Distance and Distortion Question from an amateur

[VeldesX]

Greetings,

Sorry if I must ask a standard astronomy question here, but I have little knowledge of astronomy save the pop physics of Scientific American. The latest post on gamma ray bursts from hypernovae on the far side of the universe and a possible misinterpretation of the red shift caused me to have two observations. First, why haven't such immense bursts been detected on ourside of the universe; that is, closer to home? (The latest issue of Sci-Am explains that we may be in the very middle of the universe, which is why there are uniform distribution of visible objects and microwave radiation, unless great big blobs of dark energy are distorting spacetime out there. But that's Sci-Am for you!)

But my real question is, how can objects truly be at so great distances of space and time, to the tune of many billions of light years, without the obvious loss of information due to distortion, particle separation, or decay? Does space and time not matter owing to the massive ejection of material from stars, and it all comes down to refractory power of one's telescope?

For some reason, I feel like the more wild ideas that floated out there by astrophysicist desperate for publication, the more they surrender to distorted observation and, even worse, distorted calculation.

G

[StevenO]

I think astronomers just have no real clue about the sources of CMBR or Gamma-Ray bursts, so they are just trying to apply the worn-out solutions of "high redshift=far away", "energetic=black hole" and "no source, it must be the Big Bang"...

The increasing resolution of our telescopes has not increased the resolution power of our explanations.

[bdw000]

First, why haven't such immense bursts been detected on ourside of the universe; that is, closer to home?

Man, that is such a brilliant question !!

The question alone simply invalidates so much of their nonsense assumptions.

[omni-tom]

afaik they've claimed the bursts are coming from colliding "primordial" black holes, hence not found within 8 billion light years or so, hehe i guess black holes are like us, who reach a certain age and seem to lose the ability to drive.