Starship Asterisk*

Check out the solar flares! They are the red streaks on both sides of the beads. Looks like a stack of CD's !!

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080818.html

On the high magnification view, there is a definite cellular structure to the dust lanes.

Here is an APOD showing a fractal model for interstellar dust:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030706.html

I agree that cosmic zoom videos often are reminiscent of fractal images. There is a whole thread in Asterisk devoted to cosmic zooms. Superclusters come to mind first.

Reviving an old thread. Regarding the August 27 2007 APOD showing an image of a huge void a billion light years across in both cosmic background radiation data and in radio astronomy data. Seeking comments regarding this week's news (November 26 2007)regarding the claim by Laura Mersini-Houghton at ...

CDM Density and CDM Homogeneity It seems to me that if we accept the prevailing CDM model, that a lot can be inferred about it's local distribution by the behavior of our solar system, milky way, and local group. In other words, firm upper and lower limits on density can be inferred. I am curious as...

Quoting NoelC: Somewhere, sometime, someone has published the largest number ever expressed. This is a finite, specific value. Until someone represents a larger value, that one stands as the largest number. I have no idea who or where or what that number is. I'll take a stab at that. How about a goo...

Doum, I like the idea that you have, that dark matter and/or dark energy might be artifacts of other dimensions in our universe. I can certainly imagine that we would have difficulty working with other dimensions, and would find ways to bend physical laws so that we can collapse the other dimensions...

Nereid, you said One variety of CDM may have settled into the bottoms of local gravitational wells, such as the Sun's core, or the Earth's core. Such CDM cannot comprise more than a tiny fraction of universe's CDM, if only because so much of that CDM clearly does not reside in galaxy nuclei, or even...

The article is an editorial by Brumfiel in Nature which is based on an original article by Subir Sarkar, Prof of Astronomy at Oxford, and yes (oops) I accidently changed the subject from Dark Matter to Dark Energy. Here is the abstract from Sarkar, as posted on arXiv.org: Is the evidence for dark en...

Here is another solid critique in the journal Nature (Nov 2): http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071102/full/news.2007.215.html Theorist suggests mysterious force could be an 'artefact' of a void in space. Here's another question for all the Dark Matter enthusiasts out there. Has anyone ventured to cal...

Well if there are that many independent threads (no pun intended) to CDMT I am encouraged that something will come of it that will elevate its status. Thanks for all the links and the comments. I am wondering if anyone has considered the possibility that the massive dust lanes that are seen in virtu...

I would like to dig deeper into the specific question of evidence for cold dark matter theory (CDMT), which we infer exists due to unsolved problems with observations. In the bautforum thread you referred to above, a detailed list of reasons why science needs CDMT is given, including the following: ...

We actually agree on this issue a lot more than I realized. I think it would be a very useful exercise to literally go step by step like you just did, from detecting light-wavelength photons, detecting x-rays, detecting radio waves, detecting microwave radiation, detecting gamma, detecting spectra a...

Remember to factor in earth-shine, which would really light up the new moon as viewed from space and mess up your exposure.... Here's another angle: Go to the dark side of the moon during a full Lunar Eclipse, and position your camera at an elevation of about 20,000 km above the surface of the moon....

The Cosmic Gamma Background (CGB) Radiation article you linked to is a good example of what I am after. I think that scientists in the field of cosmology are sometimes unduly quick to draw unilateral conclusions from their observations, and are prone to use what I call "circular links" to ...

Apparently the comet is out by Jupiter right now. If this outburst is a tail viewed head-on from earth, it must be quite a sight from the side. Quick! Turn those Cassini cameras on it!!

Don't shoot the messenger. I am only reporting the news, not creating it. Here is a direct quote from an article by Jerome Drexler (former Research Professor in physics at New Jersey Institute of Technology, founder and former Chairman and chief scientist of LaserCard Corp): "Recently, Science ...

Okay, at the risk of inflaming everyone's passions, I need to ask a very simple question about dark energy. I will make a series of statements, to the best of my ability, followed by a question. 1. Immediately following BB, space inflated rapidly, causing the universe to have dimensions of billions ...

Nereid, thanks for taking the time to respond. I am glad to see someone who is passionate enough about the validity of BBT to defend it. I do just have one question though, for everyone, about the one-phase universe vs multi-phase. From our prior posts, I think we stand together and agree firmly tha...

astro_uk said: Is there any scientific reason why a two phase universe should be preferred? No, but there isn't any reason that a one phase universe should be preferred either. It is arbitrary because empirical evidence does not apply at all to what came before BB. I think preferring one phase over ...

Hi makc: I think makc hit it right on the head when he said that BBT has its scope, as any theory. My objections to current BBT are (a) certain tenets within the accepted theory are rigid and dogmatic in the face of the evolving status of our observations, and (b) it is trying to explain everything,...

Well, after you hear my thoughts you will wish you hadn't paid a penny for them. Here we go. I don't see why the elemenal hydrogen/helium in our sun had to have been created 13.7 billion years ago. The sun formed 4.5 billion years ago. I agree that something very interesting happened 13.7 billion ye...

Harry, here's my view of your question. I always thought BBT was best at explaining the current state of the universe, in terms of it's expansion, dimensions, structure, distribution of matter and energy. But here you are showing BBT theorists who have focused on the creation of the elements, and in...

I'm pretty sure the models of colliding galaxies show some tumbling, if not shearing, movements. In fact, colliding galaxies supposedly pass through each other and change shape drastically and even combine into one galaxy sometimes, according to computer models. I'm not sure if non-colliding, non-or...

I was hoping the topic of discussion was "Bang or No Bang", which to me would give equal airtime to evidence for BBT and evidence against BBT. I am a BBT skeptic. I read the first and last links above from harry (the other links were down, I'm afraid). The last link was particularly clearl...