A Bridge of Sighs

False-color image shows a putative dark matter “bridge” between galaxies. Credit: University of Waterloo.


Apr 19, 2017

More dark matter machinations.

In a previous Picture of the Day article about dark matter, it was argued that it is an ad-hoc theory, created so that the current gravitational models of the Universe can be preserved, primarily the Big Bang.

here is a problem underlying the concept of “Big Bang cosmology”. It is said to be responsible for the existence of all matter and energy—including gravity. Cosmologists start with that assumption as a core theory, because, in their eyes, without adding dark matter there is insufficient mass in the Universe to account for galaxies bunching together. Galaxy clusters should also have slowed down over the last few billion years and not maintained extreme recessional velocities. However, much to the chagrin of gravity-only views, remote galaxies appear to be accelerating away from the Milky Way.

Astronomers first postulated dark matter when they calculated that stars at the edges of spiral galaxies revolve at the same angular velocities as stars close to the center—Newtonian physics assumes that stars farther away from the center should be moving more slowly. Therefore, they assumed dark matter was imparting extra speed to the stars.

Recently, astronomers from the University of Waterloo announced that they captured an image of a “dark matter bridge connecting two galaxies” using “weak gravitational lensing”, an effect that is supposed to cause space to “warp” under the gravitational influence of some undetectable mass. In the image at the top of the page, galactic redshift data was plotted against the altered shapes of distant galaxies due to weak gravitational lensing. This mass effect is said to exist because minute differences in how some galaxies are shaped points to a warping of space from unseen conglomerations of matter. It is that space-bending effect that holds their hypothesis together. Gravity generated by concentrations of dark matter is said to cause light rays from remote objects to bend as if through a lens. Since it is a “weak” gravitational lensing effect, variations can only be identified statistically.

Since the movement of electric charge, otherwise called “electricity”, drives galaxies, experiments confirm that Birkeland current filaments create structures that resemble those galaxies. Birkeland currents have a longer-range attractive force than gravity, and, as shown by Professor Donald Scott, diminish with the square root of the distance from their current axes. That power also accounts for the movement of stars as they revolve around the Milky Way’s galactic core.

Electricity moving through plasma initiates the effects observed with space-based telescopes. It is electricity in the cosmos and its associated magnetic fields that should be the focus of research and not ghostly statistical entities. For example, the astrophysicists who reported from the University of Waterloo examined and collated 23,000 galaxy images from what they believe is 4.5 billion light-years away.

Stephen Smith

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