by Anne StClair

Created on: January 26, 2007   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

The idea that the Universe HAS an origin seems to come out of the idea that it is an expanding Universe, and therefore there must have been a time when everything was compressed into a singularity, and something had to start the expansion: a big bang. But what if the Universe is not expanding? Or expanding in some places and contracting in others?

Does the Universe need to have a beginning at all? Perhaps it has always existed, and simply evolves and changes as new stars and galaxies emerge and old ones die.

It is the analysis of red shifts of astronomical objects that suggests everything is moving away from us, and therefore that the Universe is expanding like a giant balloon.

But there are problems with the idea that red shift is caused only by velocity. One problem is the existence of astronomical objects with massively different red shifts, which are clearly connected. The first of these to be discovered was the spiral galaxy NGC 4319, supposedly 80 million light years away, which is clearly connected to quasar Markarian 205, which is (according to the red shift) over a billion light years away. Impossible, yet pictures of these objects clearly show a faint connection. Astronomers who don't want to believe the connection (since it can't exist if the expanding Universe theory is correct) simply call the connection debatable' and an optical illusion.

But there are dozens of these peculiar galaxies', and astronomers call them all optical illusions. Another example is the galaxy NGC 7319, (300 million light years) with a quasar (supposedly several billion light years away) IN FRONT of it.

Some scientists have suggested that anything that causes light to lose energy produces a red shift. And these peculiar galaxies clearly show there's something radically wrong with assuming the red shift is purely velocity related.

So can we now be certain the Universe IS expanding? And if it isn't expanding, why does it need to have had a beginning at all? I

References:

Is the Universe really expanding: http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/DidTheUniverseHave ABeginning.asp

Red shift and peculiar galaxies: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm

Astrophysics journal extract confirming the link between NGC4319 and M205: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/bib_query?1983ApJ. ..265L..49S (click on Send PDF to view the whole paper).

Astrophysics journal extract confirming a non-expanding Universe fits the facts better: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986ApJ...301..544L

NGC 7319 and quasar: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/mcquasar.as p

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