
Galaxy NGC 7319. Arrow points to
foreground high redshift quasar.
Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope
Redshifts and Microwaves
Apr
21, 2010
Modern
astronomy surely suffers from a kind
of blindness. It is either a
blindness of mind or one of
practice.The
continuing presence of Big Bang
cosmology among those who are
charged with increasing the store of
scientific knowledge proves that
there certainly is blindness in some
form. Not only astronomers, but
science reporters have lost the
ability to differentiate fact from
theory, thus helping to perpetuate
the Big Bang. Media reports
constantly assert that new
discoveries confirm it when such
reports are not based on
observational evidence.
On October 3, 2003, the Big Bang
theory was falsified by direct
observation. The galaxy NGC 7319 was
measured to have a redshift of z =
0.0225. It is not uncommon for
"nearby" galaxies to have redshifts
below z = 1. However, a quasar was
located in front of NGC 7319's
opaque gas clouds with an observed
redshift of z = 2.114.
The two principle tenets of the
Big Bang theory are that redshift is
proportional to distance and that it
is an indicator of velocity. The
larger an object's redshift the
farther away it is and the faster it
is moving away from the observer.
Those two ideas provide the backdrop
for the commonly held belief that
the Universe is expanding.
According to the Big Bang, the
NGC 7319 quasar "must be billions of
light years farther away than the
galaxy" because it has a higher
redshift. Yet, since the galaxy is
opaque, the quasar has to be in
front of the galactic dust clouds
and not shining through them.
“No one has found a quasar with
such a high redshift, with a
redshift of 2.11, so close to the
center of an active galaxy,” said
the late astronomer Geoffrey
Burbidge at the time. The discovery
team included his spouse, E.
Margaret Burbidge, another noted
astronomer. The find was significant
because it is the most extreme
example of a quasar in front of a
galaxy with a lower redshift.
Conventional cosmology relies on
an electrically neutral Universe
ruled by gravity. Without this
dogmatic consensus, the Big Bang
would never have become so
predominant. Scientists, needing to
renew their grants every year,
“confirm” the theory when, according
to reports, it has been discredited.
Magazine publishers desire to
maintain good relationships with
established institutions, so they
accept the latest news releases with
little background investigation or
critical analysis.
On June 30, 2001, NASA launched
the
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy
Probe (WMAP) on a mission to
reexamine some unusual telemetry
returned by the
Cosmic Background Explorer
(COBE) satellite in 1992.
Temperature fluctuations data seemed
to suggest that there were regions
of lower mass density in the
Universe. Since the Big Bang theory
does not account for such
regions—matter and energy should be
evenly distributed—the WMAP survey
was sent to verify COBE's results.
Electric Universe advocate
Wal Thornhill pointed out
that neither COBE or WMAP detected
"cosmic" radiation. Rather, they
both found the natural microwave
radiation from "electric current
filaments in interstellar plasma
local to the Sun. Instead of the
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB),
it is the Interstellar Microwave
Background. That makes sense of the
fact that the CMB is too smooth to
account for the lumpiness of
galaxies and galactic clusters in
the Universe."
The Electric Universe theory has
an entirely different way of
addressing these matters. It does
not rely on unseen and undetectable
forces whose existence can only be
inferred. Electric currents flowing
through ionized gas and dust provide
the energy for the stars, presenting
themselves in straightforward and
understandable ways without
resorting to esoteric mathematical
models.
Redshifts and microwaves have
proven themselves inadequate to
explain how the Universe functions.
Stephen Smith
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