'Accelerating universe' could be just an illusion

[Jim__]

...

Now, a new theory suggests that the accelerating expansion of the universe is merely an illusion, akin to a mirage in the desert. The false impression results from the way our particular region of the cosmos is drifting through the rest of space, said Christos Tsagas, a cosmologist at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. Our relative motion makes it look like the universe as a whole is expanding faster and faster, while in actuality, its expansion is slowing down — just as would be expected from what we know about gravity.

If Tsagas' theory is correct, it would rid cosmology of its biggest headache, dark energy, and it might also save the universe from its harrowing fate: the Big Rip. Instead of ripping it to bits, the universe as Tsagas space-time envisions it would just roll to a standstill, then slowly start shrinking.

Tsagas' alternative version of events, detailed in a recent issue of the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review D, builds on a recent discovery by Alexander Kashlinsky, a cosmologist at NASA's Observational Cosmology Laboratory. In a series of papers over the past three years, Kashlinsky and his colleagues have shown that the huge region of space-time in which we live — a region at least 2.5 billion light-years across — is moving relative to the rest of the universe, and fast.

Some cosmologists remain skeptical about the newfound "dark flow," as it's called, and say that more evidence is needed to persuade them that the strange phenomenon is real. But the evidence that does exist is compelling. Based on light collected from galaxy clusters, our enormous bubble of space-time appears to be drifting at a rapid clip of up to 2 million miles per hour. No one knows why, exactly — there may be something beyond the part of the universe we can see, tugging on us — but Tsagas argues that the dark flow is skewing our perspective on the behavior of the universe as a whole.

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[Poll_Blind]

1. I'd read somewhere that there was a theory that some scientists believe that..

...time itself could be contracting, which causes the impression of acceleration based on light data. Presumably, if I gather things correctly, the Brane collision which initiated what we think of as "the big bang" merely imparted some quanta of time to our universe which is flowing back into the original Brane. Remember, all these things are supposed to be taking place in another dimension which "physically" (if that even makes any sense) exists in the same coordinates we do. And that's before you heap more speculation on about our universe itself being a 2-dimensional object, with the 3rd dimension we perceive being akin to something like a hologram.

All this "dark" stuff, while probably equally valid as far as speculation goes, is just making up a variable to describe forces which our current model doesn't account for properly.

PB

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. Okay, that's cool.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Coupled with the recent 'found' stars (some 60% more than we thought)

accounting for a lot of 'missing' mass in the universe, hopes are looking dim for 'dark matter'.

Going to end up on the shelf next to pluto.

[JohnnyRingo]

4. I once suspected this illusion.

I'm certainly no astrophysicist, but I never understood how the universe could continue to accelerate. Because of my inferior brain, I also have a hard time accepting the concept of dark matter. It's been explained to me, but I get lost halfway through. LOL

Since I've often considered what existed before the Big Bang, I wondered how one event could possibly be the beginning of time as well. I believe time is both eternal and perpetual so I fall in with the theory of a living, breathing universe where since time infinite the universe has seen countless expansions and contractions.

I can see how the universe could race to a single (or multiple) black hole until the mass reaches a critical tipping point where it cannot contain the incredible energy any longer and explodes like hot solder in a cool pan of water. The ensuing blast spreads the universe in all directions until it eventually slows and contracts once again into the single mass, ready for the next cycle.

Since we know there are countless black holes in the cosmos I would suspect we're on the contraction part of this endless cycle. Galaxies at the far reaches may well be headed back to a cosmic starting point, but we can only see what was happening billions upon billions of years in the past.

I could probably figure it all out for them if I booked a room for a week at a Holiday Inn Express. Hahahahaha

Kidding aside, thanx for posting this... K&R