Hydrogen escape into space, how much?

[modest]

FREEZTAR:Shouldn't there be a question mark after "indication?" Isn't "hypocrisy" the correct spelling?

 

I might note on the issue of hypocrisy that pointing out incorrect spelling should be reserved to those without such similar transgressions. I’m rather sure

 

descibed

 

geater

 

and

 

goodself

 

are not to be found in the dictionary. Buffy has addressed this issue and we should follow her advice:

 

Just to remind everyone, while proper spelling and grammar might help, no one here--well no one with any *manners* (and those that lack them don't last very long in most cases!)--cares if you can spell. Most folks around here have English as their second or third language, so its really unimportant..

[freeztar]

I wrote: EXACTLY how much - - - - has yet to be determined.

 

Until then, I BELIEVE this obviously apparent, PHYSICAL LOSS is a VALID indication - - -

 

Seems straightforward to me. Photographs show significant amounts of hydrogen escaping into space, more than can be explained by hydrogen coming in thru ozone holes.

 

It doesn't seem straightforward to me.

I'd love to see these photographs of H escaping into space. Do you have a link?

 

Physical measurements also seem to indicate a substantial amount is being lost, it is just that the EXACT amount has yet to be determined.

I don't think we can ever know the EXACT amount lost. We are stuck with the best known data and statistics.

 

Therefore, an obviously substantial, physically evident amount being lost into space should logically be a valid indication of a substantial source within Earth, at least it is to me.

Omitting Craig's recent post for the time being, why does H loss into space equate to H within the Earth?

 

Since this is what I believe, and there is considerable physical evidence to support my belief, where is the hypocrisy?

Please forgive me for using the word hypocrisy. It carries a negative connotation with it and I did not consider that when I posted. It would have been much more proper of me to say something like "opposing ideas", or something similar.

 

To answer your question, belief is not science and the "considerable physical evidence" you 'reference' does not substantiate your belief, neither here, nor, I suspect, among the professional scientific community.

 

And this from someone who was kind enough to surf the Internet and find Brinkmann's thesis for me

 

I'm not "out to get you" or anything like that Charlie. I'm simply engaging you in scientific debate. :shrug:

 

which went into great detail about the substantial amounts of hydrogen escaping into space, largely from volcanic outgassing. [Apparently Brinkmann believes there is evidence of a hydrogen source within Earth.] Brinkmann also referenced many high altitude research studies done by those best in a position to know how to do them; JPL, NASA, etc. Brinkmann also presented the results of these direct measurements indicating substantial hydrogen losses.

 

I'll need to re-read the Brinkman paper as I don't remember his support for a H core. If you have the page handy, let me know so I won't waste time. :crash:

 

Based on the facts, doesn't implying I am being hypocritical in MY claims seem a bit hypocritical to you?

Huh? :Glasses:

 

Sorry I don't have time to surf the Internet or visit my local library for a while, but I have every confidence you will be able to find the evidence to support the other claims I have made on you own.

 

Craig has already addressed this matter.

[CharlieO]

FREEZTAR el at: My apologies to all for my peevish attitude and ill advised responses. Too many people milling about [wife's family reunion], too much confusion, wife ill. I'm getting too old for this [75], nerves are about shot.

 

Should have waited to respond to remark taken personally until the crowd is long gone. Future responses will be more carefully considerate. For now, I'll have to accept the fact that currently measured hydrogen escape rates are insufficient to validate my assumption of a substantial hydrogen reservoir still actively effusing within Earth. Therefore, I had best consider this thread closed.

 

Best Regards to all, CharlieO

[CharlieO]

FREEZTAR: Sorry for making the assumption that every science buff knew whales were thought to have evolved from land animals. I was taught this over 50 years ago. I guess this goes to prove some people know a lot about many things, but not everything, including me. I'll try to keep my posts simple and provide links for every claim I make in the future.

 

This subject was featured previously in Hypography.

Whale Fossils Show Link To Cows

 

Regards, Charlie

 

BBSNews - Finally Found: Land Ancestors of Whales Known as Indohyus

Missing Link Between Whales and Four-Footed Ancestors Discovered

 

BBSNews 2007-12-24 -- (NSF) Scientists have discovered the missing link between whales and their four-footed ancestors. The result is reported in this week's issue of the journal Nature. The research is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

 

 

Scientists since Darwin have known that whales are mammals whose ancestors walked on land. In the past 15 years, researchers led by Hans Thewissen of the Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy (NEOUCOM) have identified a series of intermediate fossils documenting whale's dramatic evolutionary transition from land to sea.

 

But one step was missing: The identity of the land ancestors of whales.

 

Now Thewissen and colleagues have discovered the skeleton of Indohyus, an approximately 48-million-year-old even-toed ungulate from the Kashmir region of India, as the closest known fossil relative of whales.

[freeztar]

FREEZTAR: Sorry for making the assumption that every science buff knew whales were thought to have evolved from land animals. I was taught this over 50 years ago. I guess this goes to prove some people know a lot about many things, but not everything, including me. I'll try to keep my posts simple and provide links for every claim I make in the future.

 

Yes, I'm aware of the whale and indohyus connection. Sorry for not being more specific Charlie. I was referring to the coral reefs found at the ocean bottom, as well as river beds. I have no reason to doubt that it is true, given that land masses rise and subside all the time, but I was unaware of such occurences.

Perhaps the links below are representative of what you were talking about?

 

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0962-8452(20020307)269%3A1490%3C507%3ATDTNAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L

 

29 March 2007: Scientists picture the landforms that time forgot

 

A better question for me to ask is, how does any of this lend support to an H-core?

[CharlieO]

FREEZTAR: I'll get back with deep ocean trenches and undersea river beds. I think I still have a textbook with photographs and/or drawings of same from a course taken some 40 years ago. Meanwhile, in regard to photographs of H escaping into space, I still haven't been able to find any links to published photographs of hydrogen escaping into space from Earth. I was last directly aware of related space research while at Vandenberg AFB in the mid 1980's. There was a problem of hydrogen ions being found in widely varied amounts between Earth and Moon; apparently related to passing thru a comet-like tail of hydrogen reaching from Earth to Moon's orbit. These varied densities were being studied as to their possible effect on space activity, specifically at Vandenberg AFB for the MX missile guidance system. I've personally seen photos of hydrogen clouds effusing from Earth, taken from Space Lab. These were on display in the MX missile operations room, but I'm not sure if any were ever published.

 

Also, the detailed studies on hydrogen ion concentrations in space, which I have read and were widely known among base personnel to be evidence of escaping hydrogen, may not have been published. Being as the MX missile guidance program was then highly secret and still may be, It may be USAF, NASA and JPL don't care to reveal how detailed their photographs from space could be. Nor do I care to reveal any specific details since I have friends still involved with related surveillance systems. I suspect a 1995 NASA study, which I read some years ago in printed form and have referred to several times, also may not have been published. However, the following might be of interest:

 

ESA Portal - Expanding Frontiers - European astronomers observe first evaporating planet

 

 

European astronomers observe first evaporating planet

 

12 March 2003

 

Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, for the first time, astronomers have observed the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet evaporating off into space (shown in blue in this illustration). Much of this planet may eventually disappear, leaving only a dense core.

 

Astronomers estimate the amount of hydrogen gas escaping HD 209458b to be at least 10 000 tonnes per second, but possibly much more. The planet may therefore already have lost quite a lot of its mass.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

While this planet is in a different situation than planet Earth, both have their hydrogen escaping into space. HD 209458b's hydrogen escape rate is estimated to be 315,360,000 tonnes per year and possibly much more. This is greater than Brinkmann's 1969 hydrogen escape rate for Earth, estimated to be only 451,912 short tons per year, but this is no guarantee that Earth might not have had a much greater escape rate in the past.

 

Since today's estimated rate for hydrogen escape could vary widely over time, Brinkmann's estimate could be very low compare with the escape rate when Earth was younger. After all, current estimates are only estimates, whether for today or during Earth's first billion years. No one knows for sure. In addition, I have found many researchers appear to design experiments and make calculations that more closely agree with their preconceived assumptions. The following being one example, when compared with others claiming the rate of hydrogen escape was much less during the same period.

 

3 August 2001: Biogenic Methane, Hydrogen Escape, and the Irreversible Oxidation of Early Earth, David C. Catling, Kevin J. Zahnle, and Christopher McKay; Science Aug 3 2001: 839-843. [subscription required for access]

 

"The low O2 content of the Archean atmosphere implies that methane should have been present at levels ~102 to 103 parts per million volume (ppmv) (compared with 1.7 ppmv today) given a plausible biogenic source. CH4 is favored as the greenhouse gas that countered the lower luminosity of the early Sun. But abundant CH4 implies that hydrogen escapes to space orders of magnitude faster than today. Such reductant loss oxidizes the Earth. Photosynthesis splits water into O2 and H, and methanogenesis transfers the H into CH4. Hydrogen escape after CH4 photolysis, therefore, causes a net gain of oxygen [CO2 + 2H2O --- CH4 + 2O2 --- CO2 + O2 + 4H (space)]. Expected irreversible oxidation (~1012 to 1013 moles oxygen per year) may help explain how Earth's surface environment became irreversibly oxidized.

 

* * * * * *

 

Sorry at not being much help, just getting back to normal, for me at least, CharlieO

[Zythryn]

Charlie, I find it odd that you are using findings that don't support your position of a core of Hydrogen to support your position?

 

For example, the article you just quoted mentions that the amount of hydrogen that escaped the earth in the past was likely higher due to atmospheric CH4. However you seem to hold that this is due to the earth having a hydrogen core??

 

People are not critical of the idea of hydrogen escaping the earth's atmosphere, they are critical of the lack of evidence showing that this hydrogen is originally coming from a hydrogen core as opposed to the atmosphere.

[freeztar]

FREEZTAR: I'll get back with deep ocean trenches and undersea river beds. I think I still have a textbook with photographs and/or drawings of same from a course taken some 40 years ago.

 

Ok, I'd like to read more about them.

 

Meanwhile, in regard to photographs of H escaping into space, I still haven't been able to find any links to published photographs of hydrogen escaping into space from Earth.

 

How do you photograph a colorless gas? Are you perhaps referring to gas chromotography or something else?

 

Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, for the first time, astronomers have observed the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet evaporating off into space (shown in blue in this illustration). Much of this planet may eventually disappear, leaving only a dense core.

 

Astronomers estimate the amount of hydrogen gas escaping HD 209458b to be at least 10 000 tonnes per second, but possibly much more. The planet may therefore already have lost quite a lot of its mass.

 

While this planet is in a different situation than planet Earth, both have their hydrogen escaping into space. HD 209458b's hydrogen escape rate is estimated to be 315,360,000 tonnes per year and possibly much more. This is greater than Brinkmann's 1969 hydrogen escape rate for Earth, estimated to be only 451,912 short tons per year, but this is no guarantee that Earth might not have had a much greater escape rate in the past.

The planet in the article you quoted is only 7 million km from the star. I would expect that its H loss is MUCH greater than Earth's.

 

Since today's estimated rate for hydrogen escape could vary widely over time, Brinkmann's estimate could be very low compare with the escape rate when Earth was younger.

 

The historic rate of H loss does not matter. If Earth had a Hydrogen core, and was effusing Hydrogen into the atmosphere, then it should be doing it by approximately the same amount now. Saying that there's a lot less leaving now implies to me that the Earth's H-core is running low. This is problematic on many levels.

[CraigD]

There was a problem of hydrogen ions being found in widely varied amounts between Earth and Moon; apparently related to passing thru a comet-like tail of hydrogen reaching from Earth to Moon's orbit.

Hydrogen ions (that is, free protons) and electrons form a very well known and measured (though, as some lengthy hypography threads, such as this one have demonstrated, not easy to understand in depth from popular and specialized literature) near-Earth feature – the Van Allen radiation belt. These charged particles appear to be trapped for long but not indefinite periods of time by the Earth’s magnetic field. Their major source appears to be the solar wind, rather than ionized hydrogen from the Earth’s atmosphere.

 

The Van Allen belts dissipate into nothing at about 7 Earth radii (45000000 or 1/8th the distance to the moon) I’m unaware of any data suggesting that the density of neutral or ionized hydrogen or any other matter between the Earth and the Moon is dramatically greater than the interplanetary medium for the Earth’s distance from the Sun.

These varied densities were being studied as to their possible effect on space activity …

Very true. The Van Allen belts contain high-energy protons that can be damage machines and animal tissue, requiring measures in spacecraft construction and orbit planning.

Also, the detailed studies on hydrogen ion concentrations in space, which I have read and were widely known among base personnel to be evidence of escaping hydrogen, may not have been published.

This data and various studies, though much of it old and cumbersome to view in electronic form, is well known and widely publicly available. A good (but rather technical) source of this data is NASA Goddard’s AE-8/AP-8 website.

 

ESA Portal - Expanding Frontiers - European astronomers observe first evaporating planet

This article describes a “hot Jupiter” – a gas giant planet close to its star. Unlike Earth, much (in Jupiter’s case, about 90%) of the mass of such planets consists of hydrogen gas, most of it in the atmosphere. Due to their large mass (In Jupiter’s case, about 318 Earth masses) and the cold conditions in which they formed, gas giants lose little of their primordial hydrogen, and thus have compositions more similar to stars and protostellar nebulae than the hydrogen-poor compositions of rocky planets like the inner planets and even smaller bodies such as asteroids.

 

In short, HD 209458b is a very different planet than Earth, so not a good model for describing the abundance or outgassing rate of hydrogen on Earth.

 

Though interesting information, neither of the above subjects are inconsistent with conventional theories of the Earth’s composition, which conclude that it is (by mass) roughly 32% iron, 30% oxygen, 15% silicon, 14% magnesium, and only about 0.07% hydrogen.

 

If I may make an observation, Charlie, I think you’re pursuing an unproductive path in attempting to support a theory of a hydrogen-rich Earth by showing that its hydrogen outgassing is greater than can be explained by conventional theory. This would, I think, become clear to you if you examined the fundamentals of atmospheric escape rate calcualations such as Jeans’. Though not usefully detailed, the wikipedia article “Atmospheric escape” might be a good starting place for references and links.

 

What you will discover is that the rate of loss of a gas from a plant depends primarily on the planet’s mass, the mass of a molecule of the gas, the concentration of the gas in the planets atmosphere, and the temperature of the planet’s atmosphere. Taking Earth’s mass and temperature as fairly constant, you can thus find the concentration required for any escape rate of any gas. I believe that if you do this for a hydrogen outgassing rate that contradicts conventional theories of the amount of hydrogen in and around Earth, you’ll obtain a atmospheric hydrogen concentration dramatically in disagreement with measured values.

 

The most productive approach, I think, would be for you to reexamine your assumptions concerning the formation of planets. In particular, your assumption that gas clouds do not “gravitate to a central location” is incorrect. Though much less massive and with much higher kinetic energy/mass ratios, gas molecules are not fundamentally different in their gravitational interaction than icy and rocky material.

[Eclogite]

What you will discover is that the rate of loss of a gas from a plant depends primarily on the planet’s mass, the mass of a molecule of the gas, the concentration of the gas in the planets atmosphere, and the temperature of the planet’s atmosphere.

Craig, I just want to reiterate the point made in post #47 that "On Earth hydrogen loss is limited by upward diffusion flux".

 

Charlie, I would echo Craig's remarks that a review of current ideas on planetary formation would, perhaps, give you a different perspective. In this regard you can find a wealth of information, inclduing many full papers and even more abstracts, at SAO/NASA ADS: ADS Home Page. Search for planetary formation, or accretion disc, for example.

 

Also, I'd like to thank you for bringing my attention to one or two points that were new to me. For example the observation that some volcanic eruptions release more mass of gas than of magma. I don't believe those observations materially support your cae, but they are independently interesting.

[CharlieO]

To ALL: Having difficult time with dial-up since last weekend, some pages take far too long for time available. Can't download papers, no PDF, no video, screen often just freezes for no reason. AOL claims I have bad connection. Phone company [promising DSL soon] says they will fix rural phone lines soon, claiming snow storm and high wind damage. It it weren't so far to drive and I wasn't required to stay here, I'd go to Kinkos.

 

Not ignoring anyone, but simply can't communicate effectively. Took 30 minutes to get here to post this and can't spare much time being 24/7 caregiver to my wife. Please check out the following, said to be very interesting in regard to hydrogen escape rate, but I can't download it. Thanks, CharlieO

 

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/nov_2007/presentations/brain.pdf

[CharlieO]

FREZTAR: another 12 minutes to load the above, frustrating. However, to answer your question about photos of hydrogen gas being possible when hydrogen gas is colorless. This is true only for human eyesight or visible light. Infrared was probably used to make it visible to the camera, but not specified. Captions only stated, Hydrogen escape plume as photographed from Space Lab. Looked like it came from nearly all around Earth, then trailed away like a comet's tail into space.

 

I might add, other photographs, which must be public knowledge, showed details of the Space Shuttle overhead, taken from Vandenberg AFB, that were like I was just a few hundred feet away, rivits were plainly visible. The Shuttle and transport, 747, came to VAFB while I was there for tests. VAFB being an alternative landing site. Impressive machine to tour, much larger than I suspected. We also watched Columbia explode in real time, close up on big screen. Terrible sight. CharlieO