubble Heritage The Cygnus Crescent - 4,700 light years distant (See large)

In these vast networks of glowing networks of electric currents many stars are surrounded by immensely energetic networks of electric currents, such as seen in the examples below.

NASA Hubble Heritage - NGC 6826 - 2,200 ly distant

NASA Hubble Heritage - NGC 7027 - 3,000 ly distant

These nebula are not small phenomena, The region seen here (NGC 7027) is approximately 14,000 times as wide as the average distance between Earth and the Sun (14,000 AU - in comparison, the solar heliosphere that contains the entire solar system is a mere 100 AU wide, which would likely be to small to be visible on the above scale).

In the gravity-only cosmology, the nebula are burnt-out, gravity-collapsed, stars that have exploded in supernova events by which much of their matter was thrown outward with the force of a shockwave. In the electric cosmology a supernova happens when a star becomes the focus of shifting Birkeland currents that cause a massive electric discharge event, followed by continued current inflows. The resulting nebula that dot the galactic landscape are all vastly different from each other in shape, but they appear to be all visibly bipolar in nature unless the viewing angle coincides with the axis of the plasma current.

NASA Hubble Heritage -  nebula gallery

Nebulas are all gigantic electric formations, which, however merely reflect the vastly larger formations of Birkeland currents in space that become visible in energetically dense electric plasma environments.

NASA Hubble Heritage - Part of the Cygnus Loop - 2,600 ly distant

The above photo (a part of the Cygnus Loop) is a combination of separate images taken in three colors by temperature (with blue at the high end - 30,000 to 60,000 degrees Celsius - ranging down to the red at around 10,000 degrees Celsius, reflecting differences in the plasma current energy density).

It is this kind of vastly extended high-power environment that Cygnus x3 is located in, far in the distance, some 37,000 light years away (app. 10 kiloparsecs).

The point that I am trying to make is that Cygnus x3 is not exceptional in principle. Its pulses are repeated plasma discharge events between to planetary objects. The repetition rate depends on that charge recovery. No rotating neutron stars are needed to produce the observed phenomenon of energetic burst from radio waves to x-ray and gamma  rays, including cosmic rays (high energy electrons and protons moving near the speed of light). The vide and of radiation is typical for for high-power plasma discharge events.  Our sun emits all of these in a modest fashion, being powered by continuous electric discharges. Cygnus x3 stands out in that its radiated energy burst are more energetic. Since Cygnus x3 is not optically visible and is 'seen' only in x-ray light, retails are sparse, but it appears that we may be looking down the barrel of a stellar equivalent of a super-energetic plasma focus device.

plasma focus device

When cosmic rays reach the Earth they typically do so in a scattered fashion and with just enough energy that few hundred feet of concrete is sufficient to dissipate their energy and stop them. Being electrically charged, they typically pass clear through the atomic structures in their path, according to the electric repulsion principles.  (High-energy neutrons in comparison are immensely destructive, by not having an electric charge that assures collision avoidance.) Cosmic-ray particles from Cygnus x3 are evidently electrically charged, but differ in that their greater energy content enables them to penetrate 2000 feet of rock. (See: the Soudan underground physics facility )

Cornelius A. Tobias (1918-2000), a founding member of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Donner Laboratory and an expert on space biology, had earlier predicted the level of cosmic radiation that future astronauts would be exposed to, and even described its potential effects. More significantly, he predicted that they would also see flashes of light before their eyes. In order to test his hypothesis, he devised a unique, but very dangerous, experiment. He decided to expose himself to sub-atomic particles produced by Berkeley's Bevalac particle accelerator, which has been described as a veritable cosmic ray factory. Part of its function is to rip away electrons from heavy elements including iron, and then focus the nuclei into a beam of particles, which are then accelerated to virtually the speed of light, like the relativistic jets produced by compact objects such as black holes and neutron stars. Tobias quite literally stuck his head in the flow of the particles and observed something almost unique on Earth. "You see visual flashes," he recalled, shortly before his death in 2000. "It is an exhilarating sensation. It is as though you are looking into the universe itself." Tobias repeated the experiment, even introducing his colleagues to the experience, until finally the tests were discontinued on health grounds.
See: The Cygnus Mystery - Have Cosmic Rays Affected Human Evolution? by Andrew Collins.

What all this means is that if you were hundreds of meters below the surface of the planet, deep inside a cave, and you witnessed a blue-white flash before your eyes, the chances are that this was, in fact, a cosmic ray. Yet since only a tiny percentage of cosmic rays penetrate the earth, there has to be a small chance that what you experienced was a particle inbound from Cygnus X-3; and this is important, for it tells us something about why Cygnus might have at­tracted the attention of our distant ancestors.

In time those who occupied the caves for religious purposes would, I sense, have realized, eventually, that the flashes were more frequent, or pronounced, when the Cygnus constellation was overhead, just as cygnets were found to be more easily detected when Cygnus was high in the sky. If so, then this might well have helped forge a spiritual link, not just with this particular cluster of stars, but also the area of the Milky Way which they occupied, i.e., the Cygnus Rift. In time, a connection between the light triggering process underground and the Cygnus constellation would surely have led to cosmological myths featuring both the astronomical position of the asterism and its abstract form as a bird (or indeed a cross), identified most usually as a swan or goose flying, wings outstretched, down the Milky Way. This avian form then became a symbol of divine knowledge and creative inspiration, explaining why perhaps the mythical song of the swan came to represent the divine source of inspiration for epic storytelling and poetry in Homeric tradition, Homer himself being referred to as the Maeonian Swan, or the Swan of Meander....

Whether such conviction was either directly or indirectly influenced by visionary experiences, triggered by cosmic rays seen as flashes of light by Palaeolithic shamans deep inside caves, is debatable. However, at the root of many ancient cosmologies is, I believe, a profound connection with the Cygnus constellation; and confirmation that one of its stars, Cygnus X-3, produced bursts of high energy gamma rays has moved us closer to understanding its greater influence on both human evolution and the origins of the world’s earliest sky-religions.
See: THE SECRET OF CYGNUS X-3 Why Should We Care About This Very Distant Star? by Andrew Collins.

The question remains to be answered, which is just recently being asked in earnest, whether Cygnus X3 had an impact on human development. Here we venture into speculation. When high-energy particles pass through anything, they typically generate a magnetic field, which no matter how minute or brief in duration, induce a corresponding secondary electric current. Since the human biological functions are electro magnetically expressed significant levels of induced electric energy might have a beneficial effect on human development, which in fact might depend on it. Since the cosmic-ray density from Cygnus x3 likely becomes attenuated by the shielding action of our solar heliosphere in the same proportion as all the other cosmic rays from other sources, their density would have been twice as great during the ice ages than they are today. Eighty percent of mankind's past occurred during ice age conditions. Ice age conditions result from increased cosmic-ray density.

It is a well known fact that cosmic rays, interacting with the Earth's atmosphere, increase ionization and thereby increase cloud formation. Increased cloud formation over longer periods causes colder climates. Clouds radiate a portion of the solar energy back into space. Increased cloud formation also reduces the water vapor in the atmosphere, which reduces the greenhouse effect that is up to 97% caused by water vapor. When increasing snowfall in colder climates increase the white surface of the Earth, the climate becomes colder still, which then flips into ice age conditions. The critical factor in all of this, appears to be the cosmic-ray density, which is controlled by the attenuating effect of the heliosphere, which in turn reflects the electric intensity around the solar system. The bottom line is that the cosmic rays are a terrible foe in that they are a factor for causing ice ages, but also appear to be highly beneficial for mental development. To what degree Cygnus x3 affects one factor over the other factor is unknown, and may not be known for some time, because still another factor enters the equation - the factor of intensity rather than density, which puts the Cygnus X3 source into a category of its own. 

Taking its distance and extinction into account, it appears to be one of the two or three most intrinsically luminous objects in the Galaxy.

It has also received attention because it is one of the few sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays, with energies in the 100 - 1000 TeV range. Its most unusual aspect is the production of anomalous cosmic ray events in a proton decay detector deep in Minnesota's Soudan iron mine.
See: Cygnus X-3

It may well be that its greater energy-intensity is producing effects that ordinary cosmic-ray interaction cannot produce. The puzzle of the deep penetration of the particles of the Cygnus X3 source has led to speculation that a different type of cosmic-ray particle other than energetic protons or electrons is involved that has not been encountered before and remains yet to be identified.
See: Cygnus X3

The now recognized unique nature of the particles from the Cygnus X3 source, which is believed to have become active around 700,000 years ago, is deemed to have had a decisive impact on human development where the differentiation that makes us human may have really begun. The app. 700,000-year timeframe coincides roughly with the dividing line between the early sequence of human development and the later sequence that took us past homo erectus.

 (1) australopithecus rudolfensis, (2) the australopithecus habilus, (3) the homo ergaster, (4) the homo erectus, (5) the homo antecessor, (6) the homo heidelbergensis, (7) the homo neandertalensis, (8) modern human species, the homo sapiens - the sole survivors of the chain of development and the shortest lived of them all, at barely 200,000 years of age.  

The 700,000-year timeframe is as much an approximation as are assumed timeframes of the early human species. The apparent fact that we have two separate sequences of development with a gap of more than a million years between them makes it reasonable to speculate that the dawn of Cygnus X3 and the beginning of the second sequence of human development coincide.

It is reasonable to conclude that if cosmic rays do affect human evolution, then the cygnets of Cygnus X-3 have played some role in this process, particularly as it is suspected that this star has been in its current state of spontaneous, periodic activity for an estimated 700,000 years (Marti, 2005). This is when mankind’s direct forerunners are known to have reached Britain. Although these so-called hominids (or hominins as the scientists like us to refer to them today) preceded the Neanderthals by as much as 500,000 years, they would appear to have been not unlike modern humans. As has been determined from a number of breathtaking discoveries in a thick clay layer dating back 700,000 years, exposed along a stretch of beach at Pakefield in Suffolk, these hominids used quite sophisticated hand tools made of flint (Kinver, 2005). Was it around this time that cosmic rays from Cygnus X-3 first began affecting human evolution?

It is plausible. Yet more important is attempting to unravel Cygnus’s overall impact on humanity. Learn this and you will perhaps answer why the constellation became so important to our Palaeolithic ancestors, when humanity was still creating fabulous art in the caves of Western Europe. The key, I feel, is the simple fact that we can see cosmic rays. This was first realized on the Apollo space missions during the 1960s. When astronauts attempted to go to sleep, they began seeing flashes of light before their eyes. This occurred either with their eyes open or closed; it didn’t matter which. In-flight experiments on subsequent missions determined that what the astronauts were experiencing were cosmic rays producing a burst of light as they decayed en route through the vitreous part of the eye.
by BY ANDREW COLLINS - The Secret of Cygnus X-3

The real significance of Cygnus x3 for the course of humanity may lay elsewhere. The scientific focus on it may help to lift mankind out of the backwaters of mythological dreaming that is presently endangering human civilization and potentially mankind's future, if not its very existence.

Since cosmic radiation from Cygnus x3 comes only in short bursts every 4.79 hours, its impact is likely too minuscule to affect anything in today's world in a significant manner. The critical factor in today's world, thus evidently lies not in the stars but in the electric power cycles of the galaxy that affect our solar system and directly impact our climate on Earth. These cycles are more immediate, more knowable, and are more powerfully affecting us than anything else. These are the cosmic factors that determine the climate on Earth in which the cosmic-ray factor plays a critical role in the chain of interactions that lead to the recurring glaciation cycles, which in turn affect our food resources that depend on agriculture that is vulnerable to becoming disabled by sudden large scale cooling in the prime growing areas, most of which a vulnerable to glaciation proceeding from the poles towards the equatorial regions.

The ice age precursors are precursors in the dynamics that affect the cosmic-ray flux density.

The ice age precursors are electric cycles that are known to a significantly large extend, to the point that we can now scientifically explore the evidence of a number of relevant precursors for the coming ice age transition for which preparations can be made by mankind to protect its food resource from the recurring ice age climate. While the actual transition point is not predictable, it is knowable that the Earth is presently in the transition phase to the next glaciation cycle. One precursor along this line has been recognized as the progressive shrinking of the solar heliosphere (by 20% so far) that NASA has reported in the context of its historic ULYSSES probe, in conjunction with an increase in high-energy cosmic rays affecting the Earth of roughly the same magnitude. While the precursors are known, the current leaders of the sciences and the nation's policies, and indeed society itself, tend to turn a blind eye to the precursor evidence whereby the critical preparations are not being made.

If the Cygnus X3 promise holds true, that increased cosmic-ray density also increases the cognitive power of mankind, then, considering the already beginning increase in cosmic-ray density, we may soon see a dramatic change happening in mankind's attitude towards one other that will prompt the building of the massive infrastructures that are needed to protect the global agriculture from the resuming ice age climate.

While we look to the stars from behind the veil of mythological beliefs, becoming tied into knots with improvable theories and cosmic dreaming, it  would be far more beneficial to look with open eyes at the already known challenges before us, which are immediate, and which we cannot survive if we fail to act on them, for which we have the physical capacity and the resources already at hand.

Perhaps the biggest factor of the Cygnus x3 phenomenon that has come to the foreground in recent years, is its potential from bringing the question of mythology vs reality in the sciences to the foreground, so that the actually critical issues can at last be addressed. 

What we should also learn by looking at Cygnus x3 as a high-power electric phenomenon, is that we live in a universe that is immensely electric energetic, with free electric energy surrounding us that has so far been given no consideration for utilization as a boundless energy resource for an infinite future for us all.