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Surprise Galaxies at the Edge of Observable Space
brindafella writes "A scientist at the Australian National University's Mount Stromlo & Siding Springs Observatories, Dr Paul Francis, has dicovered a string of galaxies 300 light years long, and further out than they 'should' be. The team were refused time on a US telescope because many American astronomers believed the observations were technically impossible. The findings have been presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Atlanta. 'We have detected 37 galaxies and one quasar in the string, but it probably contains many thousands of galaxies.' He said the galaxy string lay 10,800 million light-years away. See the animation here."
That can't be right.
Helium balloons want to be free.
Perhaps our view of the Universe is not as complete as we thought. I hate to think of what things have been cast down as impossible to only later be shown as true. It's not as if these are amateur cosmologists, give them a break and a chance to be proven right or wrong.
The team were refused time on a US telescope because many American astronomers believed the observations were technically impossible
This is just sad. I sometimes think we'd be centuries ahead in science if theorists could lay aside their egos and realize that hardly any theory lasts forever in its entirety. Refusing time to a group of astronomers who think they may have found something new is not so different from burning heretics who claimed the world was a sphere.
Maybe overdramatic, but my point stands.
Erm, you do know that this research was funded by NASA too, right?
Time is limited on the big 'scopes.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Irony? Despite being refused, where do they present the results ...
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
Well maybe the model is wrong.
As any good evolutionist knows , after the "Big Bang" all the matter in the universe, which had been compressed (through forces and mechanisms unknowable) into a very tiny ball, exploded outward (spherically, with planar tendencies) with tremendous force.
This observation of thousands of galaxies SO FAR OUT from the assumed center of the "Big Bang"
(snip)
Your criticisms would carry more weight if they demonstrated that you understood the relativistic hot Big Bang model at all. The Big Bang model does not presume any very tiny ball, it does not presume that the universal state of high density and temperature that existed long ago occurred because of compression from outside forces, it does not presume a "spherical with planar tendencies" explosion, or indeed any explosion at all.
Take some time and learn about the model. Seriously. Even if at the end, you think it's complete crap, you still should learn what it is. You cannot criticize it effectively if you don't know what the model actually says. And, as your post indiciates, you don't know what the model actually says.
Absolutely stunning.
Those galaxies look so tiny, it's hard to imagine the scale involved.
The problem with ID is that a universe that does not comply with the ID theory would not be able to be observed. ID basically states that the universe is so well put together and that things fit so perfectly to allow certain things, most notably life, that there must be some force behind it.
What ID completely ignores is the fact that any universe that would have rules that would be shitty for life and intelligence would never realize it. In other words, there could have been a billion big bangs all that developed different laws. In all of these big bangs there might have been only one where all the laws arrived to allow for intelligence (humans) to observe it.
ID theory also suffers from the simple fact that a good theory can devise be disproved. You can never prove a good theory, but you can always find a way to disprove it. If you develop a theory that can not be disproved, then you have not added much. You have just engaged a logic exercise, not any sort of true science.
ID has no place in science. ID is a just a catch all for things we don't understand. It might very well come that one day we discover through science some intelligent power that created everything, however, until that time ID is very much a premature. ID is based upon the observation that the universe is elegant in its construction. To automatically assume that this means that some higher power is at work is utterly foolish.
As to the topic at hand, the only thing that this proves is that current theories could be potentially incomplete. It very well could be that the universe is older then it appears, and this would of course require modifying or scrapping the current theories. It isn't a death blow by any stretch of the imagination. It also is still need a great deal more scientific validation before it can be shown that what we are looking at is as old as these scientist claim.
It's just yet-another-inconsistency in the n-th hack to the BB theory introduced to clean up previous gripes.
Can you be more specific? What's the inconsistency here, with what is it inconsistent, and how does that inconsistency speak to the Big Bang model as a whole, specifically? I'm not saying you're wrong (yet); I just can't address your statement directly because it's too vague.
There are without question unsolved problems in cosmology (thank heavens; otherwise, cosmologists would have little to do). I'm interested in your careful argument as to why those problems cannot be solved in the context of the Big Bang model, and therefore falsify it. To me, it seems like you're saying "Since we don't understand how tornadoes form, it's time to realize that the `spherical Earth' model is a failure." That analogy probably seems silly to you, since we have lots of evidence to support the idea of a (nearly) spherical Earth. But we have lots of evidence that supports the Big Bang model as well, including non-trivial advance predictions borne out by subsequent observation.
The Big Bang model will be falsified if and when a prediction it makes is shown to be false. But that hasn't happened here: the Big Bang model does not make predictions about the specifics of the mass distribution or galaxy formation. Those are topics of importance in cosmology, but they do not directly speak to the veracity of the Big Bang model. Only if the general constraints the Big Bang model places upon galaxy formation are such that these observations should be impossible is there a problem for the Big Bang. Nobody's shown this to be true.
It is true that these observations, if correct, pose a challenge to the standard cosmological model. But there's more to the standard cosmological model than just the Big Bang model.
You know, not reading the article is fine, but I'm not sure you even read the bit that you quoted.
"The team were refused time on a US telescope because many American astronomers believed the observations were technically impossible."
This has nothing to do with theory. It has to do with trying to take very deep spectra of a whole lot of very faint objects spread over a relatively large area of sky. It's really hard.
[TMB]
Well, the BB story has gone along for so much time... some new data whacks it, ok... small nudge and it's consistent.
Can you give an example?
Some new research threatens boatloads of papers, ok... mop it under the rug.
Can you give an example?
Average, uninitiated scientists can't make heads or tails of the nasty slew of hypotherical particles and their family relations (that HAS to be true because it fits the model!)... oh, they're just ignorant.
The Big Bang model makes no predictions whatsoever about the existence of any hypothetical particles, let alone a "nasty slew." The only particles required to be present for the Big Bang model to make accurate predictions are those expected to still be relativistic at the time of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: namely, the three families of baryons and leptons that we've already detected in experiments here on Earth. In fact, when the BBN calculations were first done, it was discovered that the predictions only made sense if there were three or fewer families of fundamental particles. At that time, we only knew of two for sure. We've since discovered the third in particle accelerators, and measurements of the decay width of the Z0 particle 13 years ago confirmed that no more than three such families could exist. So, contrary to your statement, the Big Bang model not only doesn't predict a "nasty slew of hypothetical particles," but at this point it doesn't predict any hypothetical particles at all, and indeed sets a limit on how many light ones can exist.
It looks to me like you don't know what the Big Bang model actually says. And it looks to me like you don't know what's not the Big Bang model -- that is, what are other ideas that are taken seriously as part of the standard cosmology but are not part of the Big Bang model itself because they deal with cosmological topics that the Big Bang model does not directly address.
Hmm, I've grocked EM and some quantum physics (the basics: Schroedinger, Fermi and the avg undergraduate stuff in a Solid State Phy course) and never got the Alice in Wonderland feeling.
Really? Wow. One of the reasons I loved quantum so much, through undergrad and grad school, was how something that seemed so "Alice in Wonderland"-y to me could be so solidly borne out by experiment. I mean, tunnelling through potential barriers? Come on. But amazingly enough, the answers come out right.
You might argue that modern cosmology can account for all the data (or just give it enough time and it will) but anyone can shoehorn a dataset in a model... just add some epicycles, a nudge here, a constant there... it'll all fit.
But can you give me some examples of how this has gone on, with respect to the Big Bang model?
Our cosmological understanding has undergone a tremendous amount of change in the last 20-25 years, as cosmology has gone from a data-starved science to a data-rich one. Lots of ideas have been put forward, "tweaked" (as you say), shot down, resuscitated, etc. None of that has to do with the Big Bang model. People have definitely tried to massage pet theories when data has come in that didn't quite fit (the topological defect folks -- cosmic strings, etc. -- come to mind); but those theories were not the Big Bang model.
It really seems to me like you don't know, of the set of ideas that make up the standard cosmology and those additional ideas that are taken seriously but not yet fully accepted, what's part of the Big Bang model and what isn't. The popular press carries some of the blame for this -- the phrase "the Big Bang model" is all the cosmology most newspaper science writers know, so when results have challenged cosmological orthodoxy, they've sometimes been described as challenges to the Big Bang model, even though in actuality they've typically said nothing whatsoever one way or the other about the Big Bang model.
So, I just wished these guys p
Thanx for your post, once again proving that "Intelligent Design" advocates have no understanding of science. If you get the science wrong then it is very easy to use it as part of some bogus and supposedly "scientific" argument.
As any good evolutionist knows
First of all evolution and the big bang have absolutely nothing in common aside from the fact that they are both science. You may as well have said "As any good gravitationist knows..."
after the "Big Bang" all the matter in the universe, which had been compressed (through forces and mechanisms unknowable) into a very tiny ball, exploded outward
All of the matter and energy was evenly spread through out the entire universe, all the way back to the big bang. Matter did not "explode". Space expanded. Bits of matter got farther from other bits of matter because the space between them expanded. Everything was densely packed in a miniscule space because there was only miniscule amout of space in the universe. And that miniscule amount of space had no "outer edge".
(spherically, with planar tendencies)
Sphereically? No. You are imagining some exploding ball, and that is an absolutely totally wrong image. The best way to explain it would be as the skin of an expanding 4 dimentional hyper-sphere, but I really don't relish the prospect of trying to stretch your mind around that concept.
No "planar tendancies" either. Aside from random fluctuations everything was smooth and equal throughout the universe. Everywhere was just like everywhere else. No edge, no center, no fast, no slow. The good old balloon analogy - when you blow up a ballon the surface expands, but every point on the surface is exactly like every other point. The surface of a balloon has no edge, no center, no explosion, no part moving any faster or any differently than any other part.
with tremendous force.
You are reffering to some imaginary explosive force of matter pushing out. There was no explosion and there was no "out" to push to. Expanding space dragged the matter apart. No explosive force at all. It expanded like the surface of a balloon, not like a stick of dynamite.
All of this random matter eventually coagulated into more and more complicated forms until stars, planets, and the like were formed.
Hey! You got that part right!
This observation of thousands of galaxies SO FAR OUT from the assumed center of the "Big Bang" doesn't make sense
Chuckle. You're quite right that what you said makes absolutely no sense.
There is no "assumed center" of the big bang, at least not within our 3-dimentional universe. At any given time every point in the universe is the same "distance" from the big bang.
Those galaxies are far from us, but you are completely wrong to imagine they are "FAR OUT" at the edge of the big bang. To the extent that it makes sense to reffer to the "distance to the center of the big bang", those galaxies are extremely CLOSE to the center because you are looking back in time. You are imagining them out at some low-density surface of an explosion, these galaxies are actually in a HIGH DENSITY region, they are much closer to the big bang itself.
You are making the classic mistake of picturing the Earth as the center of the universe. From our point of view the Earth is at the outermost edge of the big bang from every direction. No matter which direction you look from the Earth you are looking back towards the "center" of the big bang because you are looking back in time. As you look billions of light years away in every direction you see increasing mass density and you are looking closer and closer to the "center" of the big bang.
From our point of view we see ourselves at the oldest lowest density outermost edge of the big bang - the outermost edge from every direction.
since the matter comprising those galaxies (being the furthest out from center and thus having the greate
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