Astronomy - a weird connectivity spans the entire Universe?
Nov 19, 2019 8:45:48 GMT
ChrisB, Pinch, and 1 more like this
Post by jandl100 on Nov 19, 2019 8:45:48 GMT
The universe seems to be getting weirder, or at least our understanding of it is revealing ever-weirder phenomena.
There is growing evidence that structures on the scale of the entire universe define its shape and behaviour.
Up until recently it was assumed that the Big Bang hurled stuff apart and it just behaved as clumps of material held together by fairly local gravitational forces.
But now evidence is accumulating that something is forcing the alignment of material millions and billions of light years away from each other. Far too far apart to have any gravitational interaction. ...
Dwarf galaxies that swarm around larger ones are curiously aligned into a single plane, when they 'should' be random according to accepted Big Bang theory.
Super massive black holes at the centre of galaxies billions of light years apart are aligned together.
Galaxy movements, which 'should' be random are seen to be going in the same direction.
WTF is going on?
One theory is advocated in a paper entitled "Spooky Alignment of Quasars Across Billions of Light-years" .
That word spooky is deliberately used and has associations with quantum mechanics, which is the physics at the tiniest sub-atomic level which is rarely if ever associated with everyday events at the human scale, let alone astronomical phenomenon. But maybe it is quantum mechanics that has a massive influence over the entire universe?
Or maybe there are unknown large scale physical structures which literally span the universe and which force the alignment of embedded material.
Things are getting ever-weirder as we realise how little we understand about the universe on its largest scales.
Fascinating stuff.
bigthink.com/large-scale-structures?rebelltitem=6#rebelltitem6
There is growing evidence that structures on the scale of the entire universe define its shape and behaviour.
Up until recently it was assumed that the Big Bang hurled stuff apart and it just behaved as clumps of material held together by fairly local gravitational forces.
But now evidence is accumulating that something is forcing the alignment of material millions and billions of light years away from each other. Far too far apart to have any gravitational interaction. ...
Dwarf galaxies that swarm around larger ones are curiously aligned into a single plane, when they 'should' be random according to accepted Big Bang theory.
Super massive black holes at the centre of galaxies billions of light years apart are aligned together.
Galaxy movements, which 'should' be random are seen to be going in the same direction.
WTF is going on?
One theory is advocated in a paper entitled "Spooky Alignment of Quasars Across Billions of Light-years" .
That word spooky is deliberately used and has associations with quantum mechanics, which is the physics at the tiniest sub-atomic level which is rarely if ever associated with everyday events at the human scale, let alone astronomical phenomenon. But maybe it is quantum mechanics that has a massive influence over the entire universe?
Or maybe there are unknown large scale physical structures which literally span the universe and which force the alignment of embedded material.
Things are getting ever-weirder as we realise how little we understand about the universe on its largest scales.
Fascinating stuff.
bigthink.com/large-scale-structures?rebelltitem=6#rebelltitem6
