Cosmology
Iron Sun Hypothesis
One of the prevailing mysteries in solar physics is why, given the amount of H fusion in the core that is required to generate the heat and light observed at the surface, the predicted amount of neutrino flux is simply not observed, even taking into account νe - νμ conversion and coronal 3He filament absorbtion. The inner solar system should be awash with solar neutrino flux, yet the observed flux is more or less the same in any direction, and much less than standard solar theory predicts.
There is still currently no way (without resorting to peculiar or even entirely speculative physics) to explain a solar surface temperature of a relatively cool 6000 Kelvin, presumably heated from fusion within the sun, whilst the corona reaches temperatures of several million K sufficient to fuse elements and generate X-Ray spectra. See White et al. "Radio and Hard X–ray Images of High–Energy Electrons in an X-class Solar Flare".
Could H and He fusion in coronal plasma filaments, heated to millions of Kelvin by magnetohydrodynamic compression (the so-called Z-pinch), be sufficient to explain the observed solar heat budget and particle flux? And if so, what of the core of the sun?
Implications for stellar evolution
Element formation in the big picture. Big Bang nucleosynthesis. fusion to iron.
Instead of the universe consisting almost entirely of H and He, could it in fact be mostly Fe by mass?
Galaxy rotation curves; c.f. Peratt's plasma universe paper.
An iron universe...