Aig and the quasars.

[Crazyharp81602]

Here's the next recent article aig puts up on their website about certain quasars with redshift they think will refute the Big bang theory.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0112quasar.asp

I'm sure that those of you out there, who is an expert in astronomy, will be able to respond to and refute this claim.

Crazyharp81602

[RBH]

This looks more like S&S to me. So off it goes.

RBH
E/C Moderator

[Shadowy Man]

Arp, the scientist the article mentions, has been harping on about how quasars are objects ejected from galaxies (though it seems none is ever ejected towards us - or they would be blue-shifted) for quite a while now.

Though I won't speak to this particular quasar (I haven't read the paper) you can't say that all quasars are not distant objects. You would have a very difficult time explaining high redshift absorption systems that lie in front of quasars.

They are taking one possible line of argument that would state that quasars are not distant objects while throwing away all the arguments that they are.

[ohwilleke]

Arp, Burbridge and a number of others have made the case that quasars and a few other kinds of astronomical bodies may have a high "intrinsic redshift" (i.e. due to some factor other than rapid velocity away from us). There are all sorts of theories about where this intrinsic redshift could come from. Some of those theories are more plausible than others. Some of the stongest evidence in favor of the intrinsic redshift theory is that some quasars of high redshift appear to be in the same systems as other stellar objects with far lower redshifts, and that quasars as a class are such exceptionally huge and energetic objects.

If quasar redshifts are artificially high, then quasars are much closer to us, much smaller, and much less energetic than we had calculated based on the presumed distance from us. They could then be simply neutron stars located as close as the Milky Way galaxy. Also, if red shifts are lower, the Hubble Constant is lower, and this with a stroke of a pen reduces the amount of "dark energy" the universe must have to fit observations (possibly even wiping out the need for a cosmological constant in the equations of general relatvity).

Ironically, a main motivator behind the researchers who coined the term "Big Bang" as a term of derision, and tried to develop a "steady state" cosmology (currently in disfavor) was to eliminate the need to have a creator God in the universe. Most moderate Christians see the Big Bang as a point in favor of the existence of God, and not a problem.

YECs, however, see the Big Bang as a problem because this event appears to have happened based on current observations, about 13-14 billion years ago, and this doesn't fit on their time line. So ironically, AiG is at once supporting its own agenda with this article and undermining one of the stronger mainline religious arguments for the existence of a creator God.

[Sven]

Arp, Burbridge and a number of others have made the case that quasars and a few other kinds of astronomical bodies may have a high "intrinsic redshift" (i.e. due to some factor other than rapid velocity away from us).
[snip]
Also, if red shifts are lower, the Hubble Constant is lower, and this with a stroke of a pen reduces the amount of "dark energy" the universe must have to fit observations (possibly even wiping out the need for a cosmological constant in the equations of general relatvity).
You might want to join the discussion of the Big Bang theory in the thread What theory of the universe do you belive? (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=111940).

[Dark Knight Bob]

Considering the mass of quasars. Would it be that surprising to learn that they have properties that don't quite match what current understanding says they should?

There are other more 'standard' objects besides quasars that have reliably given the explansion rates of the universe etc. (suprnova for instance)

The hubble deep field image showed galaxies already formed when they shouldn't be. If anything I would say the universe is probably somewhat older than we exstimate it to be.

Discoveries like this do raise questions but there are simpler possibilities than just "physicists broke the universe again with their wrong theories".

If quasar redshifts are artificially high, then quasars are much closer to us, much smaller, and much less energetic than we had calculated based on the presumed distance from us

They would still be as energetic. Their energy/mass is measured from their luminosity not their red shift.

[ohwilleke]

They would still be as energetic. Their energy/mass is measured from their luminosity not their red shift.

I intended to use the term energetic in the sense of "aggregate energy output" not "energy/mass".

[Thundun]

Also, if red shifts are lower, the Hubble Constant is lower, and this with a stroke of a pen reduces the amount of "dark energy" the universe must have to fit observations (possibly even wiping out the need for a cosmological constant in the equations of general relatvity).

I do not see why this would be so. The evidence for quintessence is entirely from observations of supernova's and does not rely on quasar redshifts. I would think that would keep quintessence healthy, and possibly make all of this person's arguments moot, would it not?