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(meteorobs) FW: question about article

Okay, everyone.  I wrote Thomas Gold about his statements in the CCNet
excertps.  The article quoted him as saying the side of the moon facing
Earth received much more solar electron disturbance than the far side.
Since this made no sense to me, I hoped he could clarify.  This is how he
responded.

Fascinating stuff!

--Terry



-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Gold [mailto:tg21@cornelldot edu]
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 5:02 PM
To: Terry Johnson
Subject: Re: question about article


Dear Mr. Johnson:


I pleaded with the news media to put in the explanation, but they didn't.
Here is the piece on this from my article:


The side of the Moon that is permanently facing the Earth shows markedly
more flat filler surfaces than the other side, which we have seen equally
clearly on lunar satellite photography.  Yet seen from the Sun, the Moon
spins around in 28 days.  Why has one half been treated so differently from
the other?  What effect did the Earth have to generate more filled areas
just on the side facing us??

The electric transport process provides a very clear answer.  The Moon is
downstream from the Earth in the Sun's permanent outflow of charged
particles.  Many satellite observations of this flow have shown that the
violent disturbance that the Earth's magnetic field causes, puts much more
energy into electron motion (the phenomenon of the aurora is due to that),
than is contained in the quiet, steady flow. But it is just this higher
energy range that induces the effects observed in our laboratory.  For about
four days in each month, around full Moon for us, the front side is
bombarded with these high energy electrons while the back side is never in
such a position.  Without the interference of the Earth, only major solar
outbursts would deliver this effective bombardment. The much smaller rates
of transportation on the back of the Moon and on Eros must be largely
attributed to such events.


There was unfortunately also another error:I had said that about one
centimeter of dust had to be added to the filler on the front of the moon
since the building of the pyramids, or about one micron per year.  Somehow
this got messed up into the statement of one micron since the building of
the pyramids. Very embarrassing.
Sincerely,  Thomas Gold

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