Universe Tugged by Mysterious 'Dark Flow'

September 25, 2008

Here's something mind-blowing I just reported for Discovery News. It's from way, way, way beyond Earth. But it's so totally strange that I had to share it so you can comment on it.  The original story with videos, etc., is posted here.

Sept. 25, 2008 -- Astronomers have stumbled upon an unexplained two-million-mile-per-hour sideways shift in the universe toward a colossal, unseen, unknown gravity source beyond the horizon of the observable universe.

What's being called a dark flow appears to be pulling vast clusters of galaxies toward a 20-degree-wide patch of sky between the constellations of Centaurus and Vela.

"It does fly in the face of everything we know," said astronomer Dale Kocevski of the University of California at Davis. He's one of the authors of a paper in the Sept. 24 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters which introduced the discovery. "I'm sure it's going to be controversial."

The dark flow was detected by studying 700 very distant clusters of galaxies which are lit up by hot, X-ray-emitting gases.

First the team of researchers led by NASA's Alexander Kashlinsky carefully located the X-ray clusters -- each containing thousands of galaxies.

Next, they looked at the same spots on a map of what's called the cosmic microwave background -- the attenuated glow from the first light that was free to travel through space just 380,000 years after the universe was born. This glow was mapped in detail by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).

According to theory, when the ancient microwaves pass through galaxy clusters they should change temperature in predictable ways, depending on whether the galaxy is moving relative to the background glow. So this work started as an experiment to test that effect -- what's called the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SV) effect -- and to see if any movement could be detected.

"We were hoping to measure something there, but probably not much," said Kashlinsky. "To our great surprise what we found instead is that the velocity was quite higher than expected."

Not only were the galaxy clusters moving, but over a span of five billion light-years -- more than a third of the age of the universe -- they were all heading for the same place. It was a truly bizarre and unexpected result.

The measurements suggest far more than the distant clusters are moving, said Kashlinsky. Rather, the entire universe -- including our own galaxy -- is feeling the tug of the unseen mega-mass beyond the edge of the universe.

As for what could be exerting such a powerful, pervasive tug, it can't be anything within our universe, since there just isn't anything with remotely enough mass, said Kocevski. No way. That means it's something we can't see -- beyond the observable universe.

The sole possible explanation Kashlinsky offers is that there might be a large, very bulky neighboring part of the universe which is so far away we cannot see it. It could be, if inflationary theories are correct, a twin universe that inflated less evenly than our own did soon after the Big Bang.

The inflationary theory suggests that our universe went through a brief period of hyper expansion soon after the Big Bang. It explains how matter managed to spread out so evenly in space, rather than get stuck clumped in just one corner of space, as would happen in a more gradually expanding universe. Inflation moves everything apart faster than gravity could clump it.

It could be, then, that there was another, less effective inflation next door to our observable universe and that other blob from the Big Bang remained clumpier. If so it could be out there, loaded with matter, and it is exerting a powerful gravitational pull on every observable thing in our universe.

Maybe.

"We are kind of still puzzled by the result," said Kashlinsky. "We kept checking and checking (the observations and calculations) and nothing else can explain this."

Comments

[David R. Bunting]

Re: Universe Tugged

AT LAST my M-N Theory of Hierarchies is being revealed!

Back about 1962 when I was a physics student at the University of Washington I sent a letter describing my theory to one of the top astronomers(Green something) at one of the Universities in California asking his opinion of it.

The theory basically holds that there are an infinite series of hierarchies in space and time, that the particle system we've discovered is the "M" hierarchy and the astronomical system we've discovered is the "N" hierarchy, and that there are an infinite series of hierarchies in both space and time downward and upward from these that we know.

Part of that theory is that the acceleration in the most distant objects seen to be away from each other, the acceleration in the expansion of our "universe" is only the acceleration of all objects toward the real center of the universe which is far beyond the "universe" we observe. Those closer to that distant real center are being accelerated toward it faster than those farther away from that center, so the difference in accelerations is seen by each as acceleration away from each other.

It's great to see this!!

Dave Bunting
Packwood WA
360-494-5245
dave06@mac.com

[justin]

Explain to me this:
"Not only were the galaxy clusters moving, but over a span of five billion light-years -- more than a third of the age of the universe -- they were all heading for the same place. It was a truly bizarre and unexpected result."

It's meant to say five billion years, right? You don't say "Over a span of twenty five kilometres -- more than half of his life -- John was milking goats"

[Larry O'Hanlon]

Excellent point Justin. I should have clarified. Fact is, when we're talking cosmic scales, time and space are basically the same thing. That's why light-YEARS are used to measure distance in space. It's a span SPACE crossed by light in a vacuum over a span of TIME. So when something is 5 billion light-years away, it's a distance, but it's also how many years in the past the light started its journey. Thanks for the comment.

[Dreamer. I'm only 15!]

Something like this would make sense at a theoretical stand point of string theory. Imagine that the reason our universe is being "tugged" in one direction is that, out there beyond what we could probably never see is a universe that is more massive than ours and slowly, sense the very beginning after the big bang, gravity has been drawing us closer to it, but only now are we close enough to record the difference in our own universe's position that we see the change. The prospect of a neighboring universe isn't all that hard to imagine. It's gravitational pull would be just the same as a comit around our outer solar system being pulled slowly toward the sun and we don't notice it until the comit is near/passing earth to see the change.. Think about it...

[justin]

Thank you for clarificiation :]

[Pixie of key]

Dark flow phenomenon causing force drawing someone truly massive property is located in the visible universe outside? How does this tractive force is conveyed?

For example, the stars radiate throughout the energy of waves with particles of nature! Particles moving mode, which is already in place and at the same time, the region can move particles emanating from the various starfish, and they continue the movement quite the same direction away from the area in which the stars is!

The visible universe outside is truly massive concentration of energy which radiate energy waves, which have the nature of quasars. the same region can become the galaxy from several different angles, so that the business continues to quite the same direction, at the same time, when the first stars emit flammable Light. As a dark flow phenomenon can be explained logically!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AewKGNIZpuE

[Freddie]

Starfish and flammable light. Uh huh, right. This is what happens when you comment on astrophysics while stoned.

[VJ]

Interesting ...

Does anyone think this that this finding supports the Brane cosmology proposed by Paul Steinhard?

[VJ]

Interesting ...

Does anyone think this that this finding supports the Brane cosmology proposed by Paul Steinhard?

[Bill B.]

Wow, Brane was proposed in 2001? I could swear that I had either heard of, or tenatively reached that conclusion before then. Anyway, I think that the new finding absolutely supports it. I see no reason why Brane cosmology couldn't coincide with the M-N and String theories too (Although the String theory would have to be amended to define elementary particles as more than one-dimensional). If I'm understanding it, the M-N 'hierarchies' are fundamentally just size differences, i.e. 10 to the 'n'th power. IMAX actually made a great C.G. feature spanning 43 of those probably infinite magnitudes in their 'Cosmic Voyage' film (1996), directed by Bayley Silleck. Couldn't there be recurring 'Big Bangs' on several levels of magnitude? Perhaps the 'Relative Bang' theory has just been born, as this would be a more accurate description. Anyway, I highly recommend renting or buying the DVD.. definitely worth the time and money!

[x-ray fluorescence]

Excellent information.The theory basically holds that there are an infinite series of hierarchies in space and time, that the particle system we've discovered is the "M" hierarchy and the astronomical system we've discovered is the "N" hierarchy, and that there are an infinite series of hierarchies in both space and time downward and upward from these that we know...