Cosmic Rain
The Controversial Discovery of Small Comets
by Dr. Louis A. Frank
Trade Paperback, 294 Pages, 33 Illustrations
$35.00, ISBN: 978-1-949501-19-3
Genre(s):
Speculative Science
Every minute several huge “snowballs” break up as they approach the Earth and deposit a large cloud of water vapor in Earth’s upper atmosphere.
That’s the startling finding that world-renowned physicist Louis A. Frank came to after studying the images from the Dynamics Explorer 1 spacecraft. His conclusion, based on data acquired at the limits of detection, created a storm of controversy among scientists. This is the story that was told in The Big Splash, published in 1990. But the story does not end there.
Less than a decade later, Frank’s discovery of these previously undetected small comets was confirmed when images were received from cameras aboard a different spacecraft named Polar. The news of this “vindication” of Frank’s provocative theory in 1997 made the front pages of several large metropolitan newspapers, including The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Washington Post.
Cosmic Rain, a greatly expanded, full color edition of The Big Splash, tells this never-before-told follow-up, in Frank’s own words, of the confirmation of the existence of small comets and the harsh criticism he faced from colleagues for upsetting so many scientific applecarts in the process.
About the Author: Louis A. Frank (1938-2014)
A native of Chicago, Frank’s first professional research activities began in 1958 when he assisted James Van Allen in the calibration of the first U.S. lunar probes, Pioneers 3 and 4, as an undergraduate student at the University of Iowa. Later, Frank was the principal investigator for the auroral imaging instruments for the Dynamics Explorer Mission, the plasma instrumentation for the Galileo Mission to Jupiter, the U.S. plasma instrumentation for the Japanese Geotail spacecraft, and the camera for visible wavelengths for the Polar spacecraft of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) Program. His scientific accomplishments were many: he discovered the theta aurora, the remarkable configuration of auroral and polar cap luminosities that looks like the Greek letter theta hovering above the polar cap; he made the first measurements of the plasma ring around Jupiter and Saturn; and he was the first to measure solar-wind plasma funneling directly into the Earth’s polar atmosphere, as well as the belt of ions around the Earth known as the “ring current.” Frank was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and the recipient of the National Space Act Award.
Recent Small Comet News:
Snowballs in Hell
William Abbott takes space physicist Louis A. Frank's small comet theory and runs with it...all the way to Mercury. Though Frank dismissed the possibility that small comets could reach the innermost part of the solar system intact, Abbott cites recent discoveries that suggest there is indeed evidence of water—as well as other cometary ingredients, sodium and potassium—on Mercury. Abbott discusses a surface feature of Mercury known as "the hallows," which are recent formations. Small comets anyone?
Water on the Moon
Yes, there is water not he Moon; lots of it. But where did—or does—come from? NASA's forthcoming Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper will tell us about the distribution of that water and perhaps its origins. And in doing so, it may lend support for the late space physicist's small comets discovery. If Louis Frank is correct, small comets should be delivering a relatively homogeneous layer of glacial ice within the polar craters. In other Moon news, Chinese scientists have analyzed the lunar soil collected and brought back by their Chang-5 mission and concluded that Lunar Soil Has the Right Stuff for "Extraterrestrial Photosynthesis," the water for which could be sourced from lunar ice.
Millions of Tons of a Strange New Chemical Were Discovered in Earth’s Atmosphere
Scientists in Germany have discovered that these newly discovered chemicals called hydrotrioxides linger in the atmosphere for at least 20 minutes (remember that number). Hydrotrioxides are made up of a hydrogen atom and three oxygen atoms. The researchers estimate that at least 11 million tons of hydrotrioxides form in the atmosphere each year. "This work," they conclude, "draws attention to an important class of strong oxidizing agents previously disregarded in atmospheric kinetics models." Disregarded by the mainstream perhaps, but not by the late space physicist Louis A. Frank at the University of Iowa, who proposed that an influx of previously undetected small comets is currently depositing millions of tons of oxygen and hydrogen atoms in the form of water vapor into the upper atmosphere each year. Most remarkably, that "20 minute" linger time the researchers discovered matches exactly the linger time of the water vapor in the upper atmosphere from the disintegration of small comets that Frank discovered.
Chinese Rover Finds Evidence That Water Was Present on Mars More Recently Than Thought
The question is: how "recent"? The scientists speculate that part of the Martian surface were covered with water up until approximately 3 billion years ago. Okay, but what about the evidence of water in the Martian atmosphere today? We have evidence of it in the form of noctilucent clouds in the Martian atmosphere. Earth has them, too. Noctilucent clouds are produced by water vapor in the mesosphere. But no one has offered a plausible transport mechanism to get that much water vapor up that high from a now dry planet, as William Abbott explains in Water on the Planet Mars. Unless of course you accept the controversial discovery of small comets proposed by the late space physicist Louis A. Frank at the University of Iowa.
Jupiter's Mushballs
Some people are taking Louis A. Frank's small comet discovery seriously. William Abbott is one of them. In his latest post he addresses the presence of lots of water at high altitudes in Jupiter's atmosphere. He doesn't buy the explanation proposed by NASA's Juno scientists who call them "Mushballs," slushy ammonia-rich hailstones formed by the gas giant's violent thunderstorms. That designation reminds Abbott of astrophysicist Ernst Öpik's "Dustballs," the name given in the 1920s to the faint meteors that glow brightly for about 2 seconds entering Earth's atmosphere. Frank thought this class of faint meteors, Öpik’s Dustballs, were small comets. "Perhaps NASA’s Jovian Mushballs, with their flashes of light, are also Frank’s small comets," concludes Abbott.
Borax on Mars?
The late space physicist Louis Frank wasn\'t the one who pointed out that the small comets he had discovered might be the source of the Earth\'s oceans. That conclusion came from the late Thomas Donahue, a highly respected atmospheric scientist at the University of Michigan, who looked at Frank\’s discovery papers and said that if Frank was right, these comets would have brought in enough water, over the age of the Earth, to produce the oceans. Frank agreed: Ten million salty, small comets every year would be needed to keep the oceans in equilibrium. In this post, William Abbott bets that the recently discovered borax deposits on Mars probably have the same mineral ratios as the ones on Earth, as Mars is being bombarded by the very same small comets. And probably Mercury too, which leads Abbott to venture another bet: that ESA\'s Bepicolumbo mission satellite, which will begin orbiting Mercury in 2025, will also find boron on that planet. Anyone want to bet against him?
Small Comets and The Sun
There are a lot of small comets coursing through the solar system, according to the controversial theory (and plentiful evidence) presented by the late University of Iowa space physicist Louis Frank in his book Cosmic Rain. Of the many intriguing questions this discovery raises, one is: how far do these comets get before being annihilated by the Sun? Small comet proponent William Abbott believes they make it to the hollows of Mercury and even the Sun itself. He argues that infalling small comets are the likely source of the water vapor that has been observed in sunspots. And as far as Mercury is concerned, there are at least a trillion tons of glacial ice in Mercury\’s permanently shaded craters, and no one has a good explanation for how glacial and crystalline water-ice could be present in such vast quantities for millions of years on Mercury’s surface. Unless of course some of it has formed quite recently by the constant infall of Frank\’s small, water-bearing comets. Why is no one connecting the dots?
Check out the new website:
How A Startling New Discovery Created A Storm Of Controversy
CONTENTS
Foreword by Patrick Huyghe
Part 1: The Big Splash (1981-1990)
1 A Radical Departure
2 Cosmic Rain
3 The Black Spot Mystery
4 True Confessions
5 A Storm of Controversy
6 The Creation of the Oceans
7 Heat, Dust, and the Origin of Life
8 The Atmosphere and the Ice Ages
9 A Masquerade for Radar
10 How to Spot a Small Comet
11 Flying Saucers and Other Strange Events
12 A Scramble for Satellite Data
13 Extraordinary Evidence
14 Launch of the Arti cial Comets
15 Some Cometary Competition
16 The Verdict
17 The Competition Fizzles
18 Why the Moon Doesn’t Ring Like A Bell
19 Mars and the Outer Planets
20 Where the Small Comets Come From
21 Death of the Dinosaurs
22 The Debate Comes to an End
23 Astronomers Enter the Fray
24 Where Are You Now, Galileo?
25 The Great Search Begins
26 Double Trouble
27 The Turning Point
Part 2 Vindication (1990-2001)
28 The Rest of the Story
29 Polar Rising
30 Vindication
31 Grand Slam
32 Dessler and His Pawns
33 Steering Through Rough Waters
34 Contact Sport
35 Spacewatch Redux
36 Deep Waters
37 Last Dance
38 The Witch Hunt
39 Snowballs in Hell
40 Small Comets and the Future
Notes
Bibliography
Illustration Acknowledgments
Appendix 1: How to Search for Small Comets
Appendix 2: How This Book Came to Be
Name Index |
