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Stephan's Quintet cluster of galaxies Photo: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In part 1 and part 2 of this series of articles on how cosmic evolution developed with neither expansion nor a Big Bang, we saw how electromagnetic forces formed huge filaments of current and plasma. Then gravitation and magnetism combined to collapse these filaments into a hierarchy of stars, galaxies, clusters and superclusters of galaxies. When stars formed, a new process came to dominate evolution: fusion of nuclei in the dense stars, releasing immense amounts of energy and creating the chemical elements. The cosmos is still in this phase...

The Orion: A molecular cloud shows cosmic filamentary structures where stars are being born. Image: ESA / Herschel / Ph. André, D Polychroni, A. Roy, V Könyves, N Schneider for the Gould Belt survey Key Program ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the first part of this series, we saw that electromagnetic processes in plasmas – electrically conducting gases – could, over trillions of years, produce the giant filaments that we see today as the largest structures in the universe. This happened without a Big Bang, without dark energy or dark matter, based on processes that we observe here on Earth in the laboratory...

Whirlpool Galaxy, photographed by the Webb Space Telescope. Photo: NASA ESA Webb / A Adamo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Introduction by Asia Times Science Editor Jonathan Tennenbaum In September Eric Lerner created a sensation with his Asia Times article, “Saying goodbye to the Big Bang,” arguing that the Big Bang theory is contradicted by an overwhelming mass of astronomical evidence accumulated over decades, including recent data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Eric Lerner ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The data forced even a pair of hitherto staunch advocates of the Big Bang, the well-known astrophysicists Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser, to admit that something must be...

“In some pockets of space, far beyond the limits of our observations,” wrote cosmologist Dan Hooper at the University of Chicago in an email to The Daily Galaxy, referring to the theory of eternal inflation and the inflationary multiverse: “the laws of physics could be very different from those we find in our local universe. Different forms of matter could exist, which experience different kinds of forces. In this sense, what we call ‘the laws of physics’, instead of being a universal fact of nature, could be an environmental fact, which varies from place to place, or from time to...

Hubble Ultra Deep Field It’s possible that the universe isn’t uniform past what we can see, and conditions are wildly different from place to place, says Caltech astrophysicist Sean Carroll. “That possibility is the cosmological multiverse. We don’t know if there is a multiverse in this sense, but since we can’t actually see one way or another, it’s wise to keep an open mind.” “Astronomers estimate that the observable universe — a bubble 14 billion light-years in radius, which represents how far we have been able to see since its beginning — contains at least two trillion galaxies and...

Dr. Hooper delivers a very interesting lecture discussing the origins of the universe, and where it might be going according to the latest models of physics. Dr. Hooper's "hook" comes in minute 8. He says that an alternative view of universal expansion is that space is shrinking. It couches universal expansion in a way I’ve never considered, that alternatively, universal expansion can be stated as universal shrinkage. For decades cosmologists have reported that, from redshift observations, the universe is expanding at a fixed rate, the Hubble constant. Recently astronomers took more accurate measures of how fast distant objects are receding,...

SnipIt’s something of a miracle that life on our planet has been left to evolve without fatal interruption for billions of years. Such a long unbroken chain of survival, however unlikely, is necessary for bags of mud and water like ourselves to eventually sit up, and just recently, to wonder how we got here. And like the bullet-riddled—but safe—planes, our planet has survived countless near-fatal blows. There have been volcanic apocalypses, body blows from supersonic space rocks the size of Mount Everest, and ice ages that might have frozen the planet almost to the tropics. Had any of these catastrophes...

Without mind, there might as well be nothing. Colin McGinn at the University of Miami, believes that no matter how much scientists study the brain, the mind is fundamentally incapable of comprehending itself. “We’re rather like Neanderthals trying to understand astronomy or Shakespeare,” McGinn observed in Consciousness and Space. Human brains suffer from a “cognitive gap” in understanding their own consciousness.” “Consciousness May Exist by Itself, Even in the Absence of Matter” “Is it possible that consciousness may exist by itself, even in the absence of matter, just like gravitational waves, excitations of space, may exist in the absence of...

Embrace the flow, says a duo of mechanical engineers at North Carolina State University—the flow of energy, that is. The mantra you might normally hear from your yoga instructor could be an entirely new way of looking at the universe. 🌌The universe is badass. Let's explore it together. The two theorists, Larry Silverberg and Jeffrey Eischen, suggest that fragments of energy, rather than waves or particles, may be the fundamental building blocks of the universe. The bedrock of their theory is the foundational idea that energy is always flowing through space and time. The authors suggest thinking of energy as...

One of the most popular articles I have written is “Big Bang—The Bible Taught It First!” I wrote it with the encouragement and assistance of theologian John Rea and we published it in Reasons to Believe’s Facts for Faith magazine in 2000.1 In the two decades since then, one of the most common objections I have received from skeptics is that the Bible teaches no such thing. Who is correct?Biblical EvidenceJohn Rea and I did not claim in this article that the Bible teaches all the fundamental features of the big bang creation model. We did explain, however, how it...

The universality of Saturn worship 6000 years ago. NASA image: Israelites appear to have been the first people to figure out that humans should not be worshiping dwarf stars (Jupiter, Saturn...). And if worshiping dwarf stars and former dwarf stars was a problem 6000 years ago, it is more of a problem now. Troy McLachlan's book describes the connection between ancient Satanic ritual, drug dealing, central banking, and modern Satanic ritual (Jeffrey Epstein and the Hildabeast). The Saturn Death Cult

Acceleration as a function of radius in NGC 4455, one of the studied galaxies As fascinating as it is mysterious, dark matter is one of the greatest enigmas of astrophysics and cosmologyIt is thought to account for 90 percent of the matter in the universe, but its existence has been demonstrated only indirectly, and has recently been called into question New research conducted by SISSA removes the recent doubts on the presence of dark matter within galaxies, disproving the empirical relations in support of alternative theories. The study, published in the Astrophysical Journal, also offers new insights into understanding the...

Astronomers have been grappling with the mystery of dark matter for a long time, and I mean a looong time. The history of dark-matter investigations goes back at least to 1906, when physicist Henri Poincaré’s 1906 speculated about the amount of “matière obscure” in the Milky Way. Or really, it goes to back to 1846 and the first successful detection of dark matter: the discovery of the planet Neptune, whose existence had been inferred by its gravitational pull well before it was actually observed. Since then, scientists have identified many different dark components in space: collapsed stars, interstellar dust, hot...

The Kalam Cosmological Argument By Philip Cottraux The Big Bang has been greatly mischaracterized as an atheist explanation for how the universe begin. Unfortunately, in most people’s minds, the phrase is synonymous with natural scientific explanations for the origin of the cosmos, disputing the creation account of the Bible. This is based on both a lack of understanding of the theory’s true history as well as years of secularist indoctrination, especially in public schools. The more I research history, the more I find instances where atheists have either lied about it or seized credit for something they were originally opposed...

Extraordinary Claims Need an Extraordinary Cosmos. Today the thoughtful scientist finds himself embroiled in an internal war between his devotion to naturalism and his realization that the universe is, as physicist Steven Weinberg put it, "one fine-tuning that seems to be extreme, far beyond what you could imagine just having to accept as a mere accident." ...The latest explanation, trotted out by Columbia astrophysicist Caleb Scharf, is that an early, advanced, non-biological civilization "decided to tinker with the expansion" of the universe in a way that made it amenable to the evolution of biological life. In a critique of intelligent...

The Three Supernovas By Philip Cottraux Atheists used to believe the universe was eternally pre-existing and static. By rejecting the biblical creation account, they couldn’t accept the idea of a universe that had a beginning. Bertrand Russell, Charles Darwin, and at one time even Einstein labored under this philosophy. The idea of the whole universe condensed to a small state whose expansion was triggered by a colossal explosion was first proposed by a Catholic priest, Georges LeMaitres. The idea seemed so preposterous that astronomer Fred Hoyle first coined the phrase “big bang” as a term of ridicule. But two years...

Next time you eat a blueberry (or chocolate chip) muffin consider what happened to the blueberries in the batter as it was baked. The blueberries started off all squished together, but as the muffin expanded they started to move away from each other. If you could sit on one blueberry you would see all the others moving away from you, but the same would be true for any blueberry you chose. In this sense galaxies are a lot like blueberries. Since the Big Bang, the universe has been expanding. The strange fact is that there is no single place from...

Credit: CC0 Public Domain _____________________________________________________________________________ Dan Hooper, a senior scientist with Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory has written a paper outlining a way future aliens could keep their civilizations alive in spite of the isolation due to an expanding universe. In his paper uploaded to the arXiv preprint server, he suggests they might consider collecting and storing stars. A Dyson sphere is a theoretical structure able to house a star. Originally proposed by Freeman Dyson, the sphere was originally envisioned as a group of satellites completely encompassing a star to capture all of its energy. That energy could then be...

At 13.8 billion years ago, our entire observable universe was the size of a peach and had a temperature of over a trillion degrees. That's a pretty simple, but very bold statement to make, and it's not a statement that's made lightly or easily. Indeed, even a hundred years ago, it would've sounded downright preposterous, but here we are, saying it like it's no big deal. But as with anything in science, simple statements like this are built from mountains of multiple independent lines of evidence that all point toward the same conclusion — in this case, the Big Bang,...

Planet Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago. The first primitive forms of life appeared about 4 billion years ago. Natural selection did the rest, giving rise to species increasingly better adapted to their environment. Evidence, as they say, is overwhelming. Or is it? Imagine planet Earth began its existence a mere 10,000 years ago, with all fossil records in place and carbon-14 well into decaying. From there on, however, evolution proceeded as scientists tell us. How’d you prove this story wrong? You can’t. I know it hurts. But hang on there, band aid follows below. You can’t prove this...