Backyard astronomers take a look

No, silly -- it just gets tired.

 

Think of the light from the star like a giant, turned-on lightbulb that requires lots of energy to glow its brightest. When that lightbulb isn't getting its full load of energy, it grows dimmer.

During the dimming, some of the energy that would ordinarily be used to power the giant, turned-on lightbulb is being siphoned off by the star itself and stored. This special storage process long lived stars engage in is similar to how we would store energy in a battery, causing an unstable build up of electrons that have nowhere else to go.

The storage process is triggered by the gravitational pull of other astrological bodies such as planets approaching the star.

The star will phase in and out of the storage process for billions of years. When conditions are right, the stored energy will be released, the star will die a most magnificent, showy death and a wormhole will open.

 

...or maybe the galaxy is making a left turn and that's the blinker.

 

It's the way my people would, as you say, "honk the horn".

Just means my ride is here and getting impatient.

 

If I could live long enough to see Eta Carinae or Betelgeuse go supernova I would be a very happy nerd.

 

heya springwheat, perhaps they already did? maybe yesterday, but you wont know it for say another 450-570 years ( the time it takes light to travel from betelguese to earth) betelguese is ~450-570 light years away from earth. just a skip in the universe however!

So heres hoping it went supernova 450-570 years ago so we get to see it in our lifetime

 

What I find interesting is that the CMB is constant throughout the universe. Given the theorized age of the universe, this couldn't be so unless some rather lengthy and unnecessary assumptions are made. There just isn't enough time for the mean temperature to equalize (by the transference of energy in the form of heat) throughout the whole universe.

Cool stuff!

 

Sellers of these ridiculous tin-foil hats will be reported to the Collective immediately.

 

The cosmic microwave background radiation isn't exactly constant, though it is close in the grand scheme of things:



Remember that the size of space itself isn't a constant (think of space as a balloon that is being inflated, with the universe existing not inside it, but on the outside skin). According to current theory, space started at zero size. Transference of energy is much easier in a smaller space.

Definitely cool stuff!

 

It is generally agreed that space is expanding, so I would agree that space itself isn't constant. The current theory does state that space started at an infinitesimal point long ago and blew outwards. I don't necessarily agree with that aspect of the current theory, but it does run somewhat parallel to what I think actually happened.

As you can see in the graphic, the temperature of the CMB is essentially the same everywhere (footnote 1)—in all directions (to a precision of 1 part in 100,000--footnote 2). However (according to the current theory), in the early universe, the temperature of the CMB would have been very different at different places in space due to the random nature of the initial conditions. These different regions could come to the same temperature if they were in close contact. More distant regions would come to equilibrium by exchanging radiation (i.e. light). The radiation would carry energy from warmer regions to cooler ones until they had the same temperature.

Here is the rub: even assuming the current theory timescale, there has not been enough time for light to travel between widely separated regions of space.

The current theory requires that opposite regions of the visible universe must have exchanged energy by radiation, since these regions of space look the same in CMB maps (like the one you posted--which I think is so awesome looking!). But there has not been enough time for light to travel this distance.

True, although this does create a problem for the current theory, it also poses challenges for the theory that I support. But I have found that an "island universe" cosmology (a: the cosmos has a unique center and a boundary for its matter, beyond which there is at least some empty space; and b: on a cosmic scale of distances, the earth is near the center [footnote3]--versus the black hole cosmology and the "cosmic egg" origin) based on an expanding event horizon would seem to explain the time dilation required for the starlight and time issue that nags at the theory I support.

I am not a mathematician by any stretch, so I can't give the equations and formula for the theory I support--it makes my head hurt. But I can point to the references if you wanted to read them!

The exciting thing is exploring this vast universe and the wonder and beauty of it all!


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1. Levin, J. and Freese, K., Possible solution to the horizon problem: Modified aging in massless scalar theories of gravity, Physical Review D (Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology) 47(10):4282–4291, 1993.
2. Steinhardt, P. and Turok, N., A cyclic model of the universe, Science 296(5572):1436–1439, 2002.
3. Humphreys, D. R., Starlight and Time (Green Forest, Arkansas: Master Books, 1994) * Dr. Humphreys is a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories soon to retire
4. Much of this is taken from Dr. Jason Lisle's (Ph.D. in Astrophysics, University of Colorado) explanations of the light-travel-time issues inherent in both theories.

 

I'm really curious to hear your theory, now.

I think you're more well-read on this particular subject than I am; I seem to remember that although light and physical objects in the universe are limited to traveling at the speed of light (special relativity), the expansion of space theoretically removes this constraint. However, I think you could be correct about light not having enough time to completely traverse space; I think the most distant objects we have been able to view have been in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, at a distance of roughly 13 billion light-years. Spatial expansion could be such that sufficiently distant objects could be moving away from eachother faster than the speed of light; the light from one of those objects would never reach the other.

Some other hypothesis could include that the CMB was initially more uniform than we currently think, that the speed of light is not a constant over time, that the theorized age of the universe is incorrect, or that our methods of measuring very large distances are flawed.

Interesting! I'm not familiar with the theory of an island universe. I must read up on this!

I would actually be interested in reading your references. I'm assuming that the ones you listed below are some of them?

I agree; this stuff is fascinating!

 

Actually, it is the theory I support, or more to the point, with which I agree. I am not smart enough to come up with this on my own!

The specific scientists with whom I tend to agree are Dr. Russell Humphreys, Dr. Jason Lisle, and Dr. John Hartnett (B.Sc. (Hons) and his Ph.D. with distinction from the Department of Physics at the University of Western Australia (UWA)).

Of course my axiom, while in agreement with these professors is probably different than others (I assume), and will affect the facts and evidence we all examine. In other words, we all have the same facts and evidence, but our axiom is going to affect how we interpret the facts and evidence.

I have some PDFs of technical articles, but not here at work. Let me get them together and I can post them up!