Sir Fred Hoyle was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. He also held controversial stances on other scientific matters — in particular his rejection of the “Big Bang” theory, a term coined by him on BBC radio, and his promotion of panspermia and the Steady-state theory of the universe.
Over time, clumps of dark matter began to gravitationally pull in regular matter, forming recognizable structures, such as galaxies. Galaxies, in turn, coalesced together into massive galaxy clusters that are linked across huge stretches of space by filaments of dark matter, creating what is now known as the cosmic web.
For years, scientists have speculated that magnetic fields within the cosmic web would help to produce shocks that might glow dimly in radio light. Now, for the first time, astronomers have captured this “predicted emission from the formation and growth of the large-scale structure of the Universe,” according to a recent study in Science Advances.
A strange blob has been seen rapidly circling our galaxy’s central black hole. Now, astronomers have identified it as the exploded debris from two merging stars.
The Big Bang was hot, dense, uniform, and filled with matter and energy. Before that? There was nothing. Here’s how that’s possible.
All things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe… Observer-participancy gives rise to information.
An international team of researchers stumbled upon an exploding supernova in a distant spiral galaxy, using data from the first year of interstellar observation by the James Webb Space Telescope.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. It covers longer wavelengths of light, with greatly improved sensitivity, allowing it to see inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today as well as looking further back in time to observe the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.
Julian Barbour, physicist, talks the illusion of time, the origin of the universe, and what is reality. He also discusses his newest book, “The Janus Point: A New Theory of Time,” which makes the radical argument that the growth of order drives the passage of time — and shapes the destiny of the universe.
Read “The Janus Point”: https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/julian-barbour/the-janus-point/9780465095469/
Julian Barbour’s Website: http://www.platonia.com/
Julian Barbour is a physicist with research interests in quantum gravity and the history of science. Since receiving his PhD degree on the foundations of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity at the University of Cologne in 1968, Barbour has supported himself and his family without an academic position, as an author and translator.
Watch more Closer To Truth interviews with Julian Barbour: https://bit.ly/3eIW96E
Right now, in the center of our galaxy, an enormous black hole is stretching an object apart like it were taffy. And scientists currently have a rare view, and images, of this extreme cosmic event playing out. A thick cloud of gas and dust dubbed “X7” is rapidly approaching the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*.
The Big Bang is the name we have given to the moment at which the Universe began. While the idea is well known, it is often badly misunderstood. Even people with a good grasp of science have misconceptions about it. For instance, a common question is, “Where did the Big Bang happen?” And the answer to that question is a surprising one. So, let’s dive into it and try to understand where the misunderstanding arises.
When people are told of the Big Bang, they are commonly told that “all of the mass of the universe was packed into a point with zero volume called a singularity.” The singularity then “exploded,” expanding and cooling and eventually resulting in the Universe we see today. People draw from their own experience and analogize the Big Bang with something like a firecracker or a grenade — an object that sits in a location, then explodes, dispersing debris into existing space. This is a completely natural and reasonable mental image. It is also completely wrong.
The theory that describes the Big Bang is Einstein’s general theory of relativity. In it, Einstein describes gravity as the very shape of space as it bends and stretches. Near a star or planet, space is distorted; far from any celestial body, space is flat. If space is malleable, as the theory says it is, it can also be compressed or stretched.
