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How to keep the narrative spinning

18 July 2024
Astronomy, cosmology

This is a good example of human abilities to keep the agenda spinning even when it is contradicted by observation. Or that is what it seems like. I might be wrong but criticism has just been neutered. At https://www.space.com/is-jwst-breaking-cosmology …. Is the James Webb Space Telescope breaking apart the favoured cosmological paradigm? Or, is Big Bang still viable?

Not long after the James Webb space telescope came into service astronomers announced that they had  discovered galaxies in the early universe that were far too big and basically, contradicted the mainstream mantra. Not only that we were informed these galaxies existed shortly after Big Bang. In fact, the new telescope was on the cusp of Big Bang – just over the horizon. The author of the piece takes onboard a lecturing tone and says the truth is more nuanced. The Big Bang model has already survived a heavy battery of observational tests and is extremely good at explaining cosmology. In his opinion. This includes the redshift of light from distant galaxies. Indeed, it becomes clear that redshift is an integral part of the Big Bang scenario. No wonder they got rid of Halton Arp. The leftover light of Big Bang radiates in what became known as the cosmic microwave background.

These early big galaxies were measured by redshift to arrive at their early status. It is this process that led to dating them to just 200 million years after the mainstream act of creation otherwise known as Big Bang. Apparently, we are then told the astronomers extracted the redshift by using photometry. This, we are informed for the fist time, is incredibly uncertain. Well, I never. Sounds a bit convenient – although there is no reason specifically for that to be untrue. In other words, they then went back to the drawing board and used a different system to date the redshift. A more precise methodology, we are assured. We are then told that when these new precise measurements came in a few months later this reduced the distance away from earth of the newly observed galaxies. Wait for it – unsurprisingly they are now measured to over a billion years after Big Bang. The cosmologists are saved at the bell. Just like that, as Tommy Cooper would have said.

You can view a video online at this web site of a talk by Halton Arp on redshift. He claimed redshift was dating stars and galaxies as too far away and they were really all much closer. I wonder what he would have thought of this newer more precise methodology. After all, astronomers and cosmologists did not like him contradicting their pet scheme and denied him observation time. In order to carry on his observations he got a job in Germany with no problem regards telescope time.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icauYGgsNh0 ….

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