Astronomers See Evidence of Something Unexpected in the Universe

Yes, exactly.This isn't necessarily a problem for us. But it is not what people have assumed about objectivity. And it should cause us to question how far we can project local knowledge to the cosmos as a whole.

Can strongly lensed type Ia supernovae resolve one of cosmology's biggest controversies?

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In 1929 Edwin Hubble surprised many people — including Albert Einstein — when he showed that the universe is expanding. Another bombshell came in 1998 when two teams of astronomers proved that cosmic expansion is actually speeding up due to a mysterious property of space called dark energy. This discovery provided the first evidence of what is now the reigning model of the universe: "Lambda-CDM," which says that the cosmos is approximately 70 percent dark energy, 25 percent dark matter and 5 percent "normal" matter (everything we've ever observed).

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Until 2016, Lambda-CDM agreed beautifully with decades of cosmological data. Then a research team used the Hubble Space Telescope to make an extremely precise measurement of the local cosmic expansion rate. The result was another surprise: the researchers found that the universe was expanding a little faster than Lambda-CDM and the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), relic radiation from the Big Bang, predicted. So it seems something's amiss — could this discrepancy be a systematic error, or possibly new physics?

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The farther away an object is in space, the longer its light takes to reach Earth. So the farther out we look, the further back in time we see. For decades, Type Ia supernovae have been exceptional distance markers because they are extraordinarily bright and similar in brightness no matter where they sit in the cosmos. By looking at these objects, scientists discovered that dark energy is propelling cosmic expansion.

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But last year an international team of researchers found an even more reliable distance marker — the first-ever strongly lensed Type Ia supernova. These events occur when the gravitational field of a massive object — like a galaxy — bends and refocuses passing light from a Type Ia event behind it. This "gravitational lensing" causes the supernova's light to appear brighter and sometimes in multiple locations, if the light rays travel different paths around the massive object.

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Because different routes around the massive object are longer than others, light from different images of the same Type Ia event will arrive at different times. By tracking time-delay between the strongly lensed images, astrophysicists believe they can get a very precise measurement of the cosmic expansion rate.

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The solution to the disparity in the results of the rate of cosmic expansion found using CMB and Type 1a Supernovae, may be comparison of several strongly gravitational lensed images of the same supernovae. Only two of these supernovae have been discovered so far and they are much rarer than usual type 1a supernovae. Another new tool to help us understand the Universe.

Due to the fact that E=mc^2 we would see major changes in stellar activity, color, spectra, and isotope production if the speed of light were different elsewhere in the cosmos. The balance between gravity pushing inwards and the energy of fusion pushing outwards is the basis for a star's major characteristics, and if that energy changed then we would see big differences. The speed of light is also a part of many other fundamental properties of matter that would also look different elsewhere in the cosmos if the speed of light were different in those regions. The very fact that type Ia supernovae increase and decrease in brightness at the same rate is yet another piece of evidence for the constancy of the speed of light.

You have completely missed the point.I am not arguing or suggesting that the speed of light is different elsewhere in the cosmos.Rather, I am questioning the meaningfulness of even talking about whether the speed of light is different in other parts of the cosmos.Everything that we say about the speed of light depends on earth-based standards. I am questioning whether those earth-based standards are extensible throughout the entire cosmos.

And everything we say about the world depends on the things we see not being actually a strange effect caused by the interaction of the cornea with the cascade of ejaculate spewing from frantically masturbating invisible imps all around us; but we don't worry about that because it's some silly nonsense I just made up.I can't help but notice that you're making exactly the same argument as creation in the Falsifying a young universe thread. The argument is not improved just because you write better.

Or so you claim. The Imps would most likely have somebody "on the inside" to spread misinformation like this.

No, I am not making that argument at all.

I have to admit that I see the same similarity that Caffeine sees. What you said in Message 19 that seemed to me so similar was: Here's an example of the point Creation was making in Falsifying a young Universe. (re: Supernova 1987A). This is from Message 676: Creation's expression is more primitive and he uses different terminology, so summarizing, Creation believes we can only know the laws of nature for the local region, what he calls the "fishbowl" that he concedes extends only as far as our deepest space probes, the Voyagers. He even echoed your comment on the speed of light. This is from Message 703: To me he *does* seem to be saying the same thing as you.--Percy

I think creation's argument is less extreme than nwr's position. By and large, creation restricted his supposition to the idea that time progressed differently in different parts of space. nwr seems to be going much further to say that the entire concept of the speed of light is meaningless in distant regions of space. Both approaches would seem to be ruled out by evidence unless you want to take the additional further step of saying that nothing we perceive reflects reality. Of course, that same perception problem would apply right here.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

It is rather important to our whole understanding of how the universe works, so there's that. And I am telling you that they can be extended to the entire cosmos, and can be used to ask and answer very important questions about the fundamental aspects of how physics works, both here and elsewhere in the cosmos.

I'll admit that I haven't been following that thread. However, that sounds like a typical creationist argument, that laws might be different elsewhere. I see scientific laws as human constructs, so "might be different elsewhere" isn't anything I would argue.Google for "hairy billiard ball". There are functions that cannot be extended to the whole space from a local region, depending on the topology of the whole space. That's closer to what I am arguing.In any case, I'm not trying to falsify anything. I'm only expressing skepticism about how much we claim to know.

Unless I am missing the point General Relativity actually assumes that standard clocks and rulers don't exist and then makes predictions for what we should see here based on that.

But Creation wasn't just arguing that "scientific laws might be different elsewhere." He was arguing that they might be different and that we can't know what they are. This seems not just very similar but identical to your position that we can't know whether scientific laws are different in other parts of the cosmos.NoNukes makes the point that Creation was focused on time, but Creation wasn't capable of generalizing and made his points with examples. Time was his initial example, but he moved on to say we couldn't know relativity behaved the same in deep space as it does here (Message 682), and he said we couldn't know the speed of light out there is the same as here (Message 703). He used examples rather than generalizations, but he obviously believed we can't know whether scientific laws out there are the same as here.You and Creation also have the same issue of identifying a boundary between the "here" where we understand how scientific laws operate and the "out there" where we don't. Creation gave the "here" a name, the fishbowl, and he was willing to grant that it extended at least as far out as our deepest probes, the Voyagers. Wouldn't you have to concede the same thing, that since the Voyager probes are still operating that the boundary between the "here" and the "out there" must be at least that far away?While the terminology and descriptions differ, to me your and Creation's positions are one and the same. Were you and Creation to find yourselves in a discussion about this with the rest of us you would find yourselves arguing on the same side.--Percy

GR does posit that the speed of light is the same for all observers in all reference frames.

Yes, that does indeed seem similar to what you are characterizing as my position.The only problem here, is that it is not at all my position. Again, that is not my position. No, they are very different.