'Missing' Dark Matter

[Carol]

I'm not sure where to put this info as it's more science related but this seems good enough unless someone comes up with a better suggestion. Mahalo Nui Loa


'Missing' Dark Matter Is Really There, Says Hebrew University Cosmologist

September 28, 2005

A new analysis that refutes challenges to the existence of dark matter in certain galaxies appears in an article published this week in the journal Nature. Leading author of the article is Avishai Dekel, professor of physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Accepted cosmological theory postulates that every observable galaxy in the universe (each made up of billions of stars similar to our sun) is embedded in a massive “halo" of dark matter. Though unseen, dark matter can be clearly detected indirectly by observing its tremendous gravitational effects on visible objects.

This common understanding faced a severe challenge when a team of astronomers, writing in Science in 2003, reported a surprising absence of dark matter in one type of galaxy – “elliptical" (rounded) galaxies. Their theory was based on observations that stars located at great distances from the center in such galaxies move at very slow speeds, as opposed to the great speed one would have expected from the heavy gravitational pull exerted by dark matter.

The new analysis in Nature provides a simple explanation for these observations. “In fact,” says Dekel, “our analysis fits comfortably with the standard picture in which elliptical galaxies also reside in massive dark matter halos.

"A dearth of dark matter in elliptical galaxies is especially puzzling in the context of the common theory of galaxy formation, which assumes that ellipticals originate from mergers of disk galaxies," added Dekel. "Massive dark-matter halos are clearly detected in disk galaxies, so where did they disappear to during the mergers?" asks Dekel.

The Nature article is based on simulations of galaxy mergers run on a supercomputer by graduate student Thomas J. Cox, supervised by Joel Primack, a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The simulations were analyzed by Dekel and collaborators Felix Stoehr and Gary Mamon at the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris, where Dekel is the incumbent of the Blaise Pascal International Chair of Research at the Ecole Normale Superieure.

The simulations show that the observations reported in Science are a predictable consequence of the violent collision and merger of the spiral galaxies that lead to the formation of the elliptical galaxies.

Evidence for dark matter halos around spiral galaxies comes from studying the circular motions of stars in these galaxies. Because most of the visible mass in a galaxy is concentrated in the central region, stars at great distances from the center would be expected to move more slowly than stars closer in. Instead, observations of spiral galaxies show that the rotational speed of stars in the outskirts of the disk remains constant as far out as astronomers can measure it.

The reason for this, according to the dark matter theory, is the presence of an enormous halo of unseen dark matter in and around the galaxy, which exerts its gravitational influence on the stars. Additional support for dark matter halos has come from a variety of other observations.

In elliptical galaxies, however, it has been difficult to study the motions of stars at great distances from the center. The scientists writing in Science found a decrease in the velocities with increasing distance from the center of the galaxy, which is inconsistent with simple models of the gravitational effects of dark matter halos.

Part of the explanation for that phenomenon, put forth in the new Nature paper, lies in the fact that the velocities in the earlier study were measured along the line of sight. "You cannot measure the absolute speeds of the stars, but you can measure their relative speeds along the line of sight, because if a star is moving toward us its light is shifted to shorter wave lengths, and if it is moving away from us its light is shifted to longer wave lengths," Primack explained.

This limitation would not be a problem if the orbits of the observed stars were randomly oriented with respect to the line of sight, According to Cox's simulations, however, the stars in elliptical galaxies that are farthest from the center are likely to be moving in elongated, eccentric orbits such that most of their motion is perpendicular to the line of sight. Therefore, they could be moving at high velocities without exhibiting much motion toward or away from the observers.

Why this is so is traceable to the processes whereby disk galaxies merge to form elliptical galaxies. "In the merger process that produces these galaxies, a lot of the stars get flung out to fairly large distances, and they end up in highly elongated orbits that take them far away and then back in close to the center," explained Dekel.

"If we see a star at a large distance from the center of the galaxy, that star is going to be mostly moving either away from the center or back toward the center. Almost certainly, most of its motion is perpendicular to our line of sight," Dekel said. Under such circumstances, the star would appear to be moving quite slowly, when in fact this is not the case, based upon the models of simulated galaxy mergers studied by the Hebrew University-UCSC-Paris team.

"Our conclusion is that what the cosmologists described in 2003 is exactly what the dark matter model would predict," he said, “Our findings remove a problem which bothered them and make it possible to better understand the processes involved in creation of new galaxies in the universe.”

Source: Hebrew University of Jerusalem


A Primer on Dark Matter

FIGURE: Superposed on an optical picture of a group of galaxies is an X-ray image taken by ROSAT. The image shows confined hot gas (which produces X-rays) highlighted in false red color. The presence of this confined gas indicates that the gravity exerted in groups and clusters of galaxies is larger than that expected from the observed galaxies.


There are many reasons to believe that the universe is full of "dark matter", matter that influences the evolution of the universe gravitationally, but is not seen directly in our present observations. The adjacent image exhibits one recent piece of evidence for undetected matter: the hot gas seen in the X-ray spectrum would have dispersed if it were held in place only the by gravity of the mass that is producing light in this image (the so-called "luminous mass").

The nature of this dark matter, and the associated "missing mass problem", is one of the fundamental cosmological issues of modern astrophysics. The following is a brief tutorial on this issue extracted from an informal email message:
1 If inflation is correct then, since luminous stars and galaxies only contribute 0.5% of the closure density, then 99% of the Universe is in the form of dark matter and this, no doubt, must be a particle. There are always candidates. Neutrinoes have never been a viable candidate for a fairly simple reason. Neutrinoes are relativistic (e.g. hot dark matter) and therefore they erase fluctuations on small scales (they free stream and fill the horizon in the early universe). Thus the only fluctuations that can still exist in a neutrino dominated Universe are on a very large scale. These will cool and form structure but only on largescales, you will never form galaxies in this manner.

2 On smaller scales, such as galaxies and clusters of galaxies, dynamical estimates of the mass, based on either rotation curves of galaxies or velocity dispersions of galaxies indicate that 90% (not 99% which is another order of magnitude) of the total mass is sub-lumnous. This isn't so bad as it implies the mass density of the Universe is 10% of the closure density. In this case, the sub-luminous mass could very well be normal (baryonic) and be locked up in stellar remnants (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes) or just in very dim stars called "Brown Dwarfs". There is recent evidence for possible observation of one of these very dim Brown Dwarfs. Some of this is being tested with the microlensing experiments currently underway in australia (you can actually find some of what I am talking about at http://zebu.uoregon.edu/cosmo.html) and there are positive detections but the selection function is unknown at present and so the lensing population is also unknown.

3 Although inflation demands that the Universe has a density equal to its critical density (and inflation is necessary to solve the horizon problem) there has never been any observational evidence to support this high of mass density. Most dynamical studies suggest values of 10-20% of closure density. These studies are based on large scale deviations from hubble expansion velocities (so called peculiar velocities).

4 Large scale structure (e.g. the distribution of galaxies) is very hard to understand, particularly in light of the relatively smooth microwave background as measured by the COBE satellite. There is way too much power on large scales. One way to accomodate this is to go to a mixed dark matter model in which you have some hot dark matter (for the large scale power) and some cold dark matter (wimps, axions, photinos, supersymmetric particles, etc) to act as a seed for galaxy formation. None of those models, however, fit the data using the critical density. The best models to date (you can see a diagram in the http document referenced above) suggest mixed dark matter and an overall cosmological mass density of 20-30% of closure. Hence, to retain inflation, with its inescapable prediction that the Universe must be flat, requires re-invoking Einstein's cosmological constant - meaning the universe has vacuum energy (negative pressure) and is currently accelerating. This makes our cosmology complicated but much data is pointing this way.

5 Finally, there have been speculative papers that if the dark matter is really something toally new and mysterious then maybe it communicates with itself over some long range force (either attractive or repulsive). An intriguing idea as that would mess up all the comoslogical dynamics - but given the really surprising nature of the galaxy distribution - something clearly very funny is going on.

6 Supernova 1987a neutrino time of flight studies as well as the Solar Neutrino experiment are consistent with the neutrino having a mass, but a very small mass, not one that can cosmologically dominate. As for seeing particles in other ways - well since the SSC won't be built we can not do an accelerator test for seeing supersymmetric particles which would only be created at very high energy (e.g. the early universe) - so there remain many viable potential particles that are consistent with the Standard MOdel of particles (e.g. 3 generations of neutrinoes, 6 quarks) and which would remain unnoticed in any accelerator experiments.
Source: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/text/darkmatter.txt



Explanation: What type of matter makes up most of the universe? This question is arguably the most perplexing astronomical mystery of our time. A leading candidate is a type of dim, low mass star called a "brown dwarf" star. Our universe could contain more brown dwarfs than any other type of star - but they are so dim they have so far escaped detection. The dramatic photograph above, taken in October 1994, sheds new light on this "dark matter" problem. The seemingly inconspicuous companion to the right of the overexposed image of a normal star is thought to be an elusive brown dwarf. Now that the existence of brown dwarfs has been demonstrated, a key remaining question is their abundance.

Here are links to two experimental searches for Dark Matter candidates:
• The MACHO (MAssive Compact Halo Objects) Dark Matter Search Project

• The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE)



Dark Matter Mystery

While carefully measuring the speed of rotation of galaxies, astronomers stumbled upon a profound cosmic mystery.

They could estimate what the rotation speed should be by calculating the mass of all the visible stars and gas, thereby determining the gravity of the galaxy. Much to their surprise, the measurements showed that most galaxies are rotating faster than they should. Not a little faster. Much faster! More than twice as fast. This meant that, according to Einstein's theory of gravity, these galaxies should be flying apart. Yet clearly, they are not.

Scientists are considering a number of possibilities. Candidates for dark matter include MACHOS, WIMPS and GAS. A "Good News" and "Bad News" analysis is given below for each of the candidates.

MACHOS (Massive Compact Halo Objects) Examples: brown dwarfs, white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes.

What can the answer be? Is it possible that most galaxies are surrounded by some "dark" form of matter that cannot be observed by radio, infrared, optical, ultraviolet, X-ray, or gamma-ray telescopes? Could Einstein's theory of gravity, which has proved to be correct in all cases so far, be somehow wrong?

X-ray telescopes have discovered vast clouds of multimillion degree gas in clusters of galaxies. These hot gas clouds increase the mass of the cluster, but not enough to solve the mystery. In fact they provide an independent measurement of dark matter. The measurement shows that there must be at least four times as much dark matter as all the stars and gas we observe, or the hot gas would escape the cluster.

What can the dark matter be?


Brown Dwarf stars have a mass that is less than eight percent of the mass of the Sun--too low to produce the nuclear reactions that make stars shine.

Good News: Recently, astronomers have found some objects that are either brown dwarf stars or very large planets around other stars. Observations of the brightening and then dimming of distant stars--thought to be due to the gravitational lens effect of a foreground star-- may also provide further evidence for a large population of brown dwarfs in our galaxy.

Bad News: There is as yet no evidence that brown dwarfs are anywhere near as abundant as they would have to be to account for the dark matter in our galaxy.


White Dwarfs are the final condensed states of small to medium sized stars.

Good News: White dwarfs are known to exist and to be plentiful. Maybe they could be plentiful enough to explain the dark matter if young galaxies produced white dwarfs that cool more rapidly than present theory predicts.

Bad News: No good alternative to the present theory exists. Also the production of large numbers of white dwarfs implies the production of a large amount of helium, which is not observed.


Neutron Stars or Black Holes are the final condensed states of large and very large stars.

Good News: They can be dark, especially black holes, which are totally dark, except for a negligible amount of so-called Hawking radiation. See http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/faq/black_hole/bhole-31.html

Bad News: These objects are expected to be much scarcer than white dwarfs. Also, the processes that produce these objects release a lot of energy and heavy elements; there is no evidence of such a release.

WIMPS (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) Examples: Exotic Subatomic Particles such as axions, massive neutrinos, and photinos.

Good News: Theoretically, WIMPS could have been produced in the Big Bang origin of the universe in the right amounts and with the right properties to explain the dark matter.

Bad News: No one has ever observed even one of these particles, let alone enough of them to explain the dark matter.


Hydrogen Gas

Good News: Seventy to seventy-five percent of the visible matter in the universe is in the form of hydrogen, the simplest element. It may be possible that the dark matter is numerous small clouds of hydrogen gas.

Bad News: It is very difficult to hide hydrogen gas from the probing, sensitive eyes of radio, infrared, optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray telescopes.

[TranceAm]

Clusters and Cosmological Constants

A distant cluster of galaxies is said to confirm the existence of undetectable energy. Not a single reference is made to the most powerful known force in the cosmos: electricity.

Astronomers working with the European Space Agency's XMM Newton X-ray Telescope have discovered a grouping of galaxies in the outer most reaches of the universe containing more than 1000 times the mass of our own Milky Way. The image above is said to reflect the appearance of the cluster as it was during a relatively early epoch in the evolution of the universe.

Because the speed of light is used as a benchmark for defining cosmological distance calculations, the shifting of Fraunhofer lines into the red end of observed electromagnetic spectra determines "recessional velocity". As standard theories dictate, the faster an object recedes from our observation platforms the further away it is because the primordial Big Bang explosion imparted an initial impulse that is causing the universe to expand. Using these theoretical parameters, a faster recessional velocity means greater distance, which means an earlier time period.

According to Georg Lamar and his colleagues from the Astrophysikalisches Institut in Potsdam, massive galaxy clusters with such high redshift are rare when they shine so brightly at x-ray wavelengths. As the ESA press release states, the presence of "hot gas" encompassing the cluster with temperatures of 100 million Kelvin makes J083026+524133 the most energetic x-ray source at z > = 1 redshift – 100 times brighter than any other galaxy cluster at that distance.

Such a massive cluster with a 7.7 billion year age estimate is thought to confirm the existence of dark energy because dark energy causes acceleration in the expansion of the universe. That acceleration makes it more difficult for massive clusters like J083026+524133 to hold together in more recent times because the dark energy expansion wants to tear them apart.

Astronomers made this disconcerting find ten years ago – that the universe is expanding faster today than it did in the past. In order to accommodate anomalous redshift observations the existence of a force that exerts negative pressure on gravitational fields was proposed and later called "dark energy" because it cannot be detected with any instrument.

Enzo Brachini from the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) wrote: "This implies that one of two very different possibilities must hold true. Either the Universe is filled with a mysterious dark energy which produces a repulsive force that fights the gravitational brake from all the matter present in the Universe, or, our current theory of gravitation is not correct and needs to be modified, for example by adding extra dimensions to space."

Presumptions are difficult to overcome, particularly when they represent the sine qua non of thought within a specific discipline. The inability of conventional researchers to understand several factors hampers their ability to grasp the fundamental nature of the cosmos. The quoted comments from a respected scientist employed by ESO, as well as those from the XMM Newton team, are a perfect example of the absurd conclusions that can be drawn when electrified plasma in space is ignored.

Two of the most pressing issues in the modern approach to understanding the universe are the adherence to redshift as the only tool for estimating distances and ages of stars and galaxies, and a lack of knowledge when it comes to electricity.

First, in order to advance the catalogue of knowledge it often requires one's reputation and livelihood be placed on the block and the axe allowed to fall where it may. It takes real courage to buck the system and stand on one's convictions despite antagonism. Such is the case with Halton Arp, one of the grand masters in the field of astronomical research.

Dr. Arp earned his place at the top of his field through years of research and many lonely hours on cold mountain peaks documenting far-flung celestial objects. As his galactic compendium grew, he noticed that there was something wrong with conventional time-speed-distance calculations – he found objects with higher redshift values in front of objects with lower redshift. Surely, such a conundrum should have immediately called into question the very nature of that "cosmological constant".

If redshift is not an indicator of distance, J083026+524133 may not be so far away and therefore not so massive or bright. As Arp and his colleagues have repeatedly shown, taking in a wider field of view often reveals similar objects on the opposite side of a nearby active galaxy. Many of these high-redshift pairs are connected across the galaxy with a bridge of radiating material. Theories of an expanding universe, dark matter, and dark energy depend on the XMM Newton's (and other observatories) extremely narrow field of view and how the data is selected.

The story of Halton Arp's experiences with the scientific community has been documented many times in these pages. Suffice to say, a respectful and open-minded reception from astronomers and astrophysicists was not to be the result of his discovery. Rather than accepting his observations, Dr. Arp's papers were barred from publication and his telescope time was canceled. He was shunned by colleagues and ignored by the community at large – one of the most shameful chapters in a book filled with instances of shoddy treatment and blind resentment.

Second, by referring to material with a temperature of 100 million Kelvin as "hot gas" astrophysicists are highlighting their complete ignorance of plasma and its behavior. No atom can remain intact at such temperatures – electrons are stripped from the nuclei and powerful electrical fields develop. The gaseous matter becomes plasma, capable of conducting electricity and forming double layers.

In 1986, Hannes Alfvén, in a NASA-sponsored conference on double layers in astrophysics, said:

"Double layers in space should be classified as a new type of celestial object (one example is the double radio sources). It is tentatively suggested that x-ray and gamma ray bursts may be due to exploding double layers. In solar flares, [double layers] with voltages of 10^9 volts or even more may occur, and in galactic phenomena, we may have voltages that are several orders of magnitude larger."

Plasma is the first state of matter and makes up more than 99.99% of all that we observe in the universe. Cosmological redshift has been shown to be a property of matter and not one of velocity. It is far past time that scientists actually look at what they see with critical eyes.

By Stephen Smith."

Quoted from:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/arch08/080829constants.htm

THE "BIG BANG" IS JUST RELIGION DISGUISED AS SCIENCE

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was this guy named Aristotle. Pretty sharp fella; he thought up a lot of good things. But, occasionally he made a mistake.

One mistake he made was to toss an orange up in the air and watch it come straight back down to his hand. Aristotle reasoned that if he was moving, the orange would have flown off to one side as soon as it left his hand. Because the orange did not do so, Aristotle concluded he was not moving. On the basis of this one observed fact, and the assumption that there was no other explanation for what he observed, Aristotle concluded that the Earth does not move and that therefore the rest of the universe had to move around it.

Aristotle was a very sharp guy, but the fact is that there was another explanation for why the orange fell back into his hand, and it would wait about another 2000 years before another smart man, Sir Isaac Newton, explained just what it was Aristotle had overlooked, set forth in Newton's laws of motion.

But for the early church, Aristotle's conclusions fit in rather well with their theology, which had the Earth created as the center of the universe, unmoving, with the rest of the cosmos spinning about it.

Of course, there was empirical evidence available to all that cast doubt on the church-approved version of the Cosmos. One could see during eclipses that the Earth was not flat. The curved shape of the Earth's shadow as it crossed the moon was the same no matter which place in the sky the eclipse took place. A spherical Earth was the only shape that could produce such a result. Ships sailing over the horizon clearly vanished over a subtle curve ( an observation which eventually inspired Columbus' voyages). Nobody could explain the behavior of a Foucault's Pendulum other than by the Earth spinning beneath it.

But by far the most troubling problem for the geocentric (earth centered) universe was the strange behavior of the planets. In an age before TV, or even books, the night sky was something every person was quite familiar with, even those who were not sailors or fortune tellers. Watching the night sky over time, the paths of the planets were easily seen to occasionally pause, move in reverse for a time, then proceed forward. This behavior was called retrograde motion. Ah, but this was a problem. The church did not have an explanation for this behavior. Indeed in the King James Version of the Bible, the word "planet" appears only once, and then only as an object to be sacrificed to.

There is a very simple explanation for retrograde motion. As the Earth, moving in its inner orbit, overtakes an outer planet, it will appear to hesitate, reverse its path across the sky, then resume its normal path. But the idea that the Earth moved was contrary to Church Dogma and to Aristotle. What education was tolerated by the church was "encouraged" to find some way to explain retrograde motion in a way that did not conflict with the religious needs for a universe centered on an unmoving Earth. Rather than re-examine Aristotle's basic claim, the learned men of the day grabbed onto a suggestion made by Claudius Ptolemy called "epicycles". This theory explained retrograde motion around a motionless Earth by suggesting that the planets moved in large orbits called deferents, upon which were superimposed smaller orbits called epicycles which produced a "wobble" as seen from Earth.

Epicycles were extremely popular with the church, and scholars at universities with religious affiliations were "encouraged" to refine this theory. And it needed refinement, badly, because the epicycle theory did not accurately predict what was being seen in the sky. Generations of effort was expended trying to figure out why the models did not predict the actual motions of the planets. At one point, it was even suggested that the epicycles had epicycles. No matter how many times the observed results did not match the predictions, the approved course of action was to refine the theory, but never to question the basic assumption. Those who dared point to the evidence suggesting that Aristotle (and by extension the church) were in error in postulating a geocentric universe were "discouraged". Galileo was tortured into recanting his conclusions that the Earth moved. Giordano Bruno was burned alive at the stake for suggesting that the sun was really just another star, only close up, and that the other stars had their own planets.

In recent times, our expanding technology has confirmed that Galileo and Bruno were right, and Aristotle and the church were flat out wrong. The Earth does move. There are no deferents or epicycles, or even epicycles on the epicycles. The models of the universe which are based on a moving Earth are quite accurate and able to predict the behaviors of the planets as evidence by the fact that we send spacecraft to those planets on a regular basis.

The theory of a geocentric universe and the theory of epicycles were not science. It was religious doctrine masked as science.

The church has never really dealt with the reality of the universe very well. They only apologized for their treatment of Galileo recently and still refuse to discuss Bruno. The Bible, presumed to be the perfect word of a perfect God, still teaches that the Earth is flat, rests on pillars (Job 26:11), and does not move (Psalms 19:5-6 93:1 96:10 104:5).

It seems that some mistakes are destined to be repeated again, despite our technological prowess.

In 1929, a Cal-Tech astronomer named Edwin Hubble observed that objects which appeared to be much further away showed a more pronounced shift towards the red end of the spectrum. Scientists building on Hubble's discovery concluded that the farther an object was away from Earth, the faster it was receding, and calculated the relationship between distance and velocity, called the "Hubble Constant" and concluded on the basis of this one observed fact and the assumption that there was no other explanation for that observed fact that the universe was expanding.

Religious circles embraced the idea of an expanding universe because for the universe to be expanding, then at some point in the past it had to originate from a single point, called the "Big Bang". Indeed, the concept of the Big Bang did not originate with Edwin Hubble but was proposed by a Catholic Monk, Georges Lemaître in 1927, two years before Hubble published his observations of the Red Shift. The "Big Bang" coincided nicely with religious doctrine and just as had been the case with epicycles (and despite the embarrassment thereof) religious institutions sought to encourage this new model of the universe over all others, including the then prevalent "steady state" theory.

Then history repeated itself. Evidence surfaced that the "Big Bang" might not really be a workable theory in the form of General Relativity, and its postulation that super massive objects would have gravity fields so strong that even light could not escape, nor would matter be able to differentiate. Since the entire universe existing in just one spot would be the most super massive object of all, the universe could not be born.

Needless to say, this suggestion that the Big Bang could not happen provoked the same exact reaction as the suggestion that the Earth might not be the center of everything. Instead of questioning the basic assumption, great effort was made to find a way to evolve the new data in terms acceptable to the assumption of a universe spawned in a single moment of creation. A complex Cosmology theory sprang up, encouraged by those invested in the "Big Bang" to explain why the basic foundational principles of physics behaved differently in the first few milliseconds of time. The math work is impressive, as impressive as that which supported the theory of the epicycles, but it is really just a polite way of saying "The rules just didn't apply when we need them not to apply".

An attempt was made to prove the Big Bang by searching for the "Cosmic Background Radiation", the presumed energy echo from the primordial explosion. and indeed a radio noise signal was picked up. Like Aristotle, and like Hubble, the discoverers of the Cosmic Background Radiation assumed the signal meant what they thought it did and could have no alternative explanation. The discovery of the Cosmic Background Radiation was then heralded as final proof of the Big Bang theory, and those institutions invested in that theory celebrated.

But just as the theory of epicycles did not accurately predict the observed motion of the planets, the Big Bang Theory turned out to be less than accurate about the radiation signal detected in space.

For one thing, there is the "Horizon Problem". At present, the known universe spans 28 billion light years and is assumed to be 14 billion years old. (Obviously unless we actually ARE the center of the universe, it may be assumed that the universe probably extends even further in at least one direction). Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so there is no way heat radiation could have travelled between the two horizons to even out the hot and cold spots created in the big bang and leave the thermal equilibrium we see now.

When the satellite COBE was sent up to analyze the Cosmic Background Radiation, it discovered instead of the smooth featureless glow predicted by the cosmologists a highly complex and detailed structure. Yet again, rather than question the prime assumption that the signal being analyzed was actually from a supposed "Big Bang", research was encouraged to find a way to fit the data into the existing theory, again on the assumption that the signal detected could not be from any other source. And yet, an alternative explanation for the signal was right at hand, indeed literally on all sides.

Our Solar System and planets have heavy elements (without which you would not be here) because at some time prior to the creation of our Solar System another star in the immediate vicinity exploded, creating the heavy elements and scattering them into the universe. Every star that explodes creates a planetary nebula, such as the one easily seen with amateur telescopes in the constellation Lyra. A planetary nebula is a bubble of debris in space, and given the presence of heavy elements in our own Solar System, then somewhere out in space there must be the tenuous remains of a billions of years old planetary nebula, the result of the not-so-very-big bang, viewable from our unique point of view near the center. This model of Earth lying at the center of the remains of a supernova predicts exactly the sort of structure that COBE found in the presumed Cosmic Background Radiation. But as was the case with Galileo and Bruno, challengers to the "approved" creation myths face a tough time, albeit funding cuts have replaced torture and being burned alive at the stake.

So pervasive is this bias to see the universe as created in a Biblical-consistent "Big Bang" that when William G. Tifft submitted his first article on the quantization of the observed Red Shift to Astrophysical Journal, the Journal published it because they could not find errors in it, yet still felt compelled to editorially distance themselves from the conclusions.

The conclusions derived from quantized red shift are devastating to the conventional view of the universe created in a single Big Bang, as devastating as Galileo's first telescope was to the theory that the Earth was the center of the universe.

Edwin Hubble (like Aristotle) assumed there was no other explanation for the red shift he observed than the motion of the observed objects relative to Earth. But given the theory that the universe is expanding uniformly, the amount of red shifts would have to be uniformly and randomly distributed.

But they aren't.

The observed red shifts in the sky are quantized, falling into discreet intervals. This is not explained by the theory that the red shift is produced solely by relative velocity. Some other effect is at work. And that means that the assumption that the universe is expanding based solely on the red shift is invalidated. Some other effect IS at work that explains the observations, quite possibly one that triggers a quantized red shift over vast distances without respect to relative velocity.

Which means the universe is not expanding. Which means there was no moment of creation, no "Big Bang" with an epicycle-esque cosmology to explain why the greatest black hole of all didn't behave like a black hole. Which means that the background radiation mapped by COBE which didn't quite fit the Big Bang model is probably the remnant of the stellar explosion that created the heavy elements making up that computer you are reading this on.

But the lesson for our time of just how much our society remains dominated by religious superstitions is revealed by the fact that the quantized red-shift is NOT a new discovery. The first article regarding the observed data appeared in 1976, a quarter of a century ago. Since then, scientists as much in the service of superstition as were those scientists who "studied" epicycles have repeatedly tried to disprove the observations of Tifft and Cocke, only to confirm and re-confirm the truth, that there is a quantized red-shift, which casts doubt on the theory of an expanding universe and a "Big bang" creation.

Yet even though hard evidence exists to warrant a full re-examination of the basic assumption of the expanding universe, our science classes and TV programs still promote the "Big Bang" view, just as the erroneous theory of Aristotle continued to be promoted even after Galileo proved it wrong, because one theory fits into a theology, and the other does not.

Man's progress is not measured by the reaches of his science but by the limits of his superstition. The truth is known. But the truth is unpopular.

UPDATE: PROOF THE BIG BANG DID NOT HAPPEN

Perhaps the biggest contradiction with the Big Bang Theory is the question of the singularity. The "primordial egg" had to be a super-massive black hole. Therefore no amount of "bang", no matter how big, is going to thrust the universe out into, well, the universe.

Cosmologists eager to promote the Big Bang Theory have hit upon the "explanation" that the laws of physics, gravity., etc. simply did not apply in those first few moments of the universe. The present Cosmology theory is that the universe enjoyed a period of "rulelessness" of about 3 seconds, after which the elements formed and the fundamental forces of the universe, gravity included, were functioning as we see them today.

Ah, but there is a problem. The singularity formed by the primordial egg turns out to be rather large.

Estimates of the total mass of the universe vary wildly, given that the ends of the universe have not yet been determined. One estimate is found at http://www.rostra.dk/louis/quant_11.html of 2.6*1060.

From the mass, you can calculate the diameter of the event horizon by finding the distance from a point mass that will have an escape velocity of c. Use sqrt(2GM/r) where M is the mass of the hole (the entire universe in this case) and r is the radius (classical), and G is the gravitational constant. Work it backward starting at c and you get c^2=2GM/r.

This works out to an event horizon light years across!

In short, at the moment in time when the Big Bang theorists claim the universe was functioning as it does today, complete with all fundamental forces, the entirety of the universe's mass was still well within the event horizon of its own gravity well. That the well was not the product of a true singularity is irrelevant, Newton's equation provides an equivalent gravity field for a singularity or a super dense mass in a localized region.

Therefore the Big Bang, as currently described, could not have produced the universe as we see it today. At three seconds, the time the theorists claim the universe started operating as we know it, it would have come under the influence of its own gravity and unable to reach an escape velocity exceeding that of light, collapsed back into itself.

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/bang.html?q=bang.html

;-)