Scientific Criticism
While the concept of the Photon Belt is a part of New Age philosophy, some parts of the story can be analyzed scientifically. Mainstream scientists assert that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of any sort of "photon belt," and they have made the following statements in support of that conclusion:
- A photon is a boson--one of the elementary particle that carry the four forces of physics--in this case, the force that produces light, i.e., the electromagnetic force. To the extent that such a thing as a "photon belt" is physically possible, it would require the gravitational pull of a black hole, with light rays being bent around the black hole near the event horizon, forming a photon sphere. Barring interaction with gravity or matter, photons otherwise always travel in straight lines.
- Alcyone is a star in the Pleiades cluster, some 440 light-years away. The core of the Pleiades cluster is approximately 8 light-years across. The Sun, and with it the Earth, is moving away from Alcyone.
Read more about this topic: Photon Belt
Famous quotes containing the words scientific and/or criticism:
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