Comments on: The Universe Is Not Expanding Uniformly

By: Newton only

Newton only — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:25:57 +0000

Anyone bothered to measure the speed of starlight? ANYONE? Few people understand photons and light.

By: Lucy Haye Ph. D.

Lucy Haye Ph. D. — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:26:18 +0000

Too many fantasies. The Universe is eternal, has not starting point and no end. Consequently, has not expansion but it is in perpetual evolution. It is flat and the space is Euclidian. Gravitation is not Attraction but Pushing by Gravitons. Forget FANTASIA. Go back to the common sense of Galileo Galilee, Newton and Carezani with his Autodynamics for short: Fundamental Basis for a New Relativistic Mechanics.

Lucy Haye
lucyhaye@charter.net

By: Uclock

Uclock — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:39:25 +0000

The question I would like to ask is whether the 'faster' expansion is in an area where large amounts of visable matter are present.
If so, as I have always suspected, it is matter causing the expansion as it generates spacetime.

By: JL

JL — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:09:38 +0000

Rey, we are one fo the bugs.

By: Jon Hanford

Jon Hanford — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:06:43 +0000

The two published papers referenced in the above article can by found at the arXiv.org site as arXiv:0809.3734v1 and arXiv:0809.3733v1.

By: Jon Hanford

Jon Hanford — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:44:48 +0000

After reading both papers on this finding, I still find no reference ruling in or out possible effects of the "Great Attractor" located in the constellations Centaurus and Hydra at a distance close to this new "dark flow" anomaly( see the Wiki page for the "Great Attractor"). It is located behind the Milky Way in the so-called Zone of Avoidance. Alternatively, might a more distant, undiscovered supercluster exist even further out behind the GA? Until these questions are answered, I see no reason to invoke new astrophysics to explain their result. Already the Local Group and Virgo Cluster show kinematic movement towards the GA along with several other galaxy clusters. Maybe astronomers need to search for infalling galaxy clusters located on the far side of this apparent anomaly. Wikipedia entry mentions "The first indications of a deviation from uniform expansion of the universe were reported in 1973 and again in 1978. The location of the Great Attractor was finally determined in 1986, and is situated at a distance of somewhere between 150 million and 250 million light years (the latter being the most recent estimate) from the Milky Way, in the direction of the Hydra and Centaurus constellations. That region of space is dominated by the Norma cluster (ACO 3627),[1][2] a massive cluster of galaxies, containing a preponderance of large, old galaxies, many of which are colliding with their neighbours, and/or radiating large amounts of radio waves.

Attempts to further study the Great Attractor and other phenomena are hampered due to line of sight obstruction by its location in the zone of avoidance (the part of the night sky obscured by the Milky Way galaxy). Ronin and Jarod both seem to be on the right track.

By: Jarod

Jarod — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 07:30:11 +0000

Ronin hit the nail on the head!

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:15:54 +0000

Quantum Flux,

You are kidding right? About the red/blue shift applicable to the rotation of the earth? I mean, a few thousand km an hour compared to percentages of light speed?
Come now, let's elevate.

By: docatomic

docatomic — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:09:24 +0000

This "dark flow" stuff – is it lumpy? Does it have big pointy chunks in it; flotsam that could take out an entire galaxy – that would be *undetectable*? Is one of those 'lumps' bearing at unimaginable speed upon our very galaxy right now?

Oh great: another thing to worry about. Thanks.

By: Jon Hanford

Jon Hanford — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:25:52 +0000

Perhaps this is a signal of a "baby universe" inflating and being pinched off from our own universe, as hypothesized in Andre Linde's work with spontaneous inflation and multiverse theory. It also brings to mind a possible influence of the "Great Attractor" discovered behind the Milky Way in Centaurus some years ago. This also may seem to be a more plausible explanation of this "dark flow". But more research will be needed to confirm and explain this latest cosmological curveball thrown our way.

By: mike

mike — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:52:18 +0000

I would put my money on Jeff's explanation; it makes the most sense to me. MOK

By: Thorkil2

Thorkil2 — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:52:56 +0000

(addition to previous): Shades of phlogiston and the Ether…..

By: Thorkil2

Thorkil2 — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:51:30 +0000

Frankly, I have pretty serious problems with the assignment of undefinables as "causes" for observed phenomena. "Dark matter" and "Dark Flow" are meaningless supposition until you can establish not only whether they exist, but precisely what they are. Such irregularities of motion are not to be unexpected on a range of scales. They may be the result of gravitational attraction or they may be an artifact of an early state of turbulance, or they may be both. This arbitrary assignment of cause to something that remains in itself undefinable is hardly serious science.

By: Greg

Greg — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 08:04:26 +0000

These findings could turn out to be a statistical fluke but that appears unlikely. As for the effect being generated by one of the superclusters, this was my first thought as well. But the distance is so vast (3% of the visible universe) that more than one super cluster would be involved. That would put this on par with dark flow and require supermassive structures which we aren't seeing. Dark flow if verified certainly makes for a much more interesting universe as opposed to the boring uniformity once considered sacrosanct. But it is potentially explainable via tinkering with the inflation period of big bang theory. So the big bang is by no means dead.

By: Ronin

Ronin — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:02:09 +0000

L.s.,

It seems that one of the most evident mechanisms in the Universe is overlooked.. Gravity.
I think Galaxies are subject to the same gravitational influences as our planets do revolving around Sol (Doh..), and the Universe doesn't _seem_ to be expanding uniformly because Galaxies are influencing each other.
Also Black Holes will influence the trajectories of everything that isn't captured in them, even Galaxies.
I just think that the Universe just became messier when getting older, and this finding doesn't surprise me one bit..

By: Stephen R. Deens

Stephen R. Deens — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 03:25:06 +0000

I have been saying for years to my fellow astromers that the "The Universe Is Not Expanding Uniformly" and that we need to reconsider the BIG BANG theory and expansion models to incorporate more thinking along these lines.

this evidence (which is still in debate) is an excellent first step in that direction.

cosmoloigy is changing every day, advancing years in just a few months, so is it really a surprise that we found somehting like this?

NO,

we should have been expecting it, and we should expect to see even more diversity and NON uniformity in the years to come.

Hubble would feel uncomfortable with these results and Hoyle would be delighted.

The tapestry of the cosmological body needs non unformity to maintain healthy evolution and growth.

By: Damian

Damian — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:05:27 +0000

Hills and Valleys in the fabric of the universe, the bubble may be expanding however localized parts flow the 4D landscape of matter and energy.

Very interesting.

Perhaps future interstellar travelers, may also follow the (currents) of space time.

Sustained on the warm flows of matter.

Damian

By: Rey

Rey — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 23:49:35 +0000

Yoogih, no one will believe in you, becuz our brains are designed not to understand the "real reality" …our brains will start to hurt if we brood on the real reality.

Whoever built our reality has designed our "platform" really well, perhaps there "were" several versions that existed before that "crashed" or had several "bugs" .

For all we know, our "Universe" is still in its "beta" stages

By: robbb

robbb — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 23:20:58 +0000

I'll just quote Spock on this one: 'Fascinating.' (Deadpan look on face.)

Signed,
Super Nerd

By: yoogih

yoogih — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:20:55 +0000

don't bother yourselves with such things as this could be just a simulated reality, and our Universe altogether with what we experience as our individual reality is just a some sort of "videogame". We not gonna get to the bottom of it, as we don't expect the characters in the latest computer videogames to understand what, who or how they been created (by computer programmers). I would like to hear more opinions about this… with attempts to explain weird things such as why light speed is limited at its current 300,000km/s and other…

By: quantum_flux

quantum_flux — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:31:00 +0000

Did they take out the blueshift/redshift pattern due to the rotation of the Earth!?

By: Numptie

Numptie — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:54:43 +0000

Don't really surprise me much .
Just another step forward from the realisation that we are not the centre of the universe. Although ain't too sure where we go from here. Just want to wish all fellow stargazers out there, dark skies

By: Prime

Prime — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:11:43 +0000

Hubble would be rolling over in his grave, if he knew what establishment cosmology was doing.
http://etheric.com/Cosmology/redshift.html
Cold Plasma filament interaction should not be mistaken for dark fudge.

Prime

By: expanding universe

expanding universe — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:32:39 +0000

ok, so if at the beginning of the universe everything started expanding, it would be like a sphere growing constantly, and if we were somewhere (not in the middle) of this sphere and we watched this expansion, wouldnt it be expected that we wouldnt see things expand uniformly relative to our position?

By: Bill Illis

Bill Illis — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:37:53 +0000

400 million light years is a very large space – 3% of the distance of the observable universe.

Given this extent would cover dozens of galaxy superclusters and galactic voids, it is expected there would be speed differences in this space.

Nice website here zoomable in to 50,000 light years all the way out to 14 billion light years.

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/superc.html