The Big Bang Theory Isn’t as Good as It Used to Be Since I can remember, astronomers have touted the theory our universe was formed by matter coming together in such a way it compressed to the point where an explosion took place. It is postulated that this is the reason why galaxies are flying away from each other. This theory was widely accepted. The results of this explosion were said to have produced microwaves that are responsible for the background radiation we see in our universe. Like so many things we believe in science, without question, kinks in this theory have developed. The big bang theory was proposed in 1927 by Georges Lemaitre. When Edwin Hubble discovered the galaxies seem to be moving away from us, he jumped on the band wagon. His name carried a lot of weight and many scientists agreed with his view on this subject. There was another theory we hardly ever hear about today. It stated the universe was moving out, but new matter was always being created, thus this movement was a constant state that would never stop because hydrogen atoms are always being created. It was sort of like pouring water into a glass that is overflowing. If you pour the water into the glass forever, the glass will overflow forever sending water out further and further. This was proposed by none other than Hoyle among others. The theory was known as "Steady State". I have always had trouble believing in the big bang theory. Every once in a while, the theory hits a bump in the road. One of the latest bumps has to do with the fact if this theory is true, then the further you look out into space the younger the galaxies will get. The reason for this is it takes light longer to reach us from objects that are further away, so all those really old galaxies should look like the youngest. Low and behold, this year we found one of the very furthermost galaxies looked to be very old. But how could this be, according to the big bang theory it should have looked very young? This was never adequately explained. Our universe is filled with microwave radiation, it is called cosmic microwave background radiation to be exact. It was discovered in 1965 by a couple of engineers named Penzias and Wilson. Scientists and astronomers easily explained this as remnants of the big bang and everyone went along with this theory, after all, wouldn't the biggest explosion the universe has ever known produce background radiation that would still be around today? The problem is only some of the facts fit. So many corrections and additions to the theory have been made the theory is almost unrecognizable from the original theory and some parts of the additions have never even been proven such as inflation. According to the big bang, matter is traveling away from other matter yet there is a concentration of matter that is over 12 billion light years across. This concentration was discovered in 2003 by the ROSAT x-ray satellite and flies in the face of the big bang theory. A concentration of this size would have taken about 30 billion years to form, but how could this be if the universe is much younger than that? Another strange thing is now some scientists think the universe looked much the way it does now, billions of years ago. This opinion was caused by finding galaxies such as the one I talked about that looked old but were at the edge of our viewable universe. Much of the big bang theory depends on things we can't see, such as dark matter. We can't see it but we suspect it is there. If it is there, we don't know how much there is, but we guess it might even be more than normal matter, maybe even a lot more. We have to say this because we need the extra matter to explain our theory. A new twist has recently been discovered. It seems space contains huge clouds of electrically charged plasma. This was discovered by the Chandra x-ray probe. These clouds, if the sightings are correct, might provide the extra attraction the universe needs and eliminate gravity as the main force in the universe. Instead of gravity we might have a force that is electromagnetic. Wouldn't that be something, we would have been barking up the wrong tree all these years? The big bang expanding universe theory states surface brightness will diminish as galaxies get further away. Some scientists are saying now this isn't really happening. If they are right it could mean not all, or any, of the objects we believe to be traveling away from us really are. Another problem with the big bang theory is astronomers have found at a certain distance, galaxies are only about 10% as plentiful, and it is not the same in all directions as an explosion of the type of the big bang would dictate. It is beginning to look more and more we really don't know what the universe really looks like, outside of our small sphere (the visible universe so far), or how the universe really formed. Some theories state the universe we know has a membrane around it while other theories state there are at least 11 dimensions of space and time. As hard as it is for our puny human brains to grasp, it may turn out the universe was always there. That would really throw those astronomers and scientists for a loop, after all, who would have truly considered the fact the universe was not formed but was always there? A NASA probe named the Galaxy Evolution Explorer has found what appears to be very young galaxies. Dr. Chris Martin from NASA stated, "We knew there were really massive young galaxies eons ago, but we thought they had all matured into older ones more like our Milky Way. If these galaxies are indeed newly formed, then this implies parts of the universe are still hotbeds of galaxy birth…" Yes folks, things may not be what they seem with our universe after all.
|
