Is the Universe really expanding?
The currently accepted big bang theory is based on the idea that the Universe is expanding. Extrapolating backwards gives us a time when everything was compressed into a singularity, and something had to start the expansion: a big bang.
The evidence for the Universe expanding is the red shift, which is interpreted as indicative of the Doppler effect. The red shift is said to be large for objects farther away and moving rapidly away from us, and small for objects closer and not moving away as rapidly. It is the analysis of red shifts of astronomical objects that suggests everything is moving away from us (rather like points in an expanding balloon – it doesn’t mean Earth is at the centre), and therefore that the Universe is expanding.
One problem with this is there are several astronomical objects with massively different red shifts, and yet these objects are clearly connected. Astronomer Halton Arp first discovered quasars connected to galaxies with enormously different red shifts. He called these peculiar galaxies’.
If the red shift is always and only caused by objects moving away from us, these objects simply cannot be connected to each other. And yet pictures clearly show they are.
The first of these to be discovered by Arp was the spiral galaxy NGC 4319 with a red shift of 0.00468 (80 million light years) and quasar Markarian 205 with a red shift of 0.071, which makes it almost 15 times farther away (over a billion light years). Pictures of these objects clearly show a faint connection between them. Yet astronomers who don’t want to believe the connection (since it can’t exist if their theory is correct) simply call the connection debatable’ and say the objects appear to be connected by chance or by optical illusion.
But these are not the only peculiar galaxies’. There are dozens of them, and astronomers call them all optical illusions. Another example is the galaxy NGC 7319, which is estimated at 300 million light years away with a quasar several billion light years away IN FRONT of it (http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/mcquasar.asp).
Could the red shift have other causes? Arp suggests it has two components: inherent and velocity. He believes that the high red shift quasars are being ejected by the lower red shift galaxies, and the quasars have a large inherent red shift component. Whatever the cause, the existence of these anomalies must cast doubt on the red shift always being caused by velocity. Other scientists have suggested that anything that causes light to lose energy produces a red shift. So can we now be certain the Universe is expanding?
The idea that the Universe could be contained in a singularity’ may be theoretically possible, but it makes no sense to me. (It’s also theoretically possible for every atom in the room you’re in to suddenly migrate to one corner of the room.) And what came before the big bang? What would cause the big bang?
Most astronomers ignore the evidence of peculiar galaxies and the possibility that red shift could be caused by something other than velocity, and cling to their belief that the Universe is expanding. Maybe it is, but nobody has proved it yet.
Astronomers have their theories and see no reason to take into account facts that do not suit their theories. It was the same with the flat Earth theory, the Earth is the centre of the Universe theory, and the theory that blood does not circulate in the body. The accepted theory rules long after facts emerge that contradict it, and astronomers who have based their careers on the big bang theory and an expanding Universe are not going to give it up in a hurry.
References:
Is the Universe really expanding: http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/DidTheUniverseHaveABeginning.asp
Red shift and peculiar galaxies: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm
Halton Arp (the discoverer of quasars connected to galaxies with enormously different red shifts): www.haltonarp.com/
Astrophysics journal extract confirming the link between NGC4319 and M205: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/bib_query?1983ApJ…265L..49S (click on Send PDF to view the whole paper).
Astrophysics journal extract confirming a non-expanding Universe fits the facts better: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986ApJ…301..544L
NGC 7319 and quasar: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/mcquasar.asp
