DART – Double Asteroid Redirection Test – Vindicates Luis Alverez’s Jet Effect Theory – Sort of
First of all, Dr. Luis Alverez “Jet Effect” theory, used to explain JFK’s backwards head movement, was a brilliant theory. But, as often happens with brilliant theories, it is actually false, in the case of the JFK assassination. The initial forward movement of the head, during z312-z313, shows it is false. The head should have started moving backwards immediately, within 5 to 10 milliseconds, if it was true. This is somewhat surprising because the theory definitely holds up with taped melons, which Alverez demonstrated. Likely a human head absorbs too much energy, breaking it up, to leave enough energy to fling enough material at a high enough speed to have a “Jet Effect”. However, the “Neurological Spasm” theory explains, indeed provides the only plausible explanation, for the initial movement forward. Then a gradual and fairly constant acceleration of the head backwards over the next 220 milliseconds, and the right elbow shooting up six vertical inches. No other theory explains these observations.
The DART experiment from last month demonstrates a different, surprising ballistic effect. In the Alverez “Jet Effect”, a struck object can be propelled in the opposite direction of the projectile. In contrast, in the DART experiment, the struck asteroid is propelled in the same direction as the projectile. But what is counter intuitive, the asteroid received (current estimate) up to three to five times the momentum of the spacecraft? How is that possible?
By creating a powerful jet of material that carries matter away from the crater, largely traveling in a direction opposite that of the spacecraft. Overall momentum must be preserved. If the spacecraft simply got embedded in the asteroid, with no debris ejected, the change in momentum of the asteroid would be exactly equal to the momentum carried by the spacecraft. But with debris ejected in the opposite direction of the spacecraft’s trajectory, the change in momentum must be even greater, perhaps three to five times greater.
Toward the end of his life, Luis Alverez, along with his son, Walter Alverez, help alert mankind to the danger of comets and asteroids, by showing what killed off the dinosaurs. And a large spacecraft, in the future, may save mankind. And a sort of “Anti-Jet-Effect”, in the opposite direction of the “Alverez-Jet-Effect” might make the decisive difference, deflecting an asteroid just enough to save mankind.
