115th Meeting
Members’ Night
Day:
Speakers: Saul
Windman
Chris Malicki
Roy Swanson
Einstein’s Dark and Bright Universe Paradox
Saul Windman presented his theory how the appearance
of dark matter in the universe is caused by gravity bending light. Astronomers believe that dark energy composes
70% of the mass of the universe, dark matter 25%, with the rest being hydrogen,
helium, stars, neutrinos and heavy elements.
What is the big picture? If gravity gets in our way it changes the
image. Astronomers are assuming that images coming to us are unbent whereas, in
fact, this is not the case. Gravity
creates illusions. What is real?
In 1933, Fritz Zwicky found a discrepancy in the mass
of a galaxy using a luminosity formula and rotational formula. Galaxies were 10
times more massive than expected from their luminosity alone. He postulated the
existence of dark matter. In 1936, Einstein spoke about lens-like action of a
star. According to the inverse square law there must be a dark area around the
bright object to conserve energy similar to the dark area around the bright
image produced by a magnifying glass. In a similar way, gravity lensing has the
effect of causing most space to look dark and small parts to look light. Until 2007 astronomers thought that lensing
was a small issue. Then in 2007, the cosmos survey data identified invisible
gravity half way to the beginning of the universe. Major observations have been compromised by
gravitational lensing such as the filaments in the microwave background as well
as lensing right within the galaxy. In addition, dark energy was discovered by
teams looking at supernovae (SN Ia). Distant
supernovae are dimmer and thus farther than expected. This was interpreted as the accelerated
expansion of the universe.
In the Milky Way galaxy, gravity is 50 times the
related energy of the matter. Energy deviated by galactic gravity will flow and
collect at the bottom of gravitational wells.
The galaxy and quasar survey shows that quasars start to appear at about
3 billion light years. Quasars and their effects are a good fit for the effects
of galactic gravitational geometry, like a laser beam that can be seen only if
something is in the way. Linking
galaxies to quasars, the beam can be seen when light hits a gas cloud or
matter. A jet looks like it is moving faster than the speed of light because of
a projection effect. The jet is actually a projection on a gas cloud.
If we believe that a lot of light is deviated, we do
not need dark energy or dark matter. The light is simply deviated away from us
similar to a chandelier which casts bright and dark spots. So, there is
darkness. It’s just a deviation of light by gravity. The theory explains the
dark and bright universe simply and consistently.
Cassiopeia
As part of the new series of presentations about
constellation, Chris Malicki spoke about Cassiopeia. Historically, Cassiopeia the Queen is one of
the original 44 constellations dating back to 500 BC. and is associated with
the Perseus myth. There are now 88
“official” constellations with Cassiopeia being 25th is size. Its distinctive W-shape is easily
recognizable in the circumpolar sky. It
contains 2 famous historical supernovae: Tycho’s “star” of 1572 which showed
that the heavens are not unchangeable, and the bright radio source Cas A. Iota and Eta Cas. are two fine double
stars. Because it lies in the Milky Way,
Cassiopeia is best known to observers for its numerous open star clusters. Two
of these are Messier objects with M52 being very tight and rich and M103
compact and V-shaped. Some other showy
clusters include NGC663 which is very rich, NGC457 one of the finest NGC
clusters, and the magnificent, rich NGC7789.
Observable galaxies include NGC147, NGC185, and NGC278, the first 2
being satellite galaxies of Andromeda.
The Sky Tonight
Roy Swanson spoke about the solstice points being
correctly called the Tropics of Gemini and Sagittarius because these are the
constellations where the Sun is during its extreme northern and southern
positions in the sky. He described sky events for the months of November and
December.
Chris Malicki, Secretary