GAMMA RAY BURSTS
AND THE ASSUMPTION
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are extremely powerful short lived
explosions. The SWIFT space telescope detects about one per day. SWIFT
transmits the coordinates of the burst as it slews around to sight the
event with its optical and x-ray telescope. GRBs come from all
directions in the sky, so they are not local events. They can last from
fractions of a second to several hundred seconds. Most of them are very
distant, shining from the long ago past.
In
September 2008, SWIFT detected a burst from the earliest age of the
universe. Here is an image that merges the SWIFT X-ray telescope
(orange and yellow) with its optical telescope (white and blue).
The afterglow of this GRB shone with light that had 7.6 times the
wavelength of local atoms. In other words, its atoms clocked 13% of the
frequencies of local atoms.
Notice how the GRB is not symmetrical. It has two poles diametrically
opposite each other. GRBs seem to have jets - the explosive force seems
to be directional. If they are at the distance that scientists claim,
they would need to produce far more power than any possible nuclear
forces. An atomic or fusion event would not have the power of a GRB.
Where does the power come from? Why should an explosion have poles? Why
should GRBs fade so quickly? Super Novas, such as the SN1987a in the
Large Magellanic Cloud, can remain bright for a 100 days and then
gradually faded. A supernova is a minor event compared to the extremely
energetic pulse from a GRB.
GRBs are not necessarily in the visible body of a galaxy.
This is GRB990123 taken with the
Hubble. Notice that the nucleus of the host galaxy is at some distance
from the GRB. This is the first GRB in which astronomers managed to
detect the optical flash. The optical component of the flash was so
bright that it could have been detected with a good pair of binoculars.
Notice that the GRB is brighter than the host galaxy.
This is GRB050913 taken at optical
wavelengths
after the GRB had already faded. The afterglow is much, much dimmer
than the original explosion that was brighter than the host galaxy. The
GRB is the small white spot to the left of the long white object - the
main body of the galaxy. This primordial galaxy has chains of star
clusters lined up in the direction of the top left corner of the
picture. A second chain of equally spaced star clusters curves in the
direction of the GRB.
Astronomers catalog GRBs into long and short. Short length GRBs pulse
most of their energy in a single burst of gamma rays that lasts less
than two seconds. They are believed to lie closer to us than long GRBs.
A long GRB often has several spikes at various wavelengths.
No one knows where the power comes from to fuel these enormous
explosions. Some physicists speculate that a GRB may be colliding black
holes or colliding neutron stars. Is the GRB a quasar being
ejected from a distant galaxy? Halton Arp showed that active
galaxies eject quasars and high red shift energetic material in long
equally spaced strings. The material Halton Arp presents in his two
books, Seeing Red and
Quasars Redshifts and
Controversies is quite impressive. He shows that these objects
seem to expand as they move out from the host galaxy. He even that some
of the see strings end in clusters of small galaxies that seem to have
expanded from the quasars. In other words, quasars are highly
compressed galaxies that move out and expand larger galaxies. http://www.haltonarp.com/
It is interesting that the Bible repeatedly states that God continually
forms the heavens. It uses a very unique word to describe the expanding
heavens. The Hebrew word is raqiya,
the pounded out spreading out place. It is the noun form of the
word raqa - to pound out - to spread out. As we observe the history of the universe
at many ranges, we see the simple evidence that galaxies were once
compact and packed with stars. We see strings of equally spaced star
globs appearing around closer galaxies. We observe how billions of
galaxies grew into huge, local growth spirals.
These things could not happen unless Aristotle was wrong. Aristotle,
the pagan, invented the fundamental idea upon which science was
founded. He insisted that the properties of matter are fixed; the
properties of matter are NOT emergent; matter does not change
relationally as it ages. Most modern people are unaware that this
assumptions is fundamental to the modern thought processes. Yet the
Bible predicted that in the last days false
teachers will come saying - panta outos diamenei - all things
remain the same in being. How accurate the Bible is! The entire
structure of scientific measuring, mathematics and methods was built
upon the idea of a pagan - that matter is not changing as it ages. Yet
the Bible not only predicted this idea, but clearly denies it.
Aristotle’s assumption is now an authoritative article of faith. It is
never tested except with the system that was built upon it.
What we see in the universe is the opposite - the properties of all
matter change as matter ages. We also see these periodic violent
events, like hammer blows, that violently spread out the galaxies. If
the fundamental assumption is false, we will never be able to quantify
the universe in terms of age, distance, or gravity. If the fundamental
assumption is false, however, GRBs are somewhat less baffling. A simple
assumption is likely to be the stumbling block that prevents us from
accepting the universe as it is visibly. Matter always changes its
properties, sometimes violently in an expansive event. Assumptions are
more important than mathematics, red shifts, energy graphs, and
theories invoked to explain the universe. Think about the basic assumption of all
scientists! It really amounts to believing that atoms are perpetual
motion machines. Yet no perpetual motion atoms gleam from any
distant galaxy. Think about it.
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This document is under a Creative Commons License by Victor McAllister.
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Last modified on December 18, 2008