Side Exhibits: The Galaxies
As we saw with the "Hot Young Sun," the very existence of life on Earth's surface is evidence of "c change" in physics. If the speed of light had not changed in the amounts predicted, the Sun's luminosity would not be stable enough for life to evolve. Another line of evidence is the very existence of our galaxy. If not for the Milky Way's formation, our Sun and planet would not have formed either.
Despite decades of research, scientists have no complete theory of how our galaxy or billions of others formed. Every galaxy contains at its centre a supermassive Black Hole. Recently we saw The Most Distant Galaxies Yet Found formed barely 500 million years after the Big Bang. Present theories can not explain how galaxies or their supermassive Black Holes formed so early.
Once it was thought that giant Black Holes formed from collisions between smaller objects. This week Space.com reports Hundreds of Missing Black Holes found. In the above photo from the Spitzer Space Telescope, the newly discovered Black Holes are circled in blue. The newly discoered galaxies show no sign of being disturbed, indicating that collisions may not play role in galaxy evolution. "Theorists thought that mergers between galaxies were required to initiate this quasar activity, but we now see that quasars can be active in unharassed galaxies," said co-author David Alexander of Durham University in Britain.
Primordial Black Holes are thought to exist by Stephen Hawking and many other physicists. They are predicted to have formed from quantum fluctuations shortly after the Big Bang. Size of a PBH would be limited by a "horizon distance," that light could travel in a given time. Previously it was thought that the speed of light would cause any PBH's to be tiny. Because c was much larger, Black Holes could have formed of enormous mass, big enough to seed formation of galaxies. Discovery of galaxies formed soon after the Big Bang is still more evidence of a changing speed of light.
A hundred billion galaxies containing massive Black Holes say that the speed of light has changed. In the past week we have seen at least five lines of evidence pointing to a similiar conclusion. Exhibits of the Sun, Moon and supernovae indicate that c has slowed at exactly the rate GM = tc^3 predicts. It is not possible to prove experimentally that c is constant. A Universe of data points to a "c change" in physics.
This week Dr. Pamela Gay hosts the Carnival of Space! Among the posts are a photo of Southern California's wildfires taken from the Genesis I module, an appreciation of THE LAST STARFIGHTER, and a story about the Mars Rovers. Somebody on LiveJournal has a new name for our spacesuits too.