Science Frontiers
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Science Frontiers is the bimonthly newsletter providing digests of reports that describe scientific anomalies; that is, those observations and facts that challenge prevailing scientific paradigms. Over 2000 Science Frontiers digests have been published since 1976.

These 2,000+ digests represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The Sourcebook Project, which publishes Science Frontiers, also publishes the Catalog of Anomalies, which delves far more deeply into anomalistics and now extends to sixteen volumes, and covers dozens of disciplines.

Over 14,000 volumes of science journals, including all issues of Nature and Science have been examined for reports on anomalies. In this context, the newsletter Science Frontiers is the appetizer and the Catalog of Anomalies is the main course.


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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ghost Galaxies "Small ghost galaxies, devoid of stars but harboring dense clumps of invisible matter, may outnumber the entire population of luminous galaxies in the universe." If ghost galaxies contain no stars at all, how do we know they are there? By extrapolation! In recent years, astronomers have been able to detect dwarf galaxies lit by just a few luminous stars. These faint, miniscule galaxies are kept from flying apart by the gravitational pull of invisible dark matter. In fact, the density of dark matter in dwarf galaxies is a hundred times that in our bright, normal-size Milky Way. Further, the more dwarfish and dimmer a galaxy, the denser its dark matter and the more of them there are in the universe. Now for the promised extrapolation. J. Kormendy and K.C . Freeman take things one step further, concluding that the universe is flooded with sub-dwarf galaxies that are thick with dark matter, and without enough luminous stars for us to see them in our telescopes. These ghost galaxies are only 1/10,000 as massive as the bright galaxies like the Milky Way but much more common. (Cowen, R.; "Tiny Galaxies Have Hearts of Darkness," Science News, 155:38, 1999.) Comments. If the universe if awash in ghost galaxies, why don't we bump into them occasionally? Maybe we have! Another ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 41: Sep-Oct 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Galaxy Redshifts Come In Clumps "Red shifts in the light from distant galaxies seem to favor certain values, at intervals corresponding to a spacing of 72 kilometres per second, if the red shifts are interpreted as indicating the recession velocities of the galaxies. According to the latest evidence, this provides a yardstick against which we can measure the absolute motion of the Sun through space. This rather startling indication that the red shifts of galaxies are quantised, rather like the atomic spectral lines by which the red shifts themselves are measured, has a pedigree that goes back more than 10 years. Since 1972, W.G . Tifft, of the University of Arizona, has been producing evidence for the red shift quantisation from analyses of various catalogues of galaxy red shifts and, as his collection of data has mounted, the idea, unpalatable though it seemed at first, has become steadily more respectable. It has not taken the astronomical world by storm, and even Tifft has no definite idea why the red shifts should be grouped like this. But it is no longer possible to dismiss the evidence out of hand." Actually, Tifft has speculated that galaxy redshifts might represent an intrinsic property of galaxies, which takes on quantized values, like the energy states of an atom! (Gribbin, John; "Galaxy Red Shifts Come in Clumps," New Scientist, p. 20, June 20, 1985.) Comment. We ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Old Galaxy In A Young Part Of The Universe As the Hubble Space Telscope has probed ever farther toward the supposed edge of the universe, it has discerned. as expected, many youthful-looking galaxies. Since such deep-viewing telescopes are thought to be looking far back into time as well as space, youthful galaxies are not only expected but demanded by the Big-Bang/expanding universe theory. Unfortunately for theory, these telescopes have also identified a handful of apparently very old galaxies cavorting amidst the youthful ones! "The problem, if conventional cosmological models are correct, is that galaxies that old and that far away simply should not be there. The observation tightens the thumbscrews on the Einstein-de Sitter cosmological model, and offers evidence that at least some galaxies formed at very early epochs, within a billion years after the Big Bang." (Kennicutt, Robert C., Jr.; "An Old Galaxy in a Young Universe," Nature, 381:555, 1996) Comment. A similar age discrepancy has been claimed for some galaxies that seem to harbor stars older than the universe itself! (SF#97) Reference. The subject of galaxy distribution is covered in Chapter AWO in the Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. For a description of the book, visit here . From Science Frontiers #107, SEP-OCT 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why do spiral galaxies stay that way? or do they?Sometimes the simplest of observations produces the stickiest of dilemmas. Take, for instance, a well-formed spiral galaxy, of which there are a great many. When astronomers measure the circumferential velocities of the stars, as they circle around the galaxy's hub, they find that all the stars orbit at about the same velocity, regardless of how far out from the hub they are. Their speeds do not drop off with increasing distance, as the velocities of the planets do in the solar system. This observation is anomalous itself, because it seems that the laws of orbital motion have been violated. We will save this anomaly for another day, the one we are after now is called: The Winding Dilemma. N. Comins and L. Marschall elaborate as follows: "Stars closer to the center of a spiral galaxy don't have as far to go to complete an orbit as stars located farther from the center. Thus, inner stars should orbit more frequently than outer stars, resulting in a spiral that gradually winds up as the galaxy ages. But observations of spiral galaxies at various distances -- and thus at different stages in their evolution -- have shown that this is not the case. Astronomers believe density waves, stochastic star formation, or perhaps a combination of both processes may sustain or regenerate the spiral pattern." Density ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Quantized Galaxy Redshifts "The history of science relates many examples where the conventional view ultimately was proved wrong." Tifft and Cocke begin their article with this sentence. Wisely, they followed with the tale of how vehemently the quantization of the atom was resisted earlier in this century. They were wise because without such a reminder to be open-minded, many astronomers would automatically toss their article in the wastebasket! In fact, when Tifft's first paper on redshift quantization appeared in the Astrophysical Journal, the Editor felt constrained to add a note to the effect that the referees: "Neither could find obvious errors with the analysis nor felt that they could enthusiastically endorse publication." Even today, after much more evidence for redshift quantization has accumulated, scientific resistance to the idea is extreme. We shall now see what all this fuss is about. Tifft first became suspicious that the redshifts of galaxies might be quantized; that is, take on discrete values; when he found that galaxies in the same clusters possessed redshifts that were related to the shapes of the galaxies. The obvious inference was that the redshifts were at least partly dependent upon the galaxy itself rather than entirely upon the galaxy's speed of recession (or distance) from the earth. Then, he found more suggestions of quantization. The redshifts of pairs of galaxies differed by quantized amounts (see figure). More evidence exists for galactic quantization, but ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Globular Clusters Upset Theory Of Galaxy Formation A spherical cloud of globular clusters surrounds the Milky Way galaxy. Each cluster is itself a spherical groups of stars. Through the telescope, globular clusters are beautiful spherical aggregations of bright stars that seem to get ever denser toward the cluster's center. Globular clusters harbor many anomalies (AOB4 and AOB17 in Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos); here, we mention two involving spatial distribution and age. Many spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, spin ponderously in the center of a spherical cloud of scores, even hundreds, of globular clusters (see sketch). Not only do the globular clusters surrounding us display a different spatial distribution (spherical rather than flat-spiral), but their individual ages undercut galaxy theory. All of the Milky Way's globular clusters were supposed to have been formed when our galaxy was created. Yet, the ages of these clusters vary by as much as 5 billion years. (Dayton, Leigh; "Globular Clusters Upset Theory of Galaxy," New Scientist, p. 34, May 13, 1989.) Comment. We cannot resist mentioning still another cluster anomaly: The globular clusters do not participate in the galaxy's general rotation. Where did these oddballs come from? Reference. The catalog volume: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos, mentioned above, is described here . From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Galactic Shell Game Elliptical galaxies are immense assemblages of stars. There may be a trillion stars like our sun in one of these monster galaxies. But it is not the mindboggling number of stars that is anomalous (astronomy dotes on big numbers); rather the anomaly at hand concerns the 11% of the elliptical galaxies that are partly girdled by strange low-luminosity shells. First reported in 1980, these sharply defined shells seem to be composed of still more stars -- vast ellipsoidal sheets of stars emplaced along the long axis of the elliptical galaxy. Some elliptical galaxies have up to twenty partial shells divided between the two ends of the ellipsoid. What is most intriguing is the fact that the shells are systematically arranged. The closest partial shell will be at one end of the ellipsoid, while the second closest will be at the opposite end. The third closest will be just beyond the first closest, and so on. The shells "interleave" or alternate ends as their distances increase. If the alternating partial shells of stars belong to the elliptical galaxy (they seem to, agewise), did the elliptical galaxy shoot the first wave out one end and then expel the second wave out the opposite end? Or did the alternating shells form in situ from the primordial gas and dust that made the galaxy? An-other possibility is that a small galaxy collided with the monster elliptical galaxy, and its constituent stars were ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Distant galaxies look like those close-by Apropos the preceding item that the Expanding Universe Theory may be flawed, astronomers have discovered that supposedly distant galaxies look pretty much like those in our immediate neighborhood. Specifically, galaxies 10 billion light years away differ little spectrally speaking from those only a billion light years away. The point is that the distant galaxies should appear 9 billion years younger because their light took that long getting here. They look the same, and that fact could imply: (1 ) Galaxies mature rapidly and do not change much after a billion years; (2 ) Our cosmic time scale is all wrong; (3 ) There was no Big Bang and galaxies may have widely varying ages; or (4 ) None of the above. (Anonymous; "Most Distant Galaxies: Surprisingly Mature," Science News, 119:148, 1981.) Reference. Distant galaxies are anomalously blue. See AWF1 in our Catalog: Satrs, Galaxies, Cosmos. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wrong-way stars in spiral galaxies Spiral galaxies are believed to form when gigantic clouds of gas collapse under the pull of gravity to create spinning discs. Further condensations give rise to the billions of stars that make up these immense rotating stellar wheels. Intuitively, one would expect all of the stars in a given galaxy to rotate around the hub in the same direction, like all of the water molecules in a whirlpool. But galaxy NGC4138, 50-million light years away, defies this common-sense expectation. M. Haynes and colleagues at Cornell have discovered that fully one-fifth of this galaxy's stars are rotating in a direction opposite from the rest. Otherwise, NGC4138 is a well-behaved spiral galaxy, almost a boring one, exhibiting no signs of internal turmoil or past collisions with another galaxy. However, all of the wrong-way stars appear to be youngish. This little clue may lead to some sort of explanation. (Muir, Hazel; "Counter-Revolutionaries Lurk in Spiral Galaxies," New Scientist, p. 18, March 16, 1996.) Comment. If all of NGC4138's counterrotating stars did condense from the original spinning gas disc, their large wrong-sign angular momentum would have had to be compensated for by a speed up of all the "right-way" stars. From Science Frontiers #105, MAY-JUN 1996 . 1996-2000 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Galaxy Spins Wrong Way We have all seen impressive photographs of spiral galaxies with their whirlpool patterns. One can easily imagine them spinning ponderously, with streams of stars spiraling out behind the rotating core. This picture is intuitively satisfying from a mechanical point of view. But: "A galaxy with a spiral arm going the wrong way has been found by astroomers in the U.S . Spiral arms usually trail behind as a galaxy turns, but in NGC 4622 an inner arm is wrapped round the galaxy in the direction it is rotating." (Mitton, Simon; "Puzzle of Galaxy That Points Two ways," New Scientist, p. 22, February 29, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Anomalous Acceleration of Phobos AMO MARTIAN TELESCOPIC ANOMALIES AMO1 The Martian Canals AMO2 Pre-Mariner Observations of Martian Craters AMO3 The Springtime Wave of Darkness AMO4 Transitory Dark Spots AMW ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA ON MARS AMW1 Bright Spots during Planet Wide Dust Storms AMW2 Moving Dark Lines AMW3 Vertical Cloud Columns AMW4 Planet-Wide Dust Storms AMW5 Isotopic Anomalies in the Martian Atmosphere AMW6 The Blue Clearings AN NEPTUNE ANB PROBLEMS WITH NEPTUNE'S ORBIT ANB1 The Large Residual in Neptune's Orbit ANF NEPTUNE'S INTRINSIC RADIATION ANF1 Measurements of Intrinsic Energy from Neptune ANL RING AND SATELLITE IRREGULARITIES ANL1 Disarray among Neptune's Moons ANL2 Neptune's Elusive Ring and Its Possible Incompleteness ANO TELESCOPIC ANOMALIES ANO1 Neptune's Variable Brightness AO STARS AND EXTENDED OBJECTS AOB STELLAR DYNAMICS AND DISTRIBUTION AOB1 Star Rings AOB2 Star Streams AOB3 Expansion of Our Galaxy's Globular-Cluster Population AOB4 Spherical Distribution of Globular Clusters and Their Apparent Nonparticipation in Galactic Rotation AOB5 Geocentrically Oriented Spectroscopic Binaries AOB6 Anomalously Slow Rotation of Stars AOB7 The Possible Existence of a Minimum Distance between Stars AOB8 Existence of a Lower Limit to the Number of Stars in Globular Clusters AOB9 Non-collapsing Globular Clusters AOB10 Sub-dwarfs Move Counter to Galactic Rotation AOB11 High Pulsar Velocities AOB12 Ubiquity of Binary and Multiple-Star Systems AOB13 Pulsar Formation Rate Exceeds Supernova Frequency AOB14 Dearth of Population-III Stars AOB15 Curious Distribution of Anomalous Cepheids AOB16 Family of Population-I Stars in Galactic Halo AOB17 The Existence of Globular Clusters AOB18 The Existence of Stars AOB19 Absence of Binaries in Globular Clusters AOB20 Alignment of Axes of Young Stars AOB21 Young Stars with Anomalous Velocities AOF ANOMALIES DETECTED THROUGH STELLAR RADIATION ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 26: Mar-Apr 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Gyroscopic Galaxies The popular conception of a galaxy draws it in pancake shape, with a spiral structure consisting of many millions of stars. Oddities and deviants exist, but hardly anything as bizarre as a handful of recently discovered ringed spirals. Although the spiral sections of the ringed spirals seem normal enough, the rings are perpendicular to the plane of the spiral -- an inclination hardly countenanced by theories of galactic evolution. The ringed spirals look superficially like toy gyroscopes. One suggestion is that two galaxies collided at an angle, but there is no evidence of such a cataclysm. Ringed galaxies are eminently anomalous. (Anonymous; "Ringed Galaxy Clue to Cosmic Riddle," Science Digest, 91:22, February 1983.) From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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13. It
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects It "IT would mean abandoning a great deal of present research." (M . Disney, galaxy specialist, University of Wales) "I 'm not being dogmatic and saying IT cannot happen, but if it does, it's a real shocker." (J . Peebles, cosmologist, Princeton University)" Emphasis added above and for good reason. Yes, IT is resurgent again and after a remission of only a single issue. We are referring to those pesky quantized redshifts that won't go away. Now, a new study of them, by B. Napier and B. Guthrie, has appeared in Astronomy and Astrophysics . These astronomers had collected the redshifts for 97 spiral galaxies, measured and remeasured by various observatories, and had found in them a strong quantization in the power spectrum. (See figure.) So unbelievable was this phenomenon that, when they first submitted their paper to Astronomy and Astrophysics , a referee asked them to repeat their analysis with another set of galaxies. This, Napier and Guthrie did with 117 other galaxies. The same 37.5 -kilometers/second figure thrust itself out of the data; and their paper was accepted. It seems. therefore, that a lot of galaxies, maybe all of them, are receding from our telescopes at velocities separated by 37.5 kilometers/second, rather than in a continuous range of velocities. Unless Napier ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Redshift Undermines The Dogma Of An Expanding Universe Halton Arp has closely studied the galaxy NGC-1199, which is the brightest member of a small cluster of galaxies. One of its companions is a galaxy so dense that it appears to be a star. This compact object sports a circular shadow and seems to be silhouetted against the central galaxy NGC-1199. Arp's analysis of the absorption ring seems to prove that the compact galaxy is in front of the central galaxy. This would normally be permissible, but here the central galaxy has a redshift of 2,600 km/sec compared to 13,300 km/sec for the galaxy in front of it. This is astounding because the farther away an object is, the greater its redshift is supposed to be. (Arp, Halton M.; "NGC-ll99," Astronomy, 6:15, September 1978.) Comment. Other examples of such anomalous redshifts are known. Three pos-sible conclusions are: The redshift distance law is wrong, upsetting the Big-Bang Theory; Some galaxies and other objects have acquired anomalous velocities through some unknown mechanism; or These unusual redshifts do not indicate velocities at all. Reference. The "redshift controversy" is a major topic in our Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #5 , November 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 19: Jan-Feb 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Rims Of Galaxies Spin Too Fast According to the physical laws governing orbital motion in a central force field, like that of our sun, distant objects should rotate more slowly than those closer to the central mass. Thus, the outer planets of the solar system swing around the sun more slowly than the earth and the other inner planets. Astronomers always expected that the stars rotating around the massive hubs of the galaxies would obey these laws in a like manner. No such luck! Doppler measurements of galaxy rotations made by Vera C. Rubin and her colleagues, at the Carnegie Institution, indicate that most stars out near the galactic rims rotate just as fast or faster than those closer to the hub. Astronomers suppose that this anomalous rotation may be due to halos of undetected burntout stars and/or gas fringing the galaxies. Such halos would dis-tort the inverse-square-law field, permitting the observed anomalous rotation. (Anonymous; "Fast-Spinning Galaxies," Science Digest, 89:18, November 1981.) Comment. No one has yet discovered these hypothetical halos of mass. The universe seems to be full of "missing mass." An unpopular alternative would be the admission that Newton's Law of Gravitation does not hold on the galactic scale. From Science Frontiers #19, JAN-FEB 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Megawalls Across The Cosmos "The universe is crossed by at least 13 vast 'walls' of galaxies, separated by about 420 million light years, according to a team of British and American researchers. The walls seem to be spaced in a very regular way that current theories of the origin of the universe cannot explain." "Walls" of galaxies emerge when galaxy separation distance is plotted against the number of galaxies possessing specific separation distances. (128 million parsecs = 420 million light years). The astronomers have collected observations of galaxy redshifts along a linear "borehole" through the universe 7 billion light years long centered on the earth. If the redshifts are assumed to be measures of distance (as mainstream thinking demands), one gets the clumping effect seen in the accompanying illustration. (Henbest, Nigel; "Galaxies Form 'Megawalls' across Space," New Scientist, p. 37, March 19, 1990.) Comment. Not mentioned in the above article are the papers by W.G . Tifft on quantized redshifts. (See SF#50, for example.) It will be interesting to learn if "boreholes" pointed in other directions will encounter the same megawalls. If they do, the earth will be enclosed by shells of galaxies, much as some elliptical galaxies are surrounded by shells of stars. Wouldn't it be hilarious if the earth were at the center of these concentric ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Icebergs and crouching giants Astronomers have discovered what they believe is the largest, darkest, most gas-rich spiral galaxy known in a 'void' beyond the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. Discovered by accident on long-exposure photographic plates, the object, called Malin 1, appears to be still forming. .. .. .. "' We didn't expect to find anything like this,' (C .) Impey says, referring to Malin 1. 'This galaxy is far removed from our ideas of what a normal galaxy should look like. There could be more of these things that haven't been discovered yet.'" (Anonymous; "Massive, Dark Galaxy Found in Void," Astronomy, 15:75, September 1987.) The same discovery is dealt with, in a more technical way, in Nature. A revealing paragraph from the Nature article follows: "Although Malin 1 could be a unique case there is in fact a significant body of circumstantial evidence to suggest otherwise. Our present knowledge of the galaxy population is so biased by a single insidious selection effect that it is entirely possible that Malin 1 is just the first example of a class of such low-surface-brightness giant galaxies that forms a significant constituent of the universe." The "selection effect" mentioned is a consequence of the very bright sky that confronts astronomers. Astronomical interest and instrumentation have focussed ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 109: Jan-Feb 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Too Much Order In The Early Cosmos Astronomers are becoming accustomed to the idea that many nearby galaxies are concentrated in spherical shells separated from one another by about 400 million light years. This onion-skin geometry is inferred from the fact that galactic red shifts cluster around specific values; that is, they are quantized. Since red shifts are held to be proportional to distance in the expanding universe paradigm: Voila! We have shells! This evidence of nearby cosmic order does not seriously disturb cosmologists, because in the nearby galaxies we are seeing that portion of the universe that is billions of years old. In other words, nearby there has been enough time for some degree of order to have evolved out of the primordial chaos of the Big Bang. Now though, "deep" surveys of galaxies, looking much farther back in time, still show clustered red shifts -- not the expected increasing chaos required by theory. Although the surveys are incomplete, astronomers are discomfited by this early lumpiness. Their theories say that there was not enough time for galaxies to organize themselves into sheets, shells, and skeins. If further "deep" probings of the cosmos confirm this redshift clustering, we may need a new evolutionary scenario. Good bye Big Bang and expanding universe! (Vogel, Gretchen; "Goodness, Gracious, Great Walls Afar," Science, 274:343, 1996. Vergano, D.; "New ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 6: February 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Supermasses That Come And Go Quasars, black holes, violently active Seyfert galaxies, jets of matter expelled from galaxies, and many similar puzzles of modern astronomy fall into place (and reason) if one unthinkable assumption is made: the cyclic appearance and disappearance of supermasses inside galaxies. Normal galaxies seem to have masses of about 1011 times that of the sun. The unthinkable assumption suggests that every 108 years or so, these ordinary, unassuming galaxies become supermassive (about 1013 solar masses) for several million years. When the core of a galaxy becomes supermassive, its stars are tugged into tight new orbits. The subsequent switching off of the supermass allows the galaxy to expand outwards again. The author claims to have found just such expansion effects among the globular clusters in our own galaxy. His data are striking and quite convincing. The notorious "missing mass" problem of cosmology disappears with the cyclic supermass assumption because the time-averaged mass of each galaxy will be much higher than that observed in its normal enervated state. Doesn't this sudden temporary appearance of mass violate the laws of physics? No, says the author, physicists habitually assume a superfluid, superconducting vacuum state, which is the ultimate source of all mass-energy, when they develop their theories of fundamental particles. If particle physicists can (and must) evoke such magic, so can astronomers. (Clube, Victor; "Do We Need a Revolution in ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Arp banished, but not redshift anomalies Several years ago, H. Arp, a noted American astronomer, moved to Europe to continue his research because, in part, of the hostility of American astronomers to his discoveries. The problem was (and still is) that Arp found galaxies that seem to be physically interacting and, therefore, at the same distance from earth, but yet have radically different or "discordant" redshifts. Since redshifts are supposed to be a measure of distance from the earth, an anomaly comes into focus. This anomaly; that is, the credibility of the redshift distance scale, challenges the ideas of an expanding universe and the Big Bang itself. Freed from the shackles of American scientific correctness, Arp continues to find embarrassing facts about the cosmos. For example, take galaxies NGC 450 and UGC 807, with redshifts of 1863 and 11600 km/s respectively: "Six lines of evidence are presented showing that the two discordant redshift galaxies are interacting. One would have to invoke an enormous conspiracy of galaxies to avoid this conclusion. Yet, if accepted, this case alone brings into question the interpretation of cosmological red-shift for all galaxies." (Moles, M., et al, including Arp; "Testing for Interaction between the Galaxies NGC 450 and UGC 807," Astrophysical Journal, 432:135, 1994.) But discordant redshifts are not limited to distant galaxies. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 84: Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Galactic Shell Game W.G . Tifft, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, has maintained for some two decades that the redshifts of the galaxies do not fall on a smooth curve as one would expect. Instead, Tifft asserts, redshifts are bunched at intervals of 72 kilometers/second and at onehalf and one-third that value. Mainstream astronomers insist that redshifts be interpreted as Doppler shifts due to the expanding universe. Quantized redshifts just don't fit into this view of the cosmos, for they imply concentric shells of galaxies expanding away from a central point -- earth! Even though more recent redshift data have supported the notion of quantized redshifts, cosmologists find them undigestible, even pathogenic. But replication and non-replication are the essence of science, so B. Guthrie and W.M . Napier, at the Royal Observatory at Edinburgh, undertook another study. They selected 89 nearby spiral galaxies that had not been incorporated in any of the previous surveys. These galaxies had very accurately measured redshifts and were distributed all over the celestial sphere. "As expected, the galaxies' redshifts showed a smooth distribution. Clearly, no quantization was being introduced by the radio telescopes or the data reduction process. But after Guthrie and Napier corrected each redshift to account for the Earth's motion around the center of the Milky Way -- a different correction for each location in the sky -- out popped ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 103: Jan-Feb 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Brief History Of Quantized Time The poet Stephen Spender once observed that time is "larger than our purpose." Perhaps he should have written "times", for the various portions of the universe we can see through our telescopes may be moving along different "time lines" -- on different schedules, so to speak. According to W.G . Tifft, we may have to replace our concept of one-dimensional time with three-dimensional time if we are to explain some pressing cosmological anomalies. Redshift differences of double galaxies. The horizontal axis is the redshift difference in kilometers/second. The vertical axis is the number of pairs having a given redshift difference. It all began about 1970 OTL (Our Time Line!), when Tifft showed that the redshifts of galaxies are quantized. To illustrate, the diagram indicates that the redshifts of binary galaxies tend strongly to cluster at 72 and 72/3 kilometers/ second. One would certainly not expect ponderous galaxies to orbit one another in a quantized fashion. It is almost as if binary galaxies emulate those dumbbell-shaped molecules that can spin around only at specific frequencies! Can the mechanics of the very large (galaxies) be quantized like the very small (atoms and molecules)? Tifft obviously thinks so: "Quantization, it seems, is a basic cosmological phenomenon. It must reflect some master plan." The Finnish physicist, A. ...
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... NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "Redshift is A Shaky Measuring Rod"So saith M. Burbidge, an astronomer at the University of California at San Diego. Her assertion echoes what Arp has been proclaiming for years. (AR#3 ); namely that some redshifts are not due to the Doppler effect and an expanding universe. Since redshift is the major cosmological yardstick, the whole fabric of modern cosmology would become unwoven if redshifts cannot be used to measure distances reliably. We bring this subject up once more because Burbidge claims that some newly discovered quasar pairs cast additional doubt on redshift distance measurements. For example, she, along with Arp and Y. Chu, point to the quasar pair flanking the galaxy named Arp 220 (one of Arp's earlier discoveries). Quasars are very energetic sources of visible light, radio waves, and X-rays. The problem with Arp-220's flanking quasars is that they have much greater redshifts than the galaxy that seems to be situated in between them and likely at the same distance. Is this just a chance association, and the quasars are really much farther away than the galaxy -- as suggested by their high redshifts? Most astronomers believe this must be the case, but Burbidge and, of course, Arp, doubt it. They point to 10 other galaxies nearby that are also straddled by quasar pairs with higher redshifts. All of these were discovered within the last four years. Are they all merely chance associations? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Of iron whiskers and particles that increase mass with age!Two pillars of the Big Bang hypothesis are: (1 ) Redshifts of galaxies support the notion of an expanding universe; and (2 ) The background microwave radiation can be interpreted as the dying embers of the Big Bang itself. Proponents of the Big Bang feel secure atop these pillars. But should they? A few Big-Bang skeptics, who have survived considerable establishment pressure, see growing cracks in those pillars. J. Narlikar identified two such cracks and, best of all, offered exciting remedies: (1 ) The redshift relationship, which works well with galaxies, falls apart when applied to quasars (see graphs); and (2 ) The background microwave radiation is much too smooth to come from the lumpy universe we observe. Narlikar opines as follows: Plot of red shift versus galaxy faintness supports the proposition that red shift is proportional to distance The same plot for quasars produces a scatter of points, suggesting that here red shifts have nothing to do with distance. "Given these problems, it is not a sound strategy to put all of our cosmic eggs in one big-bang basket. Rather, we should explore other possibilities. Thirty years ago, there was a more open debate on alternative theories, which made valuable contributions to our undersanding of cosmology. For a healthy growth of the subject, the big bang hypothesis needs competition from other ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More evidence for galactic "shells" or "something else"Measurements of periodic red-shift bunching appeared in the literature at least as far back as 1977 in the work of W.G . Tifft. The implications of this phenomenon are apparently too terrible to contemplate, for astrophysicists have not taken up the challenge. They may be forced to take the phenomenon more seriously, because two new reports of redshift bunching have surfaced. First, B. Guthrie and W, Napier, at Edinburgh's Royal Observatory, have checked Tifft's "bunching" claim using accurately known red shifts of some nearby galaxies. They found a periodicity of 37.5 kilometers/second -- no matter in which direction the galaxies lay. (Gribbin, John; "' Bunched' Red Shifts Question Cosmology," New Scientist, p. 10, December 21/28, 1991.) The work of Guthrie and Napier is elaborated upon in the next item. Sec ond, B. Koo and R. Krone, at the University of Chicago, using optical red-shift measurements, discovered that, in one direction at least , "the clusters of galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars, seemed to be concentrated in evenly spaced layers." (Browne, Malcolm W.; "In Chile, GalaxyWatching Robot Seeks Measure of Universe," New York Times, December 17, 1991. Cr. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Astronomers up against the "great wall"" For more than a decade now, astronomers have been haunted by a sense that the universe is controlled by forces they don't understand. And now comes a striking confirmation: 'The Great Wall.'" The Great Wall is the largest known structure in the universe at present, having superceded sundry superclusters and clusters of superclusters. The Wall is a "thin" (15 million-light-year) sheet of galaxies 500 million light years long by 200 wide; and it may extend even farther. It is emplaced some 200-300 million light years from earth. It helps outline contiguaous parts of vast "bubbles" of nearly empty space. Both the Wall and the adjacent voids are just too large for current theories to deal with. All popular theories have great difficulties in accounting for such large inhomogeneities. To illustrate an important observable -- the 2.7 K cosmic background radiation -- which is usually described as the afterglow of the Big Bang, ar gues for a very smooth, uniform distribution of galaxies. Great Walls are definitely anomalous. M.J . Geller, codiscoverer of the Great Wall with J.P . Huchra, remarked: "My view is that there is something fundamentally wrong in our approach to understanding such large-scale structure -- some key piece of the puzzle that we're missing." (Waldrop, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Crystalline Universe Cosmologists think in the large. Billions of stars are nothing to them. The megaparsec (3 ,528,000 light years) is but a hop, skip, and jump. A pressing question for these cosmologists searching for the really big picture is whether there is any order in the distribution of galaxies, galactic clusters, and superclusters. The scale of organization of the universe is of critical importance because it is a measure of state of the cosmos when hydrogen atoms first condensed from the seething sea of ions following the Big Bang. The prevailing expectation has been that galactic clusters and superclusters should be distributed at random; that is, no order prevails at that scale. Recent redshift measurements, however, hint more and more forcefully that the huge superclusters of galaxies are almost as neatly arranged as the atoms in a crystal. A recent paper in Nature by J. Einasto et al puts a number on the spacing of the superclusters: "Here, using a new compilation of available data on galaxy clusters, we present evidence for a quasi-regular three-dimensional network of rich superclusters and voids, with the regions of high density separated by "120 Mpc [megaparsecs]. If this reflects the distribution of all matter (luminous and dark), then there must exist some hitherto unknown process that produces regular structure on large scales." (Einasto, J., et al; "A 120 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Quasar, quasar, burning bright; what shifts your spectral light?T. Heckman, of the University of Maryland, has ordained that the apostles of noncosmological redshifts must now recant. He and his colleagues believe that they now have the most convincing demonstration to date that quasar redshifts are of cosmological origin; that is, the larger the redshift, the faster the quasar is receding and the farther away it is. "Availing themselves of the extraordinary new imaging and spectroscopic capabilities of charge-coupled-device (CCD) detectors, they have measured the redshifts of 19 nebulous objects that appear to be companion galaxies of 15 relatively low-redshift quasars. Observing at the Kitt Peak 4-meter telescope, they have determined that, in 18 of these 19 cases, the apparent companion has a redshift very close to that of the quasar. While Burbidge, Arp and their partisans may argue that quasars are so peculiar that they can generate redshifts of unknown origin, this position becomes difficult to maintain for companion galaxies that otherwise look perfectly ordinary." H. Arp and G. Burbidge, chief among those ordered to recant, are not convinced. Arp points to many cases where bridges of luminous material connect high-redshift quasars with low redshift galaxies. Also, the clustering of quasars around nearby galaxies supports the nearness of quasars. As Burbidge has observed, if: ". .. just one large redshift is not due ...
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... : Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mysterious Bright Arcs May Be The Largest Objects In The Universe Several brilliant bluish arcs, some 300,000 light years long, were unexpectedly discovered during a survey of galactic clusters. R. Lynds, of Kitt Peak National Observatory, estimates that the arcs are as luminous as 100 billion suns. The nice circularity of the arcs is perplexing; and it is stated that nothing like them has been reported before. The arcs might be incandescent gas, but many astronomers opt instead for swaths of bright young stars. Spectroscopic tests will decide this point. It has been difficult to conceive of an origin for the arcs. Are they blast waves or the results of tidal action between galaxies? No one knows, for all suggestions seem flawed. Something out there not only manipulates stupendous amounts of mass and energy but also does it with a draftsman's compass. (Anderson, Ian; "Astronomers Spot the Biggest Objects in the Universe," New Scientist, p. 23, January 15, 1987.) Comment. In the interest of accuracy, it should be noted that some superclusters of galaxies are larger than the arcs. Also, some similar phenomena are described in our Catalog volume Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos, viz., the stacked, interleaved arcs of stars around elliptical galaxies (AWO5) and ring galaxies without significant nuclei (AWO6). To order the catalog volume just mentioned, visit: here . A luminous arc located near the galaxy cluster ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 12: Fall 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Little big bangs!The photographic enhancement of plates taken by the UK Schmidt and Anglo-Australian telescopes has revealed that several normal elliptical galaxies are surrounded by shell-like structures. D.F . Malin and D. Carter report that these envelopes are vast -- up to 180 kiloparsecs in diameter. Furthermore, some galaxies are wrapped in a series of thin shells. Malin and Carter believe that the colossal shells are really thin layers of stars either created by a powerful shock wave during galaxy formation or comprised of a debris layer of old stars blown out of the galaxy during some cataclysmic event. (Malin, David F., and Carter, David; "Giant Shells around Normal Elliptical Galaxies," Nature, 285:643, 1980.) Comment. This article typifies the emergence of "catastrophic astronomy" which contrasts sharply with the older vision of a leisurely evolution of stars and galaxies. From Science Frontiers #12, Fall 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 40: Jul-Aug 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What is it? a black hole, of course!Radio-telescope measurements of the compact radio source, churning away in the center of our Galaxy, reveal that it is only 20 AU in diameter at radio wavelengths of l.35 centimeters. This is roughly the size of the solar system inside Saturn's orbit. This tiny radio source is so energetic that there seems no escaping the conclusion that it is a blackhole. No other astronomical object is capable of generating so much energy in so small a volume. Since other galaxies also seem to harbor small, but very powerful radio sources in their centers, astronomers wouldn't be too surprised if all galaxies had black-hole cores. Quasars, in fact, might be galaxies with spectacularly active centers. Would these unseeable black holes be the notorious "missing mass" in the universe? Not likely. The mass of the purported black hole in our Galaxy is only about several million solar masses-- not even close to what is needed. (Maddox, John; "Black Hole at the Galactic Centre," Nature, 315:93, 1985.) Comment. Actually, it would be rather amusing if the problem of the missing mass, which we cannot see, were solved by black holes, which we cannot see either! Reference. Black holes and other cosmological entities are discussed in our Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. to ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 46: Jul-Aug 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cosmic Currents A survey of 390 elliptical galaxies have identified an unexpected streaming effect superimposed on the (postulated) general outward expansion of the universe. A team of seven astronomers first measured the velocities of the elliptical galaxies relative to the earth. Next they subtracted out the velocities of universal expansion and, lastly, the velocity of the earth relative to the 3 K cosmic background radiation. These subtractions enable us to determine how the 390 elliptical galaxies move relative to the cosmic background radiation -- which is about the best fixed reference frame we can come up with. For roughly 50 million parsecs in all directions from earth, the clusters and superclusters of galaxies are streaming through the cosmos in a group. What's more, they lie in and move parallel to a fairly well-defined plane. Just what this coordinated motion means in terms of the origin and evolution of the universe is anyone's guess. There doesn't seem to be anything in the Big Bang theory that would explain these cosmic currents. Something set all these galaxies in motion -- but what? (Waldrop, M. Mitchell; "The Currents of Space," Science, 232:26, 1986.) A giant elliptical galaxy containing many billions of stars. Hundreds of these immense assemblages are moving collectively though the cosmos. From Science Frontiers #46, JUL-AUG 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Now We Know Why!Circa 1950, physicist E. Fermi observed that our galaxy measures about 100,000 light years across, and that a spacefaring race could cross it in only 100 million years, even if their starships poked along at only 1/1 ,000 the speed of light. Since our galaxy is about 10 billion years old, the very reasonable question is: If other intelligences (ETs) exist in our galaxy, why haven't they found us by now? Actually, many ETs from many different cultures should be stopping by frequently. J. Annis, an astrophysicist at Fermilab, believes he can explain the apparent dearth of ETs. The problem is gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). They are so powerful that they sterilize those galaxies in which they occur. Presently, GRBs occur in each galaxy about once every 100 million years, but theory suggests that they were much more frequent in the past. As a consequence, by the time intelligent life evolves anywhere and figures out how to build spaceships, they are zapped by a GRB. Perhaps some do begin exploration of their galaxy, but they don't get very far. (Matthews, Robert; "Sorry, We'll Be Late," New Scientist, p. 16, January 23, 1999.) Comment. Any reader of science fiction can come up with other explanations: (1 ) ETs have been ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hold everything: it may be a nonproblem Newtonian gravitation may not have to be tampered with, as described above. Galaxies may not need "missing mass" to stabilize them after all. B. Byrd and M. Valtonen estimate that many clusters of galaxies are really flying apart. "Clusters of galaxies can eject members by a gravitational slingshot process, with one galaxy after another being accelerated through the dense centre of the cluster and fired out into the Universe at large. If this happens, the ejected galaxies are moving at more than the escape velocity from the system, so estimates of the total mass in the system based on the assumption that all the galaxies are in bound orbits will be incorrect" (Anonymous; "Expanding Clusters Confuse Astronomers," New Scientist, p. 13, March 2l, 1985.) Comment. In previous entries, we have seen jets of stars being squirted into space, immense shells of stars being ejected by elliptical galaxies, and other cosmic sowings of astronomical systems. Now, entire galactic clusters are being thrown around the universe. This hard-ly seems a universe that is "running down," as the Laws of Thermodynamics would have us believe. Somebody or something is stirring the pot -- a pot in which biological systems and perhaps super-biological systems are ingredients in the stew. From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R ...
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... scientists nervous. In the black-hole singularity, thousands of stars are swallowed and compressed into an infinitesimally small volume. (Ref. 1) This grates against common sense. The philosophical uneasiness about black holes is worsened by the discovery that they: ". .. threaten the universe with an irreversible loss of information, which seems to contradict other laws of physics." (Ref. 2) Adding to these problems are nagging doubts about General Relativity, which underpins black-hole theory. Recently, some theorists have shown that General Relativity requires that two bodies of approximately equal size not attract one another! (Ref. 2) Despite all these qualms, black holes have become a fixture of astronomy because they promise to explain the incredibly powerful energy sources seen in the cores of galaxies. Do astronomers really observe black holes? The answer is: MAYBE. And even if YES, there are not nearly enough of them to satisfy theory. To illustrate, according to present theory, when stars weighing in at less than three solar masses collapse, they become neutron stars; if larger, the stars turn into small black holes. Theoretically, there should be one small black hole for every three neutron stars. But with some 500 neutron stars already pin-pointed, only 3 "possible" small black holes have been given votes of confidence; namely, Cyg X-1 , LMC X-3 , and AD 620-00. All objects previously proclaimed to be small black holes have instead turned out to be neutron stars. (Ref. 1) The ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 27: May-Jun 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anomalous redshifts (again)For years Halton Arp has been searching the skies for anomalous astronomical objects. Among the many maverick items in his catalog are objects that seem physically related but have radically different redshifts. Examine for instance the illustration, which shows the large galaxy NGC 7603 (possessing a supposed recessional velocity of 8,700 km/sec) and its smaller companion at the end of the filament, which recedes at the much higher velocity of 16,900 km/sec. According to the Theory of the Expanding Universe, the greater the recessional velocity (as measured by the red or Doppler shift), the farther away the object is. But Arp's many examples of physically connected galaxies with wildly different redshifts suggest that some of the disparities in redshifts may actually be due to the related objects flying apart from each other. In the illustration, the small companion might have been "shot out" of its parent galaxy at high velocity by some unappreciated galactic gun. (Arp, Halton C.; "Related Galaxies with Different Redshifts?" Sky and Telescope, 65:307, 1983.) Comment. Left unsaid in Arp's article is the possibility that redshifts are not good measures of distance. If they are not, doubt is cast on the Theory of the Expanding Universe and the reality of the Big Bang itself. Some astronomers, according to news items in scientific publications, have heard ...
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... fact, composed of dark matter. This conclusion comes mainly from the belief that something unseen (dark matter) is tugging on visible matter, making it do things the laws of motion say it should not do. All visible bodies, therefore, seem to be careening about in a dense cloud of unseen, unknown masses. These might be dark, Jupiter-sized objects, black holes, and/or some exotic forms of matter. We must choose between the reality of dark matter or admit that something is awry with our laws of gravitation and motion when they are applied on a cosmological scale Now, let us examine those four darkmatter items from the recent literature: D. Lin, a University of California astronomer, has shown that the Large Magellanic Cloud that orbits around our own galaxy (the Milky Way) is being torn apart (" cannibalized") by the powerful gravitational pull of a dense cloud of dark matter surrounding the Milky Way. This dismemberment of the Large Magellanic Cloud cannot be explained by the gravitational forces exerted by the stars in our galaxy that we can see. Lin calculates that our halo of dark matter is equivalent to 600-800 billion solar masses, compared to the only 100 billion solar masses of visible matter. (Flam, Faye; "Spinning in the Dark," Science, 260:1593, 1993. Also: Anonymous; "' Dark Matter' Is Observed 'Cannibalizing' a Galaxy," Baltimore Sun, p. 8A, June 8, 1993.) The dark matter surrounding a galaxy will, according to the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lumps, clumps, and jumps "Astronomers have already discovered lumps, motion and structure never suspected in a universe once considered smooth and expanding uniformly in all directions. Two researchers now say the universe is even lumpier, has faster relative motion and shows larger structures than previously believed." N. Bahcall and R. Soneira have been studying the structures and motions of superclusters of galaxies. Each supercluster consists of clusters of clusters of galaxies and contains upwards of hundreds of billions of stars. (Obvious-ly, these are not inconsequential entities!) By analyzing the redshifts of galaxies, Bahcall and Soneira have found that the universe is much more dynamic and inhomogeneous than expected. (1 ) The clusters of galaxies are larger and more extensive. Superclusters can be 500 million light years across -- about 1% of the known universe (2 ) Relative motions within the clusters are as high as 2,000 kilometers per second more than one can account for using gravitational attraction alone. (Kleist; T.; "Lumps, Clumps and Jumps in the Universe," Science News, 130:7 , 1986.) Comment. Before swallowing whole such grand sketches of the cosmos, one should always examine the assumptions. Here, redshifts are assumed to be measures of velocity, which if an expanding universe is assumed, can be converted into distances. Local Group of galaxies, including the Milky Way. and nearby superclusters ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 13: Winter 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Anomalous Redshifts Halton Arp, of the Mount Wilson and Las Campanas Observatories, has discovered three more pairs of galaxies that seem to threaten that cornerstone of astronomy, the redshift distance scale. The new pairs are all in the Southern Hemisphere and, like others on Arp's list, seem to be interacting physically. For example, the filaments of one pair member seem to reach out and connect with the companion. Surely, these dynamically connected galaxies should be equidistant from earth. Such distances are measured by the object's redshift, which is supposedly proportional to its recessional velocity. Thus, each member of a pair should have the same redshift. This does not occur with these three pairs. In one pair, the recessional velocity appears to be 4,600 km/sec for one galaxy and 37,300 km/sec for the other. Arp's conclusion is that at least some of the redshift must be intrinsic; that is, not due to recessional velocity alone. If this is true, the basic cosmological distance scale is suspect. (Anonymous; "X -ray Quasars Fit Theories .. .But Some Galaxies Refuse to Play Ball," New Scientist, 88:22, 1980.) Reference. For more on discordant redshifts, see AWB7 and AWO4 in our Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos, which is described here . From Science Frontiers #13, Winter 1981 . 1981- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fractals, fractals everywhere Anyone who follows the popular scientific literature knows that fractals are now "in." Commonly employed to "explain" patterns in nature, fractals are, from a simplistic viewpoint, mathematical ways to predict the development of a growing structure, be it a crystalline mass, a plant, or the universe-as-a -whole. Yes, the universe-as-a -whole, the clouds of stars and clusters of galaxies, may be mimicked by cellular automata (i .e ., fractals). Imagine the universe as a cubical lattice, and start in one corner, adding one layer of cubes after another. Galaxy distribution could be simulated by using a rule telling us which of the added cubical cells had galaxies in them and which did not. "The rule actually used supposes that the question whether each point in a newly added layer will (or will not) be occupied by a galaxy is mostly determined by the occupancy of the five nearest neighbors in the previous layer, but for good measure, there is a random variable to introduce an element of white noise to the system. To make the process a little more interesting, the determination whether a new site is occupied depends on whether a number characteristic of that site, and calculated by simple arithmetic from the corresponding number for the five nearest neighbors in the preceeding layer, exceeds an arbitrarily chosen number." Comparing this ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 20: Mar-Apr 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A BIG VOID IN SPACE OR A DEFECTIVE YARDSTICK?R. Kirshner and colleagues have discovered an immense void almost completely devoid of galaxies. Smaller voids have been found in other surveys of the heavens, but this one is too big to explain away in terms of random variations in galaxy distribution. Kirshner et al carefully measured galactic redshifts in three widely separated regions of the sky and found almost no galaxies in the redshift velocity interval 12,000 to 18,000 km/sec in all three areas. One interpretation of this huge gap is that the initial post-Big-Bang distribution of matter in the universe was unexpectedly lumpy. A further problem arising is that such a large void should show up as a blip in the 3 K cosmic background radiation -- but it doesn't . (Anonymous; "Deep Redshift Survey of Galaxies Suggests MillionMPC3 Void," Physics Today, 35:17, January 1982.) Comment. A less popular possibility is that galaxy redshifts do not measure distance at all and that no void exists. Reference. Cosmic voids are cataloged at AWB3 in Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #20, MAR-APR 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 116: Mar-Apr 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "A FANTASTIC RESULT!"That's what Princeton astronomer N. Bahcall said of the discovery that the very early universe was already partitioned by colossal walls of galaxies hundreds of millions of light years long. That walls of galaxies exist is not a new idea, but finding that they existed shortly after the Big Bang is highly disconcerting to most astronomers. How did these walls form so early? Why hasn't the force of gravity modified the basic structure of the cosmos over the billions of years that followed the Big Bang? The astronomical quandry is this: If the very early universe looks pretty much the same as today's universe, the implication is that mass, the source of gravitational sculpting, is scarce. But this is at odds with the cosmic expansion rate which implies a much higher density of matter. (Appenzeller, Tim; "Ancient Galaxy Walls Go up; Will Theories Tumble Down?" Science, 276:36, 1997.) Comment. The existence of galaxy walls, like so many astronomical constructs, depends upon the assumption that the red shifts of galaxies are proportional to their recessional velocities and, additionally, their distances and ages. So much rides on this one assumption. The same situation prevails in biology, where everything is founded on the assumption that random mutations and natural selection can together generate any degree of complexity, sophistication, and innovation seen in nature. The history of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 37: Jan-Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Flip-flop radio jets?Many radio galaxies and quasars are found to have a double-lobed structure, with one lobe on one side of the nucleus and another diametrically opposite. When examined in detail, these lobes turn out to be quite different in size, shape, and intensity. In particular, very bright regions on one lobe often correspond to gaps or regions of low brightness on the other. So striking are these asymmetries that astronomers think that these huge, tremendously energetic systems are ejecting material first from one side then the other. Somehow, one side of the galaxy or quasar communicates with the other, which may be many light years away, and coordinates a flip-flop action. How and why radio galaxies and quasars should flip-flop is a major mystery. (Anonymous; "Flip-Flop Radio Jets?" Sky and Telescope, 68:506, 1984.) Comment. This flip-flop action immediately recalls the great elliptical galaxies which seem to be shooting out shells of stars first from one end, then the other. From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... gamma-ray bursts detected by the GRO satellite in 1991 Take a look at the distribution of 153 gamma-ray bursts registered by the Gamma-Ray Observatory (a satellite). There is no pattern, gamma-ray bursters seem to be evenly distributed in all directions. This is not what the astronomers expected, and the implications of this isotropy are staggering. Gamma-ray bursts emanate from highly localized unseen sources. They may last for a few milliseconds or stretch out for several minutes. The energy in the bursts ranges over 26 orders of magnitude. The rise-times of the bursts are so short that the sources can only be a few hundred kilometers across. Before the accompanying map appeared, most scientists thought that the bursters were nearby, probably in the disk of the galaxy, and were due to asteroids being digested by neutron stars or possibly neutron-star quakes. If such were so, the bursters would be concentrated in the plane of the galaxy (the Milky Way), which clearly they are not. Another theory places the bursters in a distant spherical halo about our galaxy. But, in this case, the bursters would have to be much more energetic than astronomers care to contemplate. In fact, if they exist in a galactic halo, we should also be able to detect the bursters in our neighboring galaxies -- but we do not! A more exciting suggestion is that gamma-ray bursters are really very close! This would be consistent with the failure to find cosmological redshifts in the burster spectra. Could they be really close, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is a singularity worse than a spinning cosmos?Whence the untold billions of stars and galaxies that brighten our night skies? From a "singularity," that's where -- from an infinitely small point in space. The Big Bang hypothesis requires this abandonment of common sense. Both mathematicians and cosmologists instinctively hate singularities. The latter have been trying to exorcise theirs for years. Recently, S. Carneiro, a Brazilian physicist, proposed a way to get rid of this natal singularity but retain the expanding universe. First, he assumes that the universe has been around for an indefinitely (infinitely?) long time, thereby eliminating the problem of origin. Furthermore, this universe was rotating. About 11 billion years ago this spinning universe was transformed into the expanding universe we see today via that clever cosmologists' ploy called a "vacuum phase transition." Carneiro shows how the rotation of the universe-as-a -whole was converted into overall expansion in a paper submitted to the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity . But even if all of Carneiro's equations check out, angular momentum still had to be conserved somehow during the phase transition. Simple! The angular momentum of the universe-as-a -whole was transferred to the spins of all the individual planets, stars, and galaxies. In fact, the angular momentum of each astronomical entity, according to Carneiro, is proportional to its (mass ...
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... , Ice falls, Firestorms and Related Weather Anomalies (Geophysics) 2006: Archeological Anomalies: Graphic Artifacts I 2003: Archeological Anomalies: Small Artifacts 2003: Scientific Anomalies and other Provocative Phenomena 2001: Remarkable Luminous Phenomena in Nature 2001: Ancient Structures (Archeology) 1999: Ancient Infrastructure (Archeology) 1998: Biological Anomalies: Birds 1996: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II: 1995: Biological Anomalies: Mammals I 1994: Science Frontiers, The Book 1994: Biological Anomalies: Humans III 1993: Biological Anomalies: Humans II 1992: Biological Anomalies: Humans I 1991: Inner Earth: A Search for Anomalies (Geological) 1990: Neglected Geological Anomalies 1989: Anomalies in Geology: Physical, Chemical, Biological 1988: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, Submarine Canyons (Geological) 1987: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos 1986: The Sun and Solar System Debris 1985: The Moon and the Planets 1984: Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows (Geophysics) 1983: Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds (Geophysics) 1983: Tornados, Dark days, Anomalous Precipitation (Geophysics) 1982: Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights (Geophysics) 1982: Unfathomed Mind 1981: Incredible life (Biology) 1980: Unknown Earth (Geological) 1979: Mysterious Universe (Astronomy) 1978: Ancient Man (Archeology) 1977: Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenonema Sourcebook Series 1978: Strange Planet E2 1977: Strange Universe A1 1976: Strange Artifact M2 1976: Strange Minds P1 1976: Strange Life B1 1975: Strange Planet E1 1975: Strange Universe A1 1974: Strange Artifact M1 1974: Strange Phenomena G2 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sweeping Anomalies Under The Rug A series of articles in the science magazine Mercury so slavishly followed the scientific party line on the meaning of the redshift that G. Burbidge was prompted to pen a rejoinder. Burbidge reviewed the considerable observational evidence supporting a non-cosmological interpretation of some redshifts. (Such data has been included in past issues of Science Frontiers and in our Catalog Stars Galaxies, Cosmos.) A typical observation is the apparent physical connection (streams of connecting matter) between quasars and galaxies with radically different redshifts. Burbidge remarks: "Evidence of this kind exists. If it is accepted it means: That at least some quasars do lie at so-called cosmological distances. That at least some parts of the redshifts of quasars are due to some effect other than the expansion of the universe. That quasars are physically related to bright, comparatively nearby galaxies." Burbidge is not concerned by the fact that some astronomers find the data unconvincing, rather he objects to the so-obvious attempts to brush such anomalous data under the rug. His concluding remarks are pertinent to all of science: "I cannot end this part of the discussion without making two points which are rarely made, but which are important: Evidence of the kind just mentioned which is favorable to the cosmological interpretations of the redshifts does not negate the other evidence. It simply means that the world is a complicated place. Only in articles of this ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 45  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf065/sf065a03.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Order from disorder?The apparent creation of order in a universe that is supposed to be running down is the subject of a thoughtful report by Wallace and Karen Tucker. They give additional examples of order arising from disorder in astronomy (spiral galaxies, superclusters), from chemistry (Belousav-Zhabotinsky reactions), and biology (embryonic development). Again and again, they ask why order persists on increasing when the Second Law of Thermodynamics seems to demand more disorder. Throughout the article, the Tuckers employ the card-shuffling analogy. If nature is shuffling the cards of the universe, why are so many royal flushes being dealt? They introduce the works of Ilya Prigogine and others which focus on chemical situations (the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reactions), where reaction by-products actually make the reaction more likely and in which large, stable spiral and ring-shaped structures appear spontaneously. At the macroscopic level, shock waves from supernovas can (at least in computer models) stimulate the formation of spiral arms in galaxies. The article concludes with a quote from astronomer David Layzer: "The universe is unfolding in time but not unraveling; on the contrary, it is becoming constantly more complex and richer in formation." (Tucker, Wallace, and Tucker, Karen; "Against All Odds: Matter and Evolution in the Universe," Astronomy, September 1984.) Comment. Now Layzer's statement seems a ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 43  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf036/sf036p05.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Double hubble: age in trouble A key concept in modern astronomy -- the distance scale -- has been challenged by a new measurement technique. In recent years, the so-called Hubble Constant has been used to determine the distances of the farthest observable galaxies and, by assuming that they are near the periphery of the expanding universe, obtaining the age of the cosmos by dividing distance by the speed of light. Until this current challenge, the age of the universe was generally taken as about 20 billion years. The "old" Hubble Constant, however, was determined from the measurements of the distances to rather close galaxies and then assuming that the Constant thus derived held for the entire universe. The new yardstick reaches farther out into space. It is based upon the observation that the broadening of galaxy's 21-centimeter radio emission depends upon its rate of rotation, plus the belief that the rate of rotation is proportional to its brightness! This "new" Hubble Constant is 95 kilometers/second/ megaparsec, which translates into an age of only 10 billion years for the universe. Both the 10-billion-year and 20billion-year camps claim strong supporting evidence for themselves and also point to serious difficulties in the opposing method. The stage is thus set for a delightful controversy. (Hartline, Beverly Karplus; "Double Hubble: Age in Trouble," Science, 207: 167, 1979.) ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 9: Winter 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Large, unseen mass is pulling earth toward it Recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background indicate that the earth moves relative to it. New cosmic X-ray data from the satellite Ariel 5 suggests that a large, hitherto unsuspected mass is located in the same direction that the earth is moving. Thus, both X-ray and microwave data could be explained by supposing this mass to be large enough to pull the earth (and our Galaxy) toward it. This mass would have to be about 10 billion light years away and weigh as much as 100 million Galaxies. Such a gigantic blob or inhomogeneity in the universe would be very difficult to explain. As it is, the aggregation of stars into galaxies after the Big Bang remains poorly understood. The bigger the inhomogeneity, the harder it is to account for. The Big Bang should have spread matter out pretty evenly. (Anonymous; "Large Mass May Pull Earth Through Space," New Scientist, 83:21, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #9 , Winter 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 42  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf009/sf009p04.htm
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