Cosmologic philosophy: more evidence of Big Bang (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, April 15, 2019, 19:13 (2049 days ago) @ David Turell

New studies solidify the theory:

https://www.salvomag.com/article/salvo48/lost-found

" In that course Ostriker spoke about the "missing mass" of the universe. The mass he referred to was not the dark matter (also known as cold dark matter or exotic dark matter), comprised of particles that do not interact, or only weakly interact, with photons. Rather, he was concerned about missing atomic matter, matter comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons, which interact strongly with photons. Detection of such matter carries significant implications for the reliability of models for the beginning of the universe, often called big bang models.

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"In the 1970s Ostriker hypothesized that many of these missing baryons lurked in the hot diffuse gas spread across the otherwise empty voids between galaxies. He also opined that these baryons would be extremely difficult to detect.

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"Finally, in 2018, astronomers gained the necessary instrumentation and observing time to detect (more than marginally) the oxygen absorption spectra of hot intergalactic gas. A team of 21 astronomers led by Fabrizio Nicastro performed a very long duration observation on the brightest known X-ray blazar, IES 1553+133,4 with the X-ray multi-mirror Newton telescope (see Figure 3).5 They detected the absorption spectrum of OVII, oxygen atoms with six of their eight electrons stripped away by the hot intergalactic gas. Thanks to their long observing time, Nicastro's team achieved a signal-to-noise ratio high enough to conclude from their absorption spectra measurements that they had found all of the missing baryons.

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"In a recent submission to the Astrophysical Journal, a team of six astronomers led by Sanskriti Das reported that they had achieved OVII absorption line measurements on the spiral galaxy NGC 3221 (see Figure 4) using the Suzaku X-ray telescope.6 Though the signal-to-noise ratio of their measurements achieved a little less clarity than that realized by Nicastro's team, the Das team's measurements were notably consistent with the conclusion that all the missing baryons have been found.

"Just as Nicastro's and Das's teams were finding the universe's missing baryons through the X-ray absorption spectra method, two other astronomy research groups found them using a completely different method. These teams looked for subtle distortions in the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation, the radiation left over from the cosmic creation event.

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"A team of four astronomers led by University of Edinburgh's Anna de Graaff stacked pieces of Planck map images from a million pairs of galaxies, one on top of another.7 The remaining signal (after subtraction of the signal from all the gas associated with the million galaxy pairs) was strong enough to show de Graaff's team the mass of the hot intergalactic gas. That mass added up to the missing baryons.

"An independent team of nine astronomers led by University of British Columbia's Hideki Tanimura stacked Planck map image pieces of 260,000 pairs of luminous red galaxies seen in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12.8 Their measured mass of the hot intergalactic gas also added up to the missing baryons.

Astronomers have now produced four independent measurements of the mass of the hot intergalactic medium based on completely distinct methods using different telescopes and different databases of galaxies and quasars. The fact that all four measurements agree gives astronomers confidence that they really have found the missing baryons of the universe.

"Thus, the missing baryons challenge to big bang cosmology has been resolved, and the scientific case for the validity of the biblically predicted big bang creation model is even more firmly established than before. We have one more reason to be confident that the God of the Bible exists and personally crafted the universe for our existence."

Comment: These findings add significant support to the Big Bang theory.