Posted on 08/03/2006 2:56:18 PM PDT by NinoFan
New observations of galaxies reveal perplexing concentrations in certain directions, astronomers said today.
Galaxies along the sight-lines toward distant explosive gamma-ray bursts appear to be four times as abundant as in the directions of quasars.
Gamma-ray bursts are massive eruptions of dying stars. Quasars are constantly bright objects are thought to involve supermassive black holes surrounded by developing galaxies.
There is no known reason why foreground galaxies should have any association with these background light sources, researchers said.
"The result contradicts our basic concepts of cosmology, and we are struggling to explain it," said Jason X. Prochaska, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The findings are being debated and the end result could involve an oddity of observations rather than anything unusual about the universe.
Prochaska and graduate student Gabriel Prochter led the survey, which used data from NASA's Swift satellite to obtain observations of the transient, bright afterglows of long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). They described their findings in a paper submitted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters. It has yet to be published but a version posted online is being debated.
The survey involved finding galaxies that can't necessarily be seen by conventional observations.
When light from a gamma-ray burst or a quasar passes through a foreground galaxy, the absorption of certain wavelengths of light by gas associated with the closer galaxy creates a characteristic signature in the spectrum of light from the distant object. This provides a marker for the presence of a galaxy in front of the object, even if the galaxy itself is too faint to observe directly.
Prochter and Prochaska analyzed 15 gamma-ray bursts and found evidence for galaxies in front of 14 of them. Previous analysis of extensive quasar data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey yielded far fewer intervening galaxies.
The probability that the results are a statistical fluke is less than about one in 10,000, Prochaska said.
Clearly, however, something is going on.
The researchers put forth three possibilities:
Dust could obscure some quasars from even being seen, which would mean there are more quasars with dusty galaxies in front of them but they have not been found. The apparent signatures of galaxies in front of gamma-ray bursts might instead be signs of gas emitted by the bursts themselves.
An intervening galaxy might act as a gravitational lens, enhancing the brightness of the background object, and perhaps this effect is somehow different for bursts than for quasars.
But none of these possible solutions are likely, the researchers say.
"A lot of people have been scratching their heads, and most hope that it goes away," Prochaska said. "The GRB sample is small, so we would like to triple or quadruple the number in our analysis. That should happen during Swift's extended mission, but it will take time."
"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio."
""A lot of people have been scratching their heads, and most hope that it goes away," Prochaska said."
So if you can't solve it, ignore it just so it doesn't upset your theories?
ok.
"Dust could obscure some quasars from even being seen, which would mean there are more quasars with dusty galaxies in front of them but they have not been found."
Of the 3 explanations suggested, I like this one the best.
Add it why they would be in a line of sight to earth?!... I would first be more inclined to look for some kind of "lensing" phoneme that make it look "line of sight" to any observer at any point in the galaxy
"So if you can't solve it, ignore it just so it doesn't upset your theories? "
Hoping it goes away is not the same as ignoring it. It may go away when more sampling is done.
Stellar engineering?
Isaiah 64:4 For since the beginning of the world [men] have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
1Cr 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
Well, color me stupid, but if quazar emission happens near black hole, wouldn't that hole's gravity all by itself impart a red shift to the emitted light, in addition to whatever red shift is associated with the distance?
The secrets of the paradigm of a reversible universe.
This could easily be no more than that.
I thought I solved the mysteries of the universe in a dream, but then I realized it was just was a nightmare caused by gas.
That's it! Scientists are soooo stuuupid!!!!!!!!!
They have theories! Everybody has theories. That don't make 'em true. Everytime they learn something new it's like, "oh, this is new. Guess we were wrong before. We'll, guess we musta been stuck on stupid!!!"
Oh, and not only are scientists stupid, they're atheists and heathens, too. Dang blast 'em all to you know where!
You speak as if "random chance" is a player in the
scenario. "Random chance" is a catch all phrase
which really means "We really cannot explain these
variations in our expected outcomes, under any of
our known or well accepted paradigms"
Same here.
I can offer another out-there explanation that hasn't occurred to the writers of the article. It is that the direction of GRBs is preferentially along straight lines between galaxies.
There is growing evidence that GRBs are directional, the result of jets or beams, rather than spherically symmetric emission. When those align with the direction of earth we get strong signal, and thus they appear as the brightest objects in the universe (in the right wavelength etc). The actual total power being emitted can be much, much smaller.
Why would beams preferentially align galaxy to galaxy? Or possibility is that there are actually magnetic field lines on intergalactic scales - much as the aurora of the Earth (or better, Jupiter) is due to pole to pole field lines between the sun and another body.
If GBRs originate in magnetically directed relativistic jets, and if those tended to "aim" at a nearby galaxy, then nearly all the lines projecting onward would pass through a galaxy. Only a GRB in an immediately adjacent galaxy would appear unshielded.
Most GRBs would miss us, of course. But those that are aligned with us by chance, would also have previously "transected" an intervening galaxy.
That is my wild ass guess, at any rate.
A very good point, and one that a great many people have difficulty understanding.
With all this dust and chaos, it seems like one p*ss-poor way to design a universe, is all I've got to say!
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