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The Electric Universe is a collection of ideas currently advocated by Wallace Thornhill and Don Scott primarily on the internet about astronomy and planetary science, based on the notion that electricity and plasma physics play a much larger role in astrophysics than considered by mainstream science. Proponents claim that:
-The Sun and stars are powered by an external electric current rather than by nuclear fusion as in conventional astronomy.
-Electrical discharges in the form of megalightning and caused by electrical discharge machining, is responsible for many planetary features including arachnoids, chaos terrain, craters, Martian spiders, and rilles.
-Standard physical cosmology should be rejected in favoring of nonstandard plasma cosmology.
-The big bang, solar nebula hypothesis, black holes, dark energy, dark matter and standard models of planetary formation are not based in reality.
-Historically, cosmic electrical activity has been much greater than we see today. As an example, proponents cite rock art and various megaliths with the claim that they represent an intense ancient aurora-like phenomenon. Incorporating aspects of Velikovskian catastrophism and comparative mythology gives rise to various ancient histories, mythologies and iconography.
Both critics such as skeptics and members of the mainstream scientific community, and also some EU advocates, have called EU a catastrophist pseudoscience, as there is neither sufficient evidence, mathematical models, nor peer review, to treat it as a scientific theory. The concept is absent from refereed scientific literature.

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