Posts Tagged ‘European Southern Observatory’

NGC 1232 and NGC 1232A

Saturday, October 8th, 2011

NGC 1232 is a wonderful example of a spiral galaxy with a companion at the end of one arm.  It is also a wonderful example of obviously discordant redshifts that have either been covered up or are simply ignored by mainstream astronomy.  NGC 1232 and its companion, NGC 1232A, were first listed as Arp 41 in Dr. Halton Arp’s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies published by Caltech in 1966.   They are also discussed in Dr. Arp’s book Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies (Interstellar Media, 1987) and are mentioned in several papers published by him in The Astrophysical Journal.  The following image is from the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) 1.5m Danish telescope in Chile.  I have cropped the original image in order to fit it on this page but it is otherwise unaltered.

NGC 1232 and NGC 1232A

From the color and morphology of NGC 1232A alone it is very apparent that it is a part of its parent galaxy NGC 1232.  But if one traces the spiral arm to which NGC 1232A appears faintly connected back to the core of NGC 1232 a great disturbance and split in the arm is clearly visible.  Perhaps, as Dr. Arp suggests, this is the path taken by the companion object after it was ejected from the core of the parent galaxy?  Regardless of how the companion object reached its current location, I noticed during my research that its existence is either entirely ignored in the scientific literature describing NGC 1232 or it is described as being at the same or similar distance as NGC 1232.  However a quick look at the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) reveals that not only does the companion object exist, based on its listed redshift it is supposedly located much, much further away.

According to its listing on NED the redshift of NGC 1232 is 0.005347 z which places it at a supposed distance of approximately 95 million light years from Earth using a so-called Hubble Constant value of 55 (km/s)/Mpc.  However, NED lists the redshift of NGC 1232A as 0.022012 z which supposedly places the companion object at a much greater distance of approximately 390 million light years from Earth using a so-called Hubble Constant value of 55 (km/s)/Mpc.  It is no surprise then that these numbers have been suppressed by the scientific community.  Otherwise astronomers and cosmologist would have to face the fact that extragalactic redshifts do not represent distance or expansion of the universe for that matter.  And if that were true where would that leave the Big Bang Theory and their jobs?

NGC 1232 closeup

Another interesting feature of NGC 1232 is a small but bright object that appears right next to the aforementioned split and disturbance in the spiral arm leading out to NGC 1232A.  Dr. Arp measured the redshift of this object at 28,000 km/s or 0.0934 z which places it at an astonishing 1.63 billion light years from Earth!  It has been argued that this object is a distant background galaxy shining through NGC 1232 but there is no possible way a background object’s light could make it through the stars and dust of a galaxy’s spiral arm.  Dr. Arp explains in his book Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies that even if a background object were to show through a thin area of a spiral arm its color would be deeply reddened.

There are several examples of this reddening effect visible between the arms of NGC 1232.  The image on the left is a vertical slice of a larger ESO photograph showing a couple of these examples.  In this image the bright high redshift object is at the top, embedded or even possibly slightly in front of the disturbed spiral arm of NGC 1232.  In the middle of the image slice is a small spiral shaped object just showing through the end of a gap between the disturbed spiral arm and another large arm to the right.  Notice how red the object is compared to the one at the top.  Toward the bottom of the image slice is another object of the same size and morphology peeking through the edge of a small band of stars and dust between the base of the arm on the right and another arm just out of view at the very bottom of the image.  This object is also the same red color as the object in the middle and both look nothing like the object at the top which is actually quite blue in comparison.

So once again we have a clear and unmistakable example of visibly associated objects that display greatly discordant redshifts thereby negating redshifts as a measure of distance and universal expansion.  And yet once again the observations are completely ignored and once again I find it my duty to bring them out into the light for all to see.  Eventually if enough observations are revealed their existence will no longer be able to be ignored and their implications will finally have to be faced and discussed.  So as always I will keep posting to this site and thanking you for reading and encouraging everyone to pursue their own observations and to share any interesting ones!

Shannon

ULAS J1120+0641

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

Until now I have only posted examples of close and physically connected objects that display greatly discordant redshifts.  But I thought it appropriate that my tenth post be of a single newly discovered object whose redshift puts it in great discord with currently accepted astrophysics and even the Big Bang Theory.

The science journal Nature recently reported that late last year a group of astronomers discovered what they claim to be is the most distant quasar known in the Universe so far.  The quasar, designated ULAS J1120+0641, has a redshift of 7.085 z which reportedly places it at a distance of 12.9 billion light years away!

Objects with extremely high redshifts have their light strongly shifted into the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.  That is why the astronomy team searched through the 20 million objects catalogued by the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Large Area Survey (ULAS) to find this needle in a haystack, or in the case of the following image, the tiny red dot in the center:

ULAS J1120+0641 (Credit:ESO/UKIDSS/SDSS)

The redshift of ULAS J1120+0641 was measured with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph (FORS2) on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) and Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS).  That its redshift could be measured at all is something of a minor miracle considering the supposed distance of the quasar.  If an object really is located almost 13 billion light years away it would have to be exceptionally bright for enough of its light to reach us to allow for the analysis of its spectrum.  Apparently the team of astronomers thought the same thing because they reported that the brightness of the object is 63 trillion times that of our sun!  That is so bright that if this object were located at the distance of Alpha Centauri (4.37 ly) it would still appear over 800 times brighter than our sun!  This is an absolutely incredible amount of light when you consider Alpha Centauri is located over 276,000 times further away from us than our sun.  What could possibly generate the energy required to power such an unimaginably bright object?  The answer, according to the scientists, is a supermassive black hole with a mass equal to 2 billion of our suns.  If volume were equal to mass that many suns would take up every cubic inch of our solar system from the center to out beyond the orbit of Jupiter!  Of course any object that massive and emitting that much light must also project a tremendous radiation field.  In this case the astronomy team predicts an ionized near zone radius of 6.2 million light years.  That is almost two and a half times the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies!

All of these truly astronomical numbers are dazzling in their scope and imagination.  They describe a quasar whose very existence really is almost beyond the scope of our physics and the comprehension of our minds.  But they also describe an object that cannot exist according to the currently accepted version of the Big Bang Theory.

This image was downloaded and resized from the Wikipedia article for “Reionization”.  I find the sentence at the bottom very telling.

According to the accepted interpretation of the redshift of ULAS J1120+0641 this quasar existed just 770 million years after the Big Bang.  This is during a period called the Epoch of Reionization which supposedly occurred between 150 million and one billion years after the Big Bang.  It is theorized that early in this period the first stars and quasars were formed. These were followed by the formation of galaxies starting approximately 500 million years after the Big Bang. However, 770 million years is not enough time for the formation of a supermassive black hole with a mass of 2 billion suns according to the Eddington Limit.

An enormously powerful quasar may make for intriguing headlines, but there are no accepted physics that can account for the existence of such an object.  The astronomy team and the scientific community in general were quite surprised at these results and continue to struggle for an answer that will explain the formation of an object, over 12 million times brighter than a Type Ia supernova, so early in the formation of the universe.

The first thing that scientists should do is step back and question the wisdom of unblinkingly accepting redshifts as measurements of distance and cosmic expansion.  It is this blind acceptance that has forced them to resort to creating such exotic objects as ULAS J1120+0641 in order to try to continue to make sense of the Big Bang Theory.  But instead they will probably just do something like change the Eddington Limit, just as they have changed the Hubble Constant over the years to suit their needs.

Eventually though objects will be found with redshifts so high that scientists will no longer be able to explain away their non-cosmological origins.  One way or the other they are going to have to change the way they view the universe.  In the meantime I will continue to post the latest discoveries, and discordancies, and continue to welcome and encourage your input…as always.

Thanks for reading #10!

Shannon

Abell 1656

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

I have already posted one example of a cluster of morphologically similar galaxies arranged in a distinct spiral shaped pattern.    These Abell clusters are typically grouped around a large elliptical galaxy and turned at an angle in relation to the observer.  Abell 1656 exhibits this same super spiral structure in spite of the fact that many of the small compact galaxies in this cluster appear to be separated by great distances, according to their redshifts.   The following image was exported from version 2.76c of Patrick Chevalley’s sky chart program Cartes Du Ciel.  The photograph is from the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) first Digitized Sky Survey (DSS-1) overlaid with object outlines generated from the Principal Galaxies Catalog (PGC).

Abell 1656

In the image are a large number of the aforementioned compact spiral galaxies extending outward from the elliptical galaxy NGC 4874 in three or more curved spiral arms.   The image below, also exported from Cartes Du Ciel, is a close-up of one of these spiral arms.  This photograph is from the ESO’s second Digitized Sky Survey (DSS-2) red channel while the object outlines are again generated from the PGC.  In this image I have labeled in yellow the redshifts (z) for all the objects in the spiral arm including the center elliptical galaxy.

Abell 1656 detail

Most of these redshifts might seem to fall within a very narrow range of values.  However when they are converted to distances it becomes obvious that the measurements vary significantly for such a tightly grouped set of objects.  The smallest redshift value belongs to NGC 4867 at 0.015964 z.  This places the galaxy at a supposed distance of over 282 million light years away when the redshift is converted to distance using a so-called Hubble Constant value of 55 (km/s)/Mpc.  The highest redshift value belongs to PGC 1822726 which supposedly places it much further away at a distance of over 454 million light years using the same conversion method.

So here we have a group of small compact spiral galaxies packed so close together in a spiral arm configuration that a few of them appear to be almost touching; yet their redshifts indicate a maximum separation of over 171 million light years when viewed from Earth.  There is also a galaxy in this spiral arm that appears to be the same size and shape as a couple of the other smaller galaxies in the arm but with a redshift of 0.158441 z.  This value, which I’ve marked in red, supposedly places this galaxy at an incredible distance of over 2.7 billion light years away! This galaxy also shares the exact same morphology with several similarly sized galaxies in the other arms of the super spiral and yet is supposedly located almost ten times further away!

Once again scientists are faced with a big question:  How can multiple objects be arranged in such tightly defined spiral shapes yet be separated from one another by such vast distances and only along one axis?   And once again scientists can try to dismiss the findings as coincidence or dismiss the question altogether.  But the evidence that extragalactic redshifts do not accurately represent distances and an associated expansion of the Universe will still continue to mount.  I will of course continue to post examples of super spiral groups in this Report and I will continue to draw attention to the evidence.  Questions and comments about any of these examples or the evidence are welcomed as always.

Shannon

Einstein Cross

Monday, February 28th, 2011

ZW 2237+030This image from the European Southern Observatory is of the Einstein Cross, a name given to a group of four high redshift quasars (Q2237+030 or QSO 2237+0305) framing the nucleus of the galaxy ZW 2237+030 (QSO 2237+0305 G) also known as Huchra’s Lens located in the constellation Pegasus. The redshift of the nucleus of this spiral galaxy has been measured at 0.0394 z which would place it at a supposed distance of a little over 500 million light-years from Earth using a so-called Hubble Constant value of 75 (km/s)/Mpc. The four quasars all display the same redshift of 1.695 z which would supposedly place them over 20 times further away at a distance of over 10.6 billion light-years.

However a problem arises when closely examining the galactic nucleus and the four objects that surround it.

Einstein Cross I have taken a close-up image of the Einstein Cross from the ESO site and modified its color palette to produce a false color image as shown at the lower right. To product this image I simply opened the original in Adobe Photoshop, chose Image from the menu bar then Adjustments > Gradient Map… and set the color gradient to one of the preset options available. Changing the color gradient has not modified the pixel positions of the original photograph but has set their assigned colors to a smaller and more visible range according to their brightness. Though faint when viewed in the original grayscale image,  in the new color palette connections between the quasars and galactic nucleus are clearly visible. In fact, despite their discordant redshifts, the streaming bridges of material between the objects and the nucleus are undeniable.

Einstein Cross in false colorOf course, this undeniable proof has not led the scientific community to reexamine their current interpretation of extragalactic redshifts or their adamant belief in the Big Bang Theory. Instead, the existence of the Einstein Cross has been attributed to, of all things, gravitational lensing.  But this is a weak explanation at best. There is no valid scientific explanation given as to how a strong gravitational field would bend the light of a directly aligned background object into precisely four point objects.  The majority of theories and models of gravitational lensing actually predict a ring effect as the result of the bending of light around a strong source of gravity. In fact there are several gravitational lensing simulations available on the Web that visually demonstrate this effect. However I have yet to find one that simulates the effect supposedly displayed in the Einstein Cross.

Theories, models and simulations can indeed be helpful tools but nothing can match pure scientific observation.  There are many examples of gravitational lenses that have been recorded by various observatories and almost all of them are in the shape of rings or arcs. The following image is a small collection of such “Einstein Rings” as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope and made available from the HubbleSite.

Einstein Rings

It may seem extremely coincidental that four quasars with such exact matching redshifts have been observed in such close proximity to one another, particularly with several visibly connected to, and possibly even emerging from, the nucleus of a central galaxy.  However this does not excuse the dismissal of the observations by attempting to apply a misappropriated and improvable theory to them.  At the very least continued and improved observations of these objects, as well as all discordant redshift objects, need to be made.  Only then will we finally move past the theories and hopefully embrace the facts.

Shannon

tetrahedral symmetryUPDATE:  As suggested in the comment below by one of my readers, D R Lunsford, the positions of the objects in the Einstein Cross display tetrahedral symmetry.  An excellent example of this symmetry are the four hydrogen atoms surrounding the carbon atom in a molecule of methane.

The image on the left is the molecular structure of methane generated by a Java applet and rotated to perfectly match the positions of the quasars and central core of the Einstein Cross as also suggested in this reader’s comment.  For more information on tetrahedral symmetry as it applies to compact quadruple quasar systems please see my example PG1115+80.

Thanks for the visual aid DRL and thanks again for reading!

 

Abell 193

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

Redshift discordancies are often more subtle and appear in much larger groups than the examples I have shown so far.  A good example of this occurrence is in the galaxy cluster Abell 0193.  The following image was exported from an excellent sky chart program written by Patrick Chevalley called Cartes Du Ciel.  I prefer to use version 2.76c although a newer version can also be downloaded here.  The photograph is from the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) first Digitized Sky Survey (DSS-1) overlaid with object outlines generated from the latest Principal Galaxies Catalog (PGC).

Abell 193

This image shows a number of small morphologically similar spiral galaxies surrounding a larger elliptical galaxy (PGC 5245/IC 1695) in a very obvious spiral pattern which I call a “super spiral”.  This super spiral structure appears to be comprised of three or more arms and is turned slightly at an angle in relation to the observer.

The image below was also exported from Cartes Du Ciel and was cropped to fit on this page.  This time the photograph is from the ESO’s second Digitized Sky Survey (DSS-2) red channel while the object outlines are again generated from the PGC.  In this image I have labeled and included the redshifts (z) for all the objects in one of the spiral arms including the center elliptical galaxy.

Abell 193 detailAt first glance the redshift values do not appear to vary greatly from one another and seem to fall within a narrow range.  However, when these values are converted to distances it immediately becomes apparent that there is something very wrong with the measurements.  The most distant object among those labeled measures over 1.026 billion light years away when its redshift is converted using a so-called Hubble Constant value of 55 (km/s)/Mpc.  The closest object measures over 731 million light years away when performing the same conversion.   This represents a maximum separation among all of the objects of over 295 million light years with most of the objects being separated from one another by distances of tens and even hundreds of millions of light years.  However, it is highly unlikely that these objects are separated by such vast distances while still being clearly lined up to form one of the many spiral arms of this large galactic cluster.   There is simply no known mechanism in the Universe that can account for such a widely dispersed string of galaxies, not even “dark matter” or “dark energy”.

If this was the only known example of a super spiral formation in the observed Universe it could be argued that perhaps the shape of this cluster is simply coincidental.  However there are several examples of Abell clusters that are super spirals and I will be posting these in the future.  So if one accepts the fact that these galaxies are indeed bound into spiral shapes the only logical explanation for their discordant redshifts and associated distances is that extragalactic redshifts do not accurately represent distances and an associated expansion of the Universe.

Do you have questions or comments about this example or do you have an example you would like to contribute? Your input is not only welcomed, it is encouraged.

Shannon

Do you have questions or comments about this example or do you have an example you would like to contribute?  Your input is not only welcomed, it is encouraged, but I do ask that if you decide to comment to please demonstrate civility.  Remember, true scientists look for answers, even if the answers can sometimes go against our preconceptions.UPDATE: You are no longer required to register to post commments.  However I do require that you leave a name and email address so I can contact you if for some reason I cannot post your comments.