How did we get here? What are stars? What are planets? How did life come to exist on Earth?

These grand questions are approached by a scientific mainstream that asks us to believe in their unifying myth – that the universe is, first, an accident, starting with an inexplicable ‘big bang.’ That stars are nuclear furnaces that somehow formed from collapsed clouds of dust by a very weak force – gravity. And that are planets clumped together from the left-overs of star formation that just happened to avoid becoming part of the star.

But is any of this true? It would surprise most grade-schoolers (and their teachers) to learn that all of these ‘facts’ have failed the test of time, and that astronomy is in such bad shape that a “crisis in cosmology” has been cooking for decades behind the scenes, hidden from the general public (who nevertheless foot the bill for increasingly speculative, non-productive research).

Australian physicist Wal Thornhill is among those working in a new science, plasma cosmology, who are seeking testable, verifiable, reproducible answers to the larger questions of celestial and terrestial existence. These plasma pioneers are looking at the universe through a different lens than their Newtonian predecessors.

Their “Electric Universe” model puts electromagnetic energy, and not Newtonian gravity as the primary generator of celestial phenomena. Electromagnetism is a force well-studied by electrical engineers, but has been ignored in Astronomy as a prime mover thus far, despite the fact that space is filled with magnetic fields and charged particles. Electromagnetism as a force is 10 to the 39th power stronger than gravity in terms of attraction, and unlike gravity, can not only attract but also repel objects.

Thornhill and other plasma cosmologists contend that stars are not gravity-based nuclear furnaces but are in fact bodies of electrified plasma. The gravity-based model of stars has failed to predict a single quality of stellar existence or behavior. On the other hand, the plasma/electrical model predicts all the major characteristics of stars, and places them in an organic system in which gas giants and rocky planets are born of a powerful electrical process in stars, and not due to the weak attraction of gravity on dust in space.

Thornhill trained in physics and electronics at Melbourne University before working for IBM. Today he is an independent researcher, and is one of the world’s few specialists in the field of plasma cosmology. He is a founding member of the Thunderbolts project (thunderbolts.info).

Read the interview here