Author: Pahu78Pahu78
Date: Mar 11, 2008 14:28
Galaxy Clusters
Hundreds of rapidly moving galaxies often cluster tightly together.
Their relative velocities, as inferred by the redshifts of their
light, are so high that these clusters should be flying apart, because
each cluster's visible mass is much too small to hold its galaxies
together gravitationally (a). Because galaxies within clusters are so
close together, they have not been flying apart for very long.
A similar statement can be made concerning many stars in spiral
galaxies and gas clouds that surround some galaxies (b). These stars
and gas clouds have such high relative velocities that they should
have broken their "gravitational bonds" long ago if they were billions
of years old. If the redshift of starlight always indicates a star's
velocity, then a billion-year-old universe is completely inconsistent
with what is observed. If redshifts can be caused by phenomena other
than a star's velocity, much of current astronomical thinking is
wrong.
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