Part 4 (chapters 4-1 –› 4-4) presents an infinite universe as an alternative for big bang cosmology.

Some call it a static universe, others a universe in dynamical equilibrium, and in the early 20th century has been spoken of a static steady-state universe (4-1). I like: the infinite universe. Infinite in both space and time. I guess I like to live in an infinite universe. End May 2003]

[October 2003: See also an article by Assis and Neves⁷⁶ if you want to know more about static universes suggested in the past.
William Mitchell⁷⁵ describes an extremely old universe in which shrunken remnants of old galaxies can become the nuclei of new galaxies (4-1) as well as AGNs (5-1) and in which radio loud activity by AGNs provides matter for new stars/galaxies (5-2). He has named his universe the recycling universe, it is much the same as the universe described on this website. End October 2003]

[May 2003: Changing Newtonian as well as relativistic gravitation models has been done very thoroughly by Assis² and Ghosh³ and also by various authors in Pushing Gravity⁵. End May 2003]

Here comes the idea that, once I had it in my head, led to the Parts 4, 5, 6 and 7 of this website.
Without an expanding universe the clusters of galaxies move towards each other by gravity.
Imagine 2 clusters of galaxies moving towards each other with a velocity of 400 km/s and imagine that the distance between the clusters is 40 million light years. This means that the clusters will “meet” each other (and (only) start circling around each other) after 30 billions of years. By then the galaxies in the clusters may have become dark and all we see is a nonluminous void.
Where we see luminous matter now we may see nonluminous voids in the far future, and where we see nonluminous voids now we may see galaxies in the far future. In a universe that is endless in time galaxies may darken and shrink and thus the universe may contain many remains of (blackened) stars and (blackened) galaxies. (I call blackened stars dark matter objects, 4-1.)

[May 2003: I look a little different at this now. Perhaps it is not possible to have new galaxies pop out “out of the blue” in nonluminous voids. Perhaps that clusters/galaxies are concentrating themselves all the time. This would mean that nonluminous voids “shrink”, are rather: a nonluminous void in a supercluster becomes smaller because the whole supercluster becomes smaller because galaxies/clusters move towards each other, i.e. concentrate (see also 3-2). Concentrated galaxies/clusters attract hydrogen by gravitational forces and thus (may) lighten up again as smaller objects (4-3).
[June 2003: I already changed my mind about this again. Perhaps very little amounts of dark matter that have escaped from galaxies and that flow through enormous large nonluminous voids can collect new material (i.e. hydrogen, dust and larger particles/objects) and thus build up new galaxies in a nonluminous void without the aid of shrunken galaxies (5-4). End June 2003]
[February 2004: Perhaps the two mechanisms co-exist. Perhaps there are always larger clusters to be found as well as that galaxies can come to existence without the aid of shrunk galaxies. End February 2004]
The “shrinking” of nonluminous voids may be a little complicated. For instance: the nonluminous voids in a supercluster become bigger because the clusters within the supercluster shrink (because galaxies within the clusters move towards each other), but at the same time the nonluminous voids in the supercluster become smaller because the clusters within the supercluster move towards each other too, which makes the supercluster as a whole shrink (too). End May 2003]

[June 2004: Thus there may be concentrations of dark matter in all kind of magnitudes. Such concentrations then may get fuelled by hydrogen from intergalactic space. The amount of hydrogen that will flow to such concentrations will depend on the magnitude of the mass in the concentrations of dark matter, the amount of hydrogen available and the competition by other concentrations of dark matter. This is similar to the formation of stars and brown dwarfs born from dark matter objects getting fuelled by hydrogen (7-1). End June 2004]

[January 19 2007: An international team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has created the first three-dimensional map of the large-scale distribution of dark matter in the universe. This was the first direct detection of dark matter and it was done by weak gravitational lensing. The team found that where there is a lot of dark matter there is visible matter too. Though, there are also places where there is dark matter but no visible matter and vice versa. It was surprising for the team to find places where there is visible matter but no dark matter. If there are galaxies where there is no dark matter the big bang model has a problem⁴⁴⁷.
In the model described on this website dark matter comes to existence by the darkening of very old galaxies in an infinite old universe. At the same time new hydrogen is created by old galaxies coming together by gravity into a very small volume leading to radio loud activity. So you have enormous clouds of hydrogen in the universe and concentrations of old darkened galaxies and old darkened clusters of galaxies. Where hydrogen flows to old darkened galaxies the old remnants of the galaxies will light up because hydrogen concentrates itself around old darkened stars and old dark remnants of shattered stars.
Where there are old darkened galaxies and old darkened clusters of galaxies and little or no hydrogen you may have dark matter without visible matter/galaxies in an infinite universe. Where you have visible matter/galaxies and no dark matter you may have galaxies that are fuelled by so much hydrogen that all the old stars and remnants of stars have been lit up by hydrogen and so no dark matter will be found at such places. Therefore in an infinite old universe you can explain places where there is dark matter but no visible matter and vice versa in a very simple way. End January 19 2007]
[September 3 2007: Big bang astronomers have discovered that the galaxy cluster system Abell 520 harbours a dark matter core in the middle of the cluster. This dark matter core contains hot gas next to dark matter but no bright galaxies. This poses problems for current (big bang) dark matter theories. In addition to the dark matter core, a corresponding region containing a group of galaxies with little or no dark matter was also detected. This is even more troublesome for the big bang astronomers⁴⁶⁷.
The galaxy cluster system Abell 520 may be composed out of several clusters of galaxies. The oldest cluster in the center may have blackened long ago and therefore contains dark galaxies or dark matter. The surrounding clusters slowly may have closed in on the central cluster and may be younger and therefore still have luminous galaxies (and also dark matter/dark galaxies). Meanwhile the central cluster with dark matter/dark galaxies may have attracted gas from the surrounding clusters and therefore may contain gas next to dark matter/dark galaxies. Also there may be a region/cluster with is very new or recently enriched with much gas, this region therefore may have luminous galaxies but no darkened galaxies and hence no dark matter. End September 3 2007]

[June 2004: With the here mentioned way of looking at clusters and galaxies one expects galaxies behaving “badly” every now and then, i.e. instead of starting orbiting a cluster some galaxies will go straight through the heart of a cluster they meet, which is something that is observed¹⁵⁴. End June 2004]

[March 23 2005: Another example of a galaxy behaving “badly” may be the irregular galaxy NGC 1427A. Under the gravitational grasp of a large gang of galaxies, called the Fornax cluster, the small bluish galaxy is plunging headlong into the group at 600 kilometers per second. NGC 1427A, which is located some 62 million light-years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Fornax, shows numerous hot, blue stars in a newly released image obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope. These blue stars have been formed very recently, showing that star formation is occurring extensively throughout the galaxy. Within the Fornax cluster, there is a considerable amount of gas lying between the galaxies. Big bang astronomers think that when the gas within NGC 1427A collides with the Fornax gas, it is compressed to the point that it starts to collapse under its own gravity. This leads to formation of the myriad of new stars seen across NGC 1427A, which give the galaxy an overall arrowhead shape that appears to point in the direction of the galaxy's high-velocity motion²⁹¹.
NGC 1427A rather may be a very old shrunken and darkened cluster of galaxies or an old big irregular galaxy that darkened. (The Fornax cluster also may have attracted a “baby galaxy” from the center of a non-luminous void, 4-1.) The old cluster/galaxy has been attracted by the Fornax cluster and by flying into the Fornax cluster it may get the chance to assemble gas around its old cooled down stars which may be relatively large dark matter objects that produce bluish stars by assembling gas.
The big bang researchers think that NCC 1427A will be torn apart because of gravitational forces by the galaxies within the Fornax cluster²⁹¹, but when there is a lot of dark matter in NGC 1427A in the form of dark matter objects the galaxy also may survive. End March 23 2005]

[October 2004: With the here mentioned way of looking at clusters and galaxies one expects large clusters to merge too, which recently has been observed²⁵⁴. End October 2004]

Thus (dark) matter (= galaxies and blackened stars) may concentrate itself at certain places in the universe and at the same time empty space is created.
Also: in galaxies there already may be very many darkened remains of stars when you consider those galaxies to be much older than 15 billion years, which may solve the missing dark (baryonic) matter problem in galaxies.
[August 2003: Also: when stars have large heavy metal cores (6-2) then the mass of stars may turn out to be much higher, which may solve (part of) the missing dark matter problem too. End August 2003]
[April 5 2005: If there is 5 times more dark matter than luminous matter then one may wonder why this dark matter has not been observed so far. Stars may contain more mass than thought. And: if dark matter gets the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation (4-2) it will be hard to detect. End April 5 2005]

One way or the other there ought to be a mechanism (or mechanisms) that produces hydrogen in an infinite universe (possible mechanisms are discussed in 3-2, 5-2 and 6-1).
If hydrogen is produced by AGN radio loud activity (5-2) then hydrogen streams through intergalactic and intercluster space and will be attracted by galaxies and clusters of galaxies, dark or luminous. Thus hydrogen may stream into luminous or nonluminous galaxies and produce new stars.

[March 31 2005: A big bang astronomer found that UGC 5288, a small galaxy 16 million light-years from Earth, is surrounded by a huge disk of hydrogen gas that has not been involved in the galaxy's star-formation processes. The astronomer thinks that the hydrogen gas may be primordial big bang material left over from the galaxy's formation³⁰⁸.
The hydrogen gas surrounding UGC 5288 may be an example of gas coming (directly) from one of the above mentioned hydrogen production mechanisms.
Why the gas in the disk has remained so undisturbed, without stars forming, is perplexing for the big bang astronomer³⁰⁸.
It is perplexing when one thinks of such gas as very old and very long around in a big bang universe in which stars form from gas clouds without the aid of dark matter objects. It is normal when one thinks of such gas as gas in an infinite universe that may have been produced not (very) long ago, or as gas in an infinite universe that has been produced long ago but so far has not been attracted by gravitational forces of dark matter objects (which would have caused star formation). End March 31 2005]

[February 2004: Perhaps a lot of gas is tunneled along so-called filaments (of galaxies) to clusters (of galaxies). Then also luminous/nonluminous galaxies/dark matter may be “tunneled through filaments” towards clusters. In clusters a lot of (hot) gas is found with X-ray measurements, which makes sense with the on this website presented “hydrogen streams to luminous/nonluminous (clusters of) galaxies” model. End February 2004]

[May 2004: Recently another arm in the Milky Way was discovered. The structure consists of an arc of hydrogen gas 77,000 light years long and a few thousand light years thick running along the galaxy's outermost edge¹²⁰. It would not be unusual for a mid-sized galaxy like ours to have arms that extend so far - the Andromeda galaxy, which is similar to ours, has long gaseous arms.
The group of big bang astronomers who did the discovery think that the arc could be a tendril that once joined up with another spiral arm. Another possibility they consider is that the gas was drawn out of the Milky Way in a collision with a dwarf galaxy early in its evolution.
I think that such arcs of gas originate from gas that flows from intergalactic and intercluster space towards galaxies as suggested all through this website: galaxies originate by gas (probably produced by radio loud activity) flowing through intercluster and intergalactic space, the gas then assembles around concentrations of (dark and luminous) matter.
Above I mentioned that gas may be tunneled through so-called filaments (of galaxies) to clusters. In the new discovered arm the same tunneling process may be going on in a slightly different way (because the arc of gas is rotating around the center of the galaxy) and on a (much) smaller level. Therefore it may be so that within the new discovered arms there are dark matter objects, which then may have the same function as the galaxies in the above mentioned filaments (of galaxies). End May 2004]

[June 2004: Recently a team of astronomers found that there is substantial evidence for infall of huge gas clouds into the Milky Way¹⁷⁷. End June 2004]

Also on small scales galaxies and clusters of galaxies can swirl towards and around each other. One may look at our Local Group this way. The smaller galaxies within 250 kpc from our Galaxy may be, in a way, a cluster of galaxies (swirling around a central point that is close to or within our Galaxy). Also the galaxies within 250 kpc of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) may form a cluster of galaxies (swirling around a central point that is close to or within the Andromeda Galaxy, probably between M31 and M33).
Thus cluster Galaxy et al and cluster Andromeda et al may form a cluster binary system that has been circling around for a long time. Perhaps that 50 billion years ago our Galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy were much further away from each other (and the et al groups also much further apart or not even existing yet), but already moving towards each other.

[May 2004: Lately a lot of research there has been done on this. Astronomers reported that our own Milky Way is consuming one of its neighbors in a dramatic display of ongoing galactic cannibalism^115,164,190. Astronomers now agree that finally all the smaller galaxies surrounding our Milky Way will be consumed by the Milky Way and they say that our Galaxy will collide with Andromeda three billion years from now. Astronomers have known for almost a century that the two galaxies are falling together at 500,000 kilometers per hour¹¹⁸.
Big bang astronomers think that major galaxies are build by cannibalizing smaller galaxies and that major galaxies merge with other major galaxies. I too think that part of the smaller galaxies will be cannibalized by major galaxies, but some smaller galaxies will also start rotating larger galaxies and thus be progenitors of future globular clusters (4-4). I also think that major galaxies can start rotating each other while shrinking (both their size as well as their mutual distance), so I wonder wether our Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy really will collide within 3 billion years. I think that the very core of our galaxy shows different remnants of old galaxies (4-1), therefore I think that galaxies can start rotating each other while shrinking for a very long time. End May 2004]
[June 2004: When galaxies cannibalize smaller galaxies then also (small dark) galaxies/g-galaxies are to be cannibalized every now and then, which is something that may have been observed recently (4-4). End June 2004]

[May 3 2005: Cosmologists have been puzzled by the fact that not only do the Milky Way's satellites lie on a flat circle, approximately perpendicular to the Galactic Plane, but also there are far too few satellite galaxies to fit in with big bang predictions. This discrepancy had led some cosmologists to question the entire paradigm for the cold dark matter-driven process of galaxy formation. A team of cosmologists simulated the evolution of parts of the big bang universe, randomly selected from a large cosmological volume, using a sophisticated supercomputer model. The model built up a complete history of all mergers between galactic building blocks, resulting in a family tree for each satellite galaxy formed. Using the powerful supercomputer, they carried out six simulations in total and, in each case, found not only the correct number of satellites but also, surprisingly, that the eleven most massive satellite galaxies showed the same pancake-like distribution around the core galaxy that is observed in the satellites of the Milky Way. Far from challenging the current cosmological paradigm - the cold dark matter model - the findings of the group represent a triumph of the model and indicate that a coherent picture of how galaxies like the Milky Way emerged from the big bang is now beginning to fall into place³²⁹.
With old clusters of galaxies moving towards each other while shrinking and merging, and turning into new galaxies by attracting new gas as described on this website the small number of satellite galaxies and the flat circle of satellite galaxies comes in very naturally, as well as a big amount of dark matter in the form of old darkened stars. One may compare stars and dark matter in galaxies with a forest. In a forest most material resides in the forest in the form of dead material in the ground (dark matter), only a certain amount of the material is in the form of living plants and trees (stars). End May 3 2005]

[February 1 2008: This way of looking at clusters of galaxies is now starting to become common in astronomy: in the centers of clusters of galaxies there are old and dead galaxies where at the outskirts of the clusters new and fresh galaxies fall into the cluster⁴⁷⁷. Give them a little more time and they wil connect dark matter with old dark galaxies and old dark stars. End February 1 2008]

[December 2004: Also clusters may flow to other clusters and start rotating around each other.
At a distance of approximately 50 million light-years, the Virgo Cluster is the nearest galaxy cluster. It contains many hundreds of galaxies, ranging from giant and massive elliptical galaxies and spirals like our own Milky Way, to dwarf galaxies. Studies have revealed small “sub-clusters of galaxies” around the major galaxies Messier 87, Messier 86 and Messier 49 in the Virgo cluster²⁶⁴.
These sub-clusters may have originated from larger clusters that had shrunk and become nonluminous. Later newly attracted hydrogen from intercluster space may have lit up again the nonluminous galaxies within the then smaller clusters. End December 2004]

If one starts thinking about our Local Group on an extremely large time scale one may picture in the very far future our Local Group as shrunken heaps of dark matter, or as 20 (dark) members rotating around a central point, all slowly approaching this central point.
[June 2003: Galaxies (or clusters of galaxies) may shrink and become AGNs (5-1). Our Galaxy and the M31/M33 binary may become a 2-to-1 system (4-3) in the future in which the Milky Way, M31 and M33 have become 3 quasars (5-4). End June 2003]

[June 2003: An example of galaxies in the process of shrinking, orbiting and interacting may be the 2-to-1 system NGC 6769/NGC 6770 versus NGC 6771. Stars and gas are being stripped off NGC 6769 and NGC 6770, starting to form a common envelope around them. There is also a weak hint of a tenuous bridge between NGC 6769 and NGC 6771. These features testify to strong gravitational interaction between the three galaxies. The warped appearance of a dust lane in NGC 6771 might also be interpreted as more evidence of gravitational interactions¹⁷⁶. End June 2003]

[August 2004: Another example of galaxies in the process of shrinking, orbiting and interacting may be Seyfert's Sextet²²⁷. End August 2004]

[January 21 2006: More than half of the largest galaxies in the nearby universe have collided and merged with another galaxy in the past two billion years, according to a Yale astronomer in a study using hundreds of images from two of the deepest sky surveys ever conducted. The idea of large galaxies being assembled primarily by mergers rather than evolving by themselves in isolation has grown to dominate (conventional) cosmological (big bang) thinking. However, a troubling inconsistency within this general theory has been that the most massive galaxies appear to be the oldest, leaving minimal time since the big bang for the mergers to have occurred³⁸³. End January 21 2006]

[November 13 2006: Modern cosmological big bang models predict that small galaxies form first, and later assemble into larger systems like our Galaxy. Since the big bang universe initially only contained hydrogen and helium (most of all other chemical elements being synthesized inside stars), dwarf galaxies should have the lowest heavy element content. Not so, is recently said by big bang astronomers. As part of a large observational programme the amount of iron in over 2000 individual giant stars in the Fornax, Sculptor, Sextans and Carina dwarf spheroidals were measured. The data call into question the merger theory as the origin of large galaxies' haloes. Whilst the average abundances of elements in the dwarf spheroidals is comparable with that seen in the Galactic halo, the former are lacking the very metal-poor stars that are seen in the Milky Way - the two types of systems, contrary to theoretical predictions, are essentially of different descent. “Our results rule out any merging of the nearby dwarf galaxies as a mechanism for building up the Galactic halo, even in the early history of the universe,” say the big bang researchers⁴⁴⁴. End November 13 2006]

[October 24 2005: Located at a distance of about 45 million light-years NGC 1097 is a relatively bright, barred spiral galaxy seen face-on. The barred spiral galaxy has a very bright ring of stars and dust in its center. The ring surrounds a bright small nucleus that recently showed to have spiral structures³⁷². Perhaps the very center of NGC 1097, i.e. the small nucleus that is surrounded by the ring, is an extremely old shrunken cluster of galaxies, where the ring surrounding the small nucleus is a very old cluster of galaxies that was torn up in the form of a ring by the small nucleus. The rest of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1097, outside the ring, may have come to existence by a less old cluster of galaxies that was torn up by the ring and the small nucleus.
(You may like to see infrared pictures of the Andromeda galaxy³⁷⁵. Can it be that the very center of NGC 1097, i.e. the small nucleus with spiral structures that is surrounded by the ring, is what the whole Andromeda galaxy, with its bright outward laying dust ring surrounding the rest of the galaxy, is going to look in the very far future?) End October 24 2005]

During the tens, hundreds or even thousands of billion years the members of the Local Group and the Local Group itself shrink hydrogen may be attracted to the (dark) remains of the Local Group, thus finally producing a new galaxy with our darkened shrunken rotating Local Group as the new galaxy's nucleus.
Thus the galactic nucleus of our Galaxy, which is analogues to the nucleus of the Andromeda Galaxy, may be an old cluster itself. Perhaps it once was a cluster like our Local Group. Sgr A West has a spiral shape that looks like something between a Sc and SBc spiral galaxy (if so, then it rotates with a rotation axis that is perpendicular to the rotation axis of our spiral Galaxy, see also 4-4). Sgr A West may be an old spiral galaxy with Sgr A* as the nucleus of that old spiral galaxy. The oldest object in the Galactic nucleus may be the near-infrared source IRS16 (which may be the actual center of our Galaxy, rather than Sgr A*⁸).
[June 2004: Right now Sgr A* is seen as the very center of our galaxy¹²⁵. Perhaps Sgr A* is an old AGN (5-1). End June 2004]
[October 2003: Also Mitchell⁷⁵ has suggested that old galaxies may become the nuclei of new galaxies. End October 2003]

[September 2004: Sixty-eight million light-years away, the Antennae galaxies, two spiral galaxies are colliding. Photographs show that the arms of the galaxies are being shredded, but the centers of the galaxies seem to remain intact²⁵³. Perhaps that the centers, being very heavy, can keep on orbiting and approaching each other for a very long time, until they have become the kinematic center of a new (elliptical) galaxy. Big bang astronomers believe that the two Antennae galaxies will ultimately merge into one spheroidal-shaped (elliptical) galaxy where I think that the two galaxies will shrink and ultimately become the center of an elliptical galaxy. End September 2004]

[March 30 2005: It is generally accepted that galaxies merge. Bigger galaxies cannibalize smaller galaxies. When two big galaxies merge their centers are likely to become the nuclei of the new galaxy. I think that when two merged big originally spiral galaxies become very old they will darken and shrink with their nuclei still orbiting each other in the very center of the new galaxy. Such nuclei later on may explain the nuclei in AGNs (5-1, 5-3) or in the center of cD galaxies or giant ellipticals (4-3, 4-3), i.e. when the merged dark galaxies are refuelled with new hydrogen/gas from intergalactic or/and intercluster space. Blackened stars from the galaxies (outside of the old nuclei) finally may make up a sphere of dark matter objects, i.e. sphere-like as elliptical galaxies but then dark (actually, the dark matter objects of our Milky Way already may be a sphere too, 4-1). Such a black sphere may become a future elliptical galaxy when the sphere with dark matter objects is refuelled with new hydrogen/gas. An elliptical galaxy later on may turn into a spiral galaxy (4-3). Smaller cannibalized galaxies may lose stars that are relatively far from their centers while the centers itself may be massive enough to survive. Stripped of centers of smaller galaxies may explain objects like UCDs, globular clusters, open clusters and super star clusters. (Though, perhaps rather part of the explanation, because such objects may shrink, 4-4).
Summarizing: multiple spirals may turn into an elliptical, which may turn into a spiral, which may merge with other spirals into one elliptical, which may turn into a spiral, etc. End March 30 2005]

[April 2 2005: The Hubble Space Telescope has helped to reveal a trio of massive, young star clusters which might have been formed by smaller clusters merging together. This tightly packed group of clusters were found in the active star forming region of NGC 5461 (located inside spiral galaxy M101), which is located 23 million light-years away. In NGC 5461, the various clusters are distinct, but interacting with each other, and will eventually merge into a single, super cluster. If NGC 5461 were several times farther away, even the Hubble Space Telescope would be unable to resolve this tight group of clusters. Therefore it is possible that some of the super-star clusters previously reported in distant galaxies actually consist of groups of clusters similar to NGC 5461. The Hubble Space Telescope images of NGC 5461 provide a unique glimpse of a super-star cluster in the making, according to big bang astronomers. There is no super-star cluster yet, but it is just a matter of time, they say³¹⁴.
Dwarf ellipticals may become ultra-compact dwarfs which may be progenitors of globular clusters which may be progenitors of super star clusters which may be progenitors of star clusters (with no merging and the objects becoming old without extra supply of hydrogen/gas, 4-4). Next to this multiple dwarf ellipticals may merge into a bigger elliptical or spiral galaxy, or, as mentioned by the big bang team, multiple star clusters may merge into a super star cluster. It may be kind of the same as with ellipticals turning into spirals and spirals turning into ellipticals (4-1). Perhaps that in general most of the merging takes place when the objects have darkened, because the dark/non-luminous phase of galaxies (and stars) may be longer then the luminous phase (which then may be (part of) the explanation why there seems to be 5 times more dark matter than luminous matter). One may have to take in mind here that in all cases merging may be sooner to be expected when (new) hydrogen/gas from intergalactic/intercluster space falls into the objects.
A similar thing may happen with galaxies and clusters of galaxies turning into AGNs and vice versa (5-3) as well as with individual stars. Actually, this is what much of this website is about: objects in the universe shrink/“burn” everywhere while darkening. So objects become smaller. At the same time they, or what's left of them, (eventually) merge by gravity, and one day they will be fueled with new hydrogen/gas. So (multiple) objects become bigger (by merging plus hydrogen/gas). End April 2 2005]

[April 1 2005: The W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii observed two galaxies merging over 5 billion light-years away from us. Both galaxies seem to have used up all their gas. Big bang astronomers think mergers tend to trigger the formation of new stars by shocking and compressing clouds of gas. So the researchers were surprised to find that the system with a double nucleus is dominated by relatively red stars and does not appear to be producing many blue stars. According to the prevailing big bang theory of hierarchical galaxy formation, large galaxies are built up over billions of years through mergers between smaller galaxies. Big bang astronomers think that mergers trigger star formation, and so it is difficult for them to explain the existence of very large galaxies that lack significant populations of blue (what big bang astronomers call young, 4-4) stars³¹¹.
The system with a double nucleus may be a merging of two very old darkened galaxies that are being fueled with new gas. The new gas may have gone to the center first where it lights up the two nuclei as well as old (relatively) small dark matter objects (which then turn into relatively red stars) that surround the nuclei. Perhaps that the double nucleus system will appear to be or turn into a cD galaxy or a giant elliptical galaxy (4-1). End April 1 2005]

Thus clusters (and galaxies) may shrink, darken, attract hydrogen and become luminous again, but then as a galaxy. Or a supercluster may shrink, darken, attract hydrogen and become luminous again, but then as a cluster. Or a super-supercluster may shrink, darken, attract hydrogen and become luminous again, but then as a supercluster. (Within the “lifetime” of a supercluster or a super-supercluster there will be many smaller clusters inside the supercluster or super-supercluster that become dark and later become luminous again, the small ones as galaxies.)

Perhaps there is always a bigger cluster to be found that shrinks too. And: perhaps not. Small amounts of dark matter in enormous large nonluminous voids may assemble hydrogen and thus slowly build up a new supercluster (3-2, 5-4). End May 2003]

[August 2004: Perhaps many old galaxies of an old cluster of galaxies have shrunken very much and finally were refuelled with gas and thus lighted up as globular clusters in the elliptical galaxy NGC 4365²³⁶. Thus NGC 4365 may be a former cluster of galaxies. End August 2004]

[August 2004: Certain measurements concerning gravitational lensing may be evidence for dark g-galaxies. The evidence comes from a 10-year census of the sky for examples of gravitational lenses, which are seen when a galaxy bends the light from a distant quasar to form several images of the same quasar. Linking the number of lenses big bang astronomers found with the latest information on the numbers of (luminous) galaxies that there is more gravitational lensing where it comes to the lensing of quasars than can be accounted for with the present numbers of luminous galaxies²²⁴. Non-luminous galaxies or g-galaxies may explain part of the gravitational lensing. End August 2004]

[February 17 2005: The National Science Foundation's Arecibo Observatory telescope, the world's largest and most sensitive single-dish radio telescope, is beginning a years-long survey of distant galaxies. The telescope will take advantage of a new instrument, installed last year, which is essentially a seven-pixel camera with unprecedented sensitivity for making radio pictures of the sky. It operates at radio frequencies near 1420 MHz, a frequency range that includes a spectral line emitted by neutral atomic hydrogen.
The survey will provide a comprehensive census of the gaseous content of the near universe and it will explore galaxies in groups and clusters (out to a distance of 800 million light years from our galaxy in nearly one-sixth of the sky) and investigate the efficiency by which galaxies convert gas into stars. What particularly intrigues the researchers is that the survey may determine gas-rich systems of low mass that have not been able to convert their cosmic material into stars - the so-called dark galaxies. Because these galaxies, being starless, are optically inert, it is hoped that they can be detected by their hydrogen signature²⁷⁸.
I think the survey indeed will show the existence of dark galaxies. Within an infinite universe as described in this chapter one expects to find dark galaxies. In the centers of large nonluminous voids one also may expect to find clusters of dark galaxies (or what I call g-galaxies, 4-1). End February 17 2005]
[February 26 2005: A galaxy that is made almost entirely of dark matter has been discovered by a team of astronomers. It's the first galaxy found to have no stars at all. The dark galaxy, named VIRGO HI21, is in the Virgo cluster, a large group of galaxies about 50 million light years away. It has roughly 10% of the mass of our own Galaxy, the Milky Way. The researchers detected the characteristic radio-frequency signature of neutral hydrogen atom using the Lovell Telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory near Manchester, UK. They found that the hydrogen was swirling in exactly the same way as it would swirl around a normal, brightly lit galaxy. At first, they assumed that they were simply looking at a dim, dwarf galaxy. But by watching how the hydrogen moved, the researchers were able to calculate that the mass of the galaxy is relatively large. However, normal matter packed that close should have ignited some stars the team says. The galaxy hasn't converted any gas into stars at all. The observations of VIRGOHI 21 are consistent with the hydrogen being in a flat disc of rotating material - which is what is seen in ordinary spiral galaxies. The astronomers used the powerful Isaac Newton Telescope on La Palma in Spain's Canary Islands, to look for any scraps of visible light from the area; they found nothing. The most likely explanation is that the galaxy is made of dark matter, the astronomers say²⁸¹.
VIRGOHI 21 may be a very old galaxy or a very old cluster of galaxies in which all stars have blackened. The hydrogen that has been measured may be old gas that has been thrown out of the galaxy or it may be hydrogen from intergalactic or intercluster space that has started to swirl towards and around the old darkened galaxy or cluster of galaxies. End February 26 2005]

[March 20 2005: The big bang astronomers have calculated that VIRGOHI 21 is a thousand times more massive than could be accounted for by the observed hydrogen atoms alone²⁸⁹. This may be the kind of magnitude that you expect when a massive very old cluster has gone dark and has attracted new hydrogen which has not lit up new stars yet. End March 20 2005]

[January 24 2006: New observations, made with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands, show that the hydrogen gas in VIRGOHI 21 appears to be rotating, implying a dark galaxy with over ten billion times the mass of the Sun. Only one percent of this mass has been detected as neutral hydrogen - the rest appears to be dark matter³⁹⁶. End January 24 2006]

[April 12 2006: First results from the Arecibo Galaxy Environment Survey (AGES) suggest the discovery of a new dark galaxy. The AGES survey is the most sensitive, large-scale survey of neutral hydrogen to date. Neutral hydrogen is found in most galaxies and it is a key tool in the search for dark galaxies. The new candidate dark galaxy is located near NGC1156, an apparently isolated, irregularly-shaped galaxy found at the edge of the Aries constellation. The first observations in the AGES programme identified a number of new galaxies. One newly discovered source is approximately 153 million light-years from Earth and appears to be 200,000 light-years across. There is no obvious optical counterpart to the massive object⁴¹³. End April 12 2006]

What I call a g-galaxy is, of course, nothing else than a shrunk cluster of galaxies that may be luminous, dark or partly dark. For example: the smallest g-galaxy we live in is our Galaxy plus the smaller galaxies surrounding it up to 250 kpc. A bigger g-galaxy is our Local Group. A far more bigger g-galaxy (which one may call a giant g-galaxy) is our Local Supercluster. All those g-galaxies may contain dark (or almost dark) galaxies that we have not observed yet. Our Local Supercluster may also contain dark g-galaxies (perhaps even our Local Group has a dark galaxy or even a (small) dark g-galaxy somewhere).

[July 10 2006: Arp 220 may be an example of a g-galaxy that was fed by new hydrogen gas, thus having very much gas, dust (by clashing old remnants of stars) and bright new stars. Arp 220 is believed to become an elliptical galaxy in the future⁴²¹. G-galaxies are described on this website as progenitors of (big) elliptical galaxies. The many star clusters in Arp 220, star clusters with many stars in a small volume, may be descendants from old shrunken and blackened dwarf ellipticals of the old g-galaxy or old cluster of galaxies.

One of the biggest brightest clusters of stars in the sky is 47 Tucanae. Located about 16,000 light years away, this globular cluster contains a million times the mass of our Sun, and measures 120 light years across. The stars in the cluster are so dense, they average only 1/10th a light year apart; approximately the size of the Solar System⁴²². 47 Tucanae may originate from an old dwarf elliptical. End July 10 2006]

[March 17 2006: Current (conventional big bang) theories of galactic evolution assume that dark-matter wells acted as a sort of “seed” for today's galaxies, with the dark matter pulling in smaller groups of stars as they passed nearby. Galaxies like Andromeda and the Milky Way are expected to have each probably gobbled up about 200 smaller galaxies and protogalactic fragments over the last 12 billion (big bang) years⁴⁰⁶. This is quite close to the way I think galaxies come to existence; the difference is that I think in much longer time spans within an infinite universe in which dark matter naturally comes up in the form of old (dark) remnants of planets, stars and galaxies. End March 17 2006]

[July 10 2006: A new study from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggests that galaxies form within clumps of dark matter. It suggests that not only is dark matter necessary, but a minimum quantity of the material must be present before a galaxy can form⁴²³. Perhaps g-galaxies must have a certain amount of (dark) mass (in the form of old blackened stars) to attract enough gas from intergalactic or intercluster space to form new stars. End July 10 2006]

[July 11 2006: European astronomers have discovered a primordial “blob” of dark matter located at a distance of 11.6 billion big bang light-years (redshift 3.16). This gigantic object is twice as large as the Milky Way, but it only emits as much energy as 2 billion suns. The discovery was made using the ESO's Very Large Telescope by surveying the sky in a narrow spectrum of radiation designed to highlight primordial hydrogen atoms. The astronomers think they're seeing large quantities of gas falling into a clump of dark matter, which could go on to build a large galaxy like the Milky Way⁴²⁶.
The “blob” may be an old cluster of galaxies with lots of old blackened stars that has attracted hydrogen from intercluster space. (The “blob” may be bigger as expected now by the big bang astronomers, 5-3.) End July 11 2006]

During their life stars “burn” gas and thus become stronger concentrated objects, i.e. objects with less mass but with much higher density. In 3-2 it is pointed out that objects with higher densities are more difficult for gravity to get “grip” on. Thus dark (or partly dark) g-galaxies, galaxies, star clusters or dark stars (that have shrunk and have become “denser”) may leave the system (they are in) and shoot apart into space.
[July 10 2006: A team of international scientists found a comet-like ball of gas over a billion times the mass of the sun hurling through the distant galaxy cluster galaxy Abell 3266 over 750 kilometers per second. This colossal “ball of fire” is by far the largest object of this kind ever identified. The scientists think that the giant gas ball is held together by the gravitational attraction of unseen dark matter⁴²⁴. Perhaps the “ball of fire” escaped from a galaxy or from a galaxy cluster because the galaxy or galaxy cluster shrunk and lost mass. The “ball of fire” may be an old shrunken (part of an) galaxy or even an old shrunken (small) cluster of galaxies with lots of old blackened stars that has gained new gas (perhaps by entering Abell 3266 which has a lot of gas). End July 10 2006]
There are reports on stars escaping galaxies (and stars ripped out of star clusters¹⁵⁶), but the number of dark matter objects (like blackened stars and blackened white dwarfs, 4-1) leaving galaxies may be much higher. Dark matter objects can be in intergalactic or intercluster space for enormous times until they are attracted to a galaxy or a cluster of galaxies again. [February 2004: Or they concentrate (with other dark matter objects) in a non-luminous void and start a completely new (first very small galaxy, or rather: group of stars) in a non-luminous void, 4-1. End February 2004]
[November 2004: The Sun and most stars near it follow an orderly, almost circular orbit around the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Using data from ESA's Hipparcos satellite, a team of European astronomers has now discovered several groups of “rebel” stars that move in peculiar directions, mostly towards the galactic centre or away from it, running like the spokes of a wheel. These rebels account for about 20% of the stars within 1000 light-years of the Sun, itself located about 25 000 light-years away from the centre of the Milky Way. The data show that rebels in the same group have little to do with each other. They have different ages so, according to big bang scientists, they cannot have formed at the same time nor in the same place. Instead, they must have been forced together²⁵⁸.
Thus, it may be likely that quite some stars can leave galaxies during the lifetime of galaxies. End November 2004]
[September 25 2005: Case Western Reserve University astronomers have captured the deepest wide-field image ever of the nearby Virgo cluster of galaxies, directly revealing for the first time a vast, complex web of “intracluster starlight” - nearly 1,000 times fainter than the dark night sky - filling the space between the galaxies within the cluster. The streamers, plumes and cocoons that make up this extremely faint starlight are made of stars ripped out of galaxies as they collide with one another inside the cluster, and act as a sort of “archaeological record” of the violent lives of cluster galaxies³⁷¹.
Thus, there seems to be prove for many stars leaving galaxies during the lifetime of galaxies. End September 25 2005]

[February 2005: Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics are the first to report the discovery of a star leaving our galaxy, speeding along at over 1.5 million miles per hour. The star is traveling twice as fast as galactic escape velocity, meaning that the Milky Way's gravity will not be able to hold onto it²⁸⁰. End February 2005]
[February 13 2006: Five stars are speeding out of the Milky Way now are known, making them a new class of objects known as hypervelocity stars³⁹⁸. End February 13 2006]

[September 7 2005: Pulsar B1508+55, about 7700 light-years from Earth, moves with a speed of nearly 1100 kilometers per second. The pulsar is propelling out of our Milky Way Galaxy into intergalactic space³⁵⁵. End September 7 2005]

[December 2004: The first discoveries of intracluster stars in the Virgo cluster were made serendipitously by Italian astronomer, Magda Arnaboldi (Torino Observatory, Italy) and her colleagues, in 1996. Since these first observations, several hundreds of these intracluster stars have been discovered. They must represent the tip of the iceberg of a huge population of stars swarming among the galaxies in clusters. There must thus be a comparable number of stars in between galaxies as in the galaxies themselves. But because they are diluted in such a huge volume, they are barely detectable. Big bang astronomers think that the most likely explanation for their presence in the intracluster space is that they formed within individual galaxies, which were subsequently stripped of many of their stars during close encounters with other galaxies during the initial stages of cluster formation. These “lost” stars were then dispersed into intracluster space²⁶⁴. End December 2004]

Escaping dark matter objects may explain the presence of intracluster stars, which now are thought to be stripped of from parent galaxies during close encounters with other galaxies during the initial stages of (big bang) cluster formation²⁶ (which is, of course, very different than the on this website described way of cluster formation). (Next to dark matter objects in intergalactic space there must be hydrogen in intergalactic space too in order to explain intracluster stars: radio loud activity by quasars and radio galaxies may be a hydrogen production mechanism, see 5-2.)
Next to (high density) dark matter objects leaving a galaxy there may be shrunk galaxies too that leave clusters because their density has become higher (3-2). And: perhaps that (shrunk) clusters can leave superclusters this way.

Thus there may be very much dark matter everywhere throughout the universe, of all kind of ages, in all kind of magnitudes and in all kind of concentrations. There may be dark matter in galaxies everywhere (for instance dark stars (or dark stars that have merged) in the halo, often called MACHOs: massive compact halo objects) and outside galaxies everywhere and outside galaxy clusters everywhere.

Planets and brown dwarfs, dark(ened) stars, or dark(ened) stars that have merged into one object, or (big) remains of clashed dark stars (like asteroids) or (aggregated) material (without gas fusion) ejected by supernovae (5-2)/X-ray bursters (5-2)/radio loud activity (5-2): I call such objects dark matter objects (7-1).

Examples of dark baryonic matter: dark g-galaxies, dark galaxies, dark matter objects and dust (perhaps also heavy elements if heavy elements are separated from protons during radio loud activity, see 5-3; though then, of course, one should also call protons dark matter, it is something arbitrary).
Examples of dark non-baryonic matter: radiation, neutrinos and ether particles (that may have different magnitudes, i.e. there may be larger and smaller ether particles, see 3-1).

Recently a team of astronomers have observed 29 galaxies in the cluster Abell 160, 19 of them appear to be moving on roughly circular orbits while 10 seem to be moving on more radial paths^30,205. This was the first time astronomers had measured a preference for circular orbits in a cluster, so from here there may be much more information to be expected concerning the dynamics of clusters. My guess is that it will turn out that clusters are formed as described in this chapter: slowly moving towards each other in shrinking (more or less) circular orbits.

The rotation of the galaxies in Fig. 4-1-I are all the same (look at the (poorly drawn) arms of the spirals in Fig 4-1-I) as well as the directions of orbiting of the individual galaxies within the 4 sub-g-galaxies, and also: the directions of orbiting of the 4 sub-g-galaxies within the larger g-galaxy is the same.
When two galaxies orbit each other with “discordant dynamics” then those 2 galaxies may become irregular galaxies (4-4). Directions of rotation being the same as the directions of orbiting may be important for the stability of astronomical systems (see also 7-1).

When clusters of galaxies consist of multiple (sub-)g-galaxies all kind of things can happen with respect to the direction of orbiting of sub-g-galaxies. Perhaps only a few clusters will be very stable clusters as shown in Fig. 4-1-I, perhaps mostly there are some dissonants, some galaxies or g-galaxies that orbit/rotate different.
Perhaps this can lead to clues concerning regular clusters (4-4).

William Tifft²⁷, Arp²⁹ and Napier and Guthrie²⁹ have reported on redshift periodicities within galaxy clusters.
Tifft found galaxies in clusters to be quantized in 72 km/s steps. Napier and Guthrie checked this and found the galaxies in the outer regions of clusters to be quantized in 72 km/s steps and in the inner regions in 37.5 km/s steps, about half of 72 km/s.

Fig. 4-1-I shows that the outer regions in some clusters may indeed be likely to show a higher quantized redshift step than the inner regions.
The inner galaxies may orbit each other a little faster than half of 72 km/s (like 37.5 km/s, as measured by Guthrie/Napier), for when the orbit-circles/ellipses of individual galaxies within a sub-g-galaxy shrink while the sub-g-galaxy moves more and more to the center of a larger g-galaxy the orbiting velocities of the galaxies may fasten (as is the case with binary stars that fasten their orbiting velocities while they more and more approach each other).

Redshifts of galaxies may not only be quantized, but possible variable as well according to Tifft, which may be easily explained with (individual) galaxies moving around in (sub) orbits in sub-g-galaxies.

William Tifft also found that the redshift differences between the arms in spirals show a quantized redshift difference of 72 km/s, which may make sense.
When two galaxies, both rotating with 36 km/s, orbit each other with 36 km/s finally merge into one object, then the rotation of this new object may become 72 km/s (or higher, for instance 2 x 37.5 km/s). Such an object may attract hydrogen and (finally) become the nucleus of a new spiral galaxy, as argued above with “Galaxy et al and Andromeda et al” (4-1).
Thus the new spiral may end up rotating with the velocity of the nucleus: 72 km/s . Thus it may be that the 72 km/s redshift periodicity of galaxies in clusters also shows up as a 72 km/s quantization of redshift differences between the arms in spirals.

As mentioned: galaxies orbiting each other and going to each other may speed up their orbiting velocities while their orbits shrink, which may cause the 37.5 km/s instead of 36. But also: when the new object (of two merged galaxies) attracts hydrogen and brings the hydrogen/stars into rotation, thus producing a new spiral, the object/nucleus will loose rotation speed. Perhaps that speeding up while shrinking and slowing down while attracting new hydrogen counterbalance, thus the 72 km/s redshift difference between arms in spirals may show up again. End May 2003]

Such galaxies have been found: Blue Compact Dwarfs (BCDs), small compact galaxies with blue stars. They are found far away (over 12 billion lightyears), which makes sense because big nonluminous voids often are found far away (but also because such galaxies with many concentrated bright blue stars are better seen at large distances than normal galaxies).

Within the class of dwarf galaxies, the Blue Compact Dwarfs appear dominated by a recent burst of star formation, which causes their extremely blue colors. It has been proposed that some of these galaxies (the lowest metallicity ones) there are truly young objects, experiencing their very first star formation episode³¹.

I think BCDs may start out as old shrunken (dark) galaxies or shrunken (dark) clusters of galaxies, or as assemblages of old remnants of stars and galaxies that have been thrown out of luminous walls and bridges (such remnants will be attracted to other remnants which then will concentrate in the centers of nonluminous voids). Shrunken galaxies or shrunken clusters of galaxies or concentrations of (“thrown out”) old dark matter then will attract hydrogen from intergalactic space which will stream towards the old dark matter objects in the center of the assemblage, thus fuelling (large, partly merged) dark matter objects that light up as bright blue stars. BCDs later may evolve into giant ellipticals (or cD galaxies) (4-3). (Perhaps it is most likely that such BCDs originate as assemblages of material that have been “thrown out” of the luminous walls and bridges in the universe, like pulsars, white dwarfs, stars, blackened (remnants of) stars or (blackened) clusters of stars or even (blackened) galaxies or (small) clusters of galaxies that have left the walls and bridges.)

(Of course, one also expects very small baby galaxies with relatively little dark matter lighting up in nonluminous voids, but such galaxies produce little light and therefore so far may not have been seen.)

One blue dwarf galaxy is found relatively nearby at 68.5 million lightyears: POX 186. It has been studied by Corbin and Vacca³² with the Hubble Space Telescope. They found a ultracompact dwarf galaxy with 10 million very hot blue stars in a nonluminous void of 30 million lightyears across (i.e. POX 186 lies in the middle of a giant nonluminous void).
They found K and early M type stars in the outer regions of POX 186, which may be easily explained: hydrogen will first get concentrated at the center of a BCD when not much hydrogen is attracted to the BCD yet, which leaves little hydrogen for the outer regions. And: the outer regions may contain less heavy (by merging; or by long (star) evolution, see 7-1) dark matter objects relative to the center of the BCD. End May 2003]

[July 5 2005: Fiona Hoyle of Widener University presented the discovery of a thousand galaxies in the lonely wilds of the cosmic voids at the 206th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The voids are typically 100 million light-years across, and yet they contain only a few galaxies each. Taken together, the voids fill 40 percent of the volume of the universe, but their galaxies account for less than 5 percent of all galaxies. “Void galaxies had been observed previously, but this is the first statistical sample,” says Hoyle. She and her collaborators were able to identify a large population of galactic oases in the huge map provided by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The researchers found that these galaxies tend to form near the edges, as opposed to the centers, of the voids, like hermits that want to remain within earshot of civilization. But the most remarkable finding for the researchers was how blue the void galaxies appear. The blue color indicates that they are still busy making stars³⁴⁰.
As mentioned above blue galaxies is what one may expect to find in nonluminous voids. However, I rather had expected them to be found in the centers of voids; perhaps gravity pulls embryonic galaxies out of the voids and towards the great walls and bridges. Perhaps that new embryonic galaxies are only to stay in the center of a (nonluminous) void when the (nonluminous) void is very big with the big (“neighbouring”) heaps of matter (in the form of luminous walls and bridges) very far away and in (sufficient-)equal amounts at the edges of the void (sufficient-equal so the mass/embryonic galaxy in the center of the void is pulled (or rather pushed, see 3-2) by gravity from all sides in equal amounts). End July 2005]

[February 2004: Another example of a “baby galaxy” may be the so-called Lynx arc at 12 billion years. In October 2003 this arc was reported⁷⁹ to be the brightest and hottest star-forming region ever seen in space. End February 2004]

[August 2004: Astronomers have observed huge amounts of very cold dust around Blue Compact Dwarfs. The scientists propose that this dust is so cold because it surrounds the galaxy, far away from the stars. They believe that a dusty mixture of intergalactic gas surrounds the BCDs, which the galaxies are still accumulating, leading to their further evolution²³⁷. The dust may be old dust from old remnants of old (darkened) galaxies. End August 2004]

[December 2004: NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has detected an extensive envelope of dark matter around an isolated elliptical galaxy. The observed galaxy, known as NGC 4555, is unusual in that it is a fairly large, elliptical galaxy that is not part of a group or cluster of galaxies. The Chandra data show that the galaxy is embedded in a cloud of 10-million-degree-Celsius gas. This hot gas cloud has a diameter of about 400,000 light years, about twice that of the visible galaxy. An enormous envelope, or halo, of dark matter is needed to confine the hot cloud to the galaxy. The total mass of the dark matter halo is about ten times the combined mass of the stars in the galaxy, and 300 times the mass of the hot gas cloud²⁶⁰.
NGC 4555 may be a baby galaxy too. It may be an example of elliptical galaxy coming to existence. The dark matter halo then may be the remnant of the old darkened galaxy or cluster of galaxies. The gas may have been attracted to the old dark (g-)galaxy and may have streamed towards the center of the old (g-)galaxy where it concentrated itself and started lightning up stars in the center. NGC 4555 being isolated thus may be an example of a galaxy coming to existence in the middle of a nonluminous void. It may be likely that other old nonluminous galaxies surround NGC 4555. I predict that elliptical galaxies surrounded by dark matter halos are more likely to be found as isolated galaxies than as galaxies that are in the center of clusters of galaxies, because in clusters of galaxies the ellipticals are more likely to have assembled gas around most or all dark matter objects.
Another team found little, if any evidence of dark matter in three elliptical galaxies (4-4). According to the galaxy formation theory on this website elliptical galaxies both can have dark matter halos, as in the here described case with NGC 4555, as well as no dark matter halos. End December 2004]

[January 2005: Much to the surprise of (big bang) astronomers NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer has spotted what appear to be massive (what they call) “baby” galaxies. Previously, (big bang) astronomers thought the (big bang) universe's birth rate had dramatically declined and only small galaxies were forming. Three-dozen bright, compact galaxies were found to be relatively close to us, ranging from two to four billion light-years away. They were estimated to be 100 million to one billion years old. The new discoveries are of a type called ultraviolet luminous galaxies. They were discovered after the Galaxy Evolution Explorer scanned a large portion of the sky with its highly sensitive ultraviolet light detectors. Since young stars pack most of their light into ultraviolet wavelengths, young galaxies appear to the spacecraft like diamonds in a field of stones. Astronomers mined for these rare gems before, but missed them because they weren't able to examine a large enough slice of the sky. The newfound galaxies are about 10 times as bright in ultraviolet wavelengths as the Milky Way. This indicates they are teeming with violent star-forming regions and exploding supernova, which are characteristics of youth²⁶⁸.
In an infinite universe one expects to find young galaxies everywhere throughout the universe. In an infinite universe galaxies in general are likely to be much older than expected so far. For instance, our Milky Way is now thought to be approximately 10 billion years old, but may be much older. With galaxies being much older than expected so far young galaxies will be rare indeed. End January 2005]

[August 2004: Big bang astronomers think that gas filaments in the Universe are distributed very much like dark matter in the Universe²⁴⁵. If most dark matter in the Universe consists of dark galaxies then those dark galaxies attract gas, which then may be the explanation for the correlation between the gas and dark matter distribution in the Universe. End August 2004]

[August 2004: The existence of invisible dark matter has been determined from its gravitational pull on stars and galaxies. Calculations suggest that it fills the Universe, making up 80% of all of the matter in the Universe, and is five times more abundant than ordinary matter. Big bang astronomers think that when it clumps together it seeds the formation of galaxies (which is pretty much the same as I suggest here in this chapter) and that its gravitational pull also holds together clusters of galaxies. In a recent study, Taylor and colleagues made a detailed analysis of the dark matter in the Abell 901/2 supercluster, one of the largest structures in the Universe. The enormous structure, some 10 million light years across, contains a group of galaxy clusters known as Abell 901a, 901b and Abell 902. Their image of the dark matter was obtained by analysing the gravitationally lensed images of 50,000 galaxies. It showed that not only do the galaxies we see lie within larger dark matter clumps, but that these clumps are connected by “cosmic filaments” - bridges of dark matter connecting the clusters²⁴³.
I think that the dark matter clumps and bridges consist of old darkened galaxies. End August 2004]

[May 2004: When elliptical galaxies shrink into spirals as suggested in 4-4 then it is no surprise that we find much dark matter in the halo of our Milky Way. Missing dark matter in our halo therefore can be seen as a confirmation of the in this chapter presented way of looking at galaxy formation.
Lately it has turned out the Milky Way's unseen dark matter is in a spherical distribution (in the halo of the Milky Way), a result that was quite unexpected¹¹⁵. When ellipticals shrink into spirals this is something one may expect (4-4). End May 2004]
[June 2004: The unseen dark matter rather may be in a flattened sphere¹²⁹, which I guess makes more sense when one expects the unseen matter to rotate (too) and therefore flatten (too). End June 2004]

[May 2004: Thus much dark matter can be expected in the halo's of spiral galaxies. Within clusters of galaxies the situation is different. Within clusters one may expect old darkened galaxies concentrating towards the center of the cluster, which was measured last year⁹⁵.
To make a dark matter map of the cluster CL0024+1654 at 4.5 billion light-years astronomers focussed on much fainter, more distant galaxies behind the cluster. The shapes of these distant systems are distorted by the gravity of the foreground cluster. This distortion provides a measure of the cluster mass, a phenomenon known as weak gravitational lensing.
The investigation resulted in the most comprehensive study of the distribution of dark matter in a galaxy cluster at that time (2003) and extended more than 20 million light-years from its centre, much further than previous investigations. The study revealed that the density of dark matter on large scales drops sharply with distance from the cluster centre.
The team noticed that dark matter appeared to clump together in their map. For example, they found concentrations of dark matter associated with galaxies known to be slowly falling into the system. The overall association of dark matter and luminous matter (galaxies) was seen by the team as very convincing evidence that structures like CL0024+1654 grow by merging of smaller groups of galaxies⁹⁵. This is exactly what you expect when galaxies slowly move towards each other by gravity while shrinking and becoming dark as suggested in this chapter (4-1).
Another team of astronomers observed a cluster of galaxies called Abell 2029 located about a billion light years from Earth. The cluster is composed of thousands of galaxies enveloped in a gigantic cloud of hot gas, and an amount of dark matter equivalent to more than a hundred trillion Suns. X-ray data showed that also in Abell 2029 the density of dark matter increases smoothly all the way into the central galaxy of the cluster¹⁰⁵. End May 2004]

[May 2003: Prominent dissident scientists like Assis², Ghosh³ and Van Flandern⁵ all have modified Newton's law of universal gravitation. The modified laws show no or less need for massive (missing) amounts of dark (baryonic) matter.

They may be right, but still, if we live in an infinite old universe then where is all the old dark matter of the countless white dwarfs that turned into black dwarfs and also the perhaps even much more numerous brown dwarfs? How much dark matter is floating in our universe if our universe is endless old? Perhaps that much dark matter that an equilibrium has established itself concerning dark matter versus luminous matter.
In an endless universe all kind of equilibriums must have established itself, like baryonic matter versus non-baryonic matter (3-2, 6-1), and: an equilibrium temperature (or: low energy photons versus high energy photons, 4-2).
It may turn out to be likely that there is (much) more nonluminous (dark baryonic) matter than luminous matter.

The main difference between other dissident thinkers and me is: other dissident thinkers connect everything to a new way of looking at gravity/ether (Parts 2 and 3), meanwhile rejecting dark matter [September 9 2005: see for instance reference^{356, 357} End September 9 2005], where I connect everything to a new way of looking at gravity/ether (Parts 2 and 3) and dark matter (Parts 4,5,6 and 7). End May 2003]

[September 5 2006: Recently some scientists claim that certain observations concerning galaxy cluster 1E0657-56 showed that dark matter really exists. They also claim that the observations show that proposed alternative theories for gravity where it is stronger on intergalactic scales than predicted by Newton and Einstein, removing the need for dark matter, can not be right⁴²⁸. End September 5 2006]

[January 30 2008: Astronomers have found a dark galaxy by gravitational lensing. The foreground galaxy is almost perfectly aligned in the sky with two background galaxies at different distances. The foreground galaxy is 3 billion light-years away. Two Einstein rings, an inner ring and outer ring, are comprised of multiple images of two galaxies at a distance of 6 billion and approximately 11 billion light-years. The geometry of the two Einstein rings allowed the team to measure the mass of the foreground to be a value of 1 billion solar masses. The team reports that this is the first measurement of the mass of a dwarf galaxy at cosmological distance (redshift of z=0.6)⁴⁷⁴.
I think the foreground galaxy is a darkened and shrunken old galaxy. End January 30 2008]

[January 23 2006: The Magellanic Clouds appear to be interacting with the Milky Way's dark matter to create a warp in the galactic disk that has puzzled astronomers for half a century. The warp, seen most clearly in the thin disk of hydrogen gas permeating the galaxy, extends across the entire 200,000-light year diameter of the Milky Way. A team of astronomers created a computer model that takes into account the Milky Way's dark matter, which, though invisible, is thought to be 20 times more massive than all visible matter in the galaxy combined. The motion of the Magellanic Clouds through the dark matter creates a wake that enhances their gravitational influence on the disk. When this dark matter is included, the Magellanic Clouds, in their orbit around the Milky Way, very closely reproduce the type of warp observed in the galaxy. This is seen as evidence for the existence of dark matter³⁹¹.
Decennia ago astronomers built that much better telescopes that they were able to measure the velocities of stars and gas in the outer regions of our galaxy. They discovered these stars were moving far faster than would be expected from the observed number and mass of stars in the entire Milky Way. Only by invoking a then-heretical notion, that 80 percent of the galaxy's mass was too dark to see, could astronomers reconcile the velocities with known theories of physics. Dissident physicists, however, have come up with an alternative theory of gravity called Modified Newtonian Dynamics, or MOND, that seeks to explain these observations without resorting to belief in a large amount of undetected mass in the universe. Though MOND can explain some things, conventional astronomers think the theory will have a hard time explaining the Milky Way's warp³⁹¹.
Also the gravitational lensing effect galaxies and galaxy clusters have on the light from background galaxies can be seen as evidence for the existence of dark matter^{385, 387, 391}.
Right now big bang astronomers describe the evolution of galaxy clusters in the early universe with the help of dark matter. They see it as evidence for the existence of dark matter^{390, 391}. I think there never was a big bang, but I agree with the big bang astronomers that you need dark matter (old darkened clusters of galaxies, darkened galaxies and darkened stars) to start up new galaxies by attracting new intergalactic hydrogen by the gravity of the old remains. End January 23 2006]

Thus more and more dark/luminous matter can come to rotate around a central core (the center of this core may or may not be empty like the eye of a tornado, or like the very center of our Galaxy [July 2004: the center of the Milky Way is not empty, i.e. Sagittarius A* is seen as the center of the Milky Way End July 2004]). This way galaxy-galaxies, or g-galaxies (and galaxies, see hereafter), may turn into extremely compact rotating engines or, what I call, universal engines.

Perhaps that a universal engine can also originate from a nuclear bulge of a galaxy, for instance the nuclear bulge of our Galaxy. Thus the nuclear bulge of our Galaxy later may become (the compact source of a) a quasar (5-4).

Universal engines in general may become AGNs, depending on their size (5-1). Small universal engines may not be able to end up as an AGN; for instance: it may turn out that Fornax, which may have a small universal engine, never will end up as an AGN, because the universal engine + the galaxy surrounding it, i.e. Fornax, may be too small. Fornax may end up as a globular cluster that may end up as a supernovae (5-2).

There may be many giant universal engines attracting hydrogen and thus causing giant galaxies to come to existence, or giant universal engines may come to function as a “great attractor”, like the Great Attractor concerning our Local Supercluster (5-3).

But there may be much more dwarf universal engines that originate dwarf elliptical galaxies or that end up as an invisible “attractors” to groups of stars.
The individual stellar proper motions of stars in a cluster of stars often appear to converge to a single point in our Galaxy⁸. Perhaps a strong concentration of dark matter can be found in such points. Strong concentrations of dark matter in our Milky Way thus may cause local voids throughout our Milky Way, like our Local Bell.
Local voids may arise too if stars are formed by hydrogen wrapping itself around old (cold) dark matter objects (7-1). Dark matter objects being absent in local voids would then cause a local void (too).
(The general current theory is that those “bells” have come to existence by explosions, which, of course, may be true (too).)

[May 2003: Perhaps g-galaxies/universal engines have already been seen: Barnard 68 may be one³³. But then a very small (and very old) one, because it is located in our Galaxy at 300 ly. Barnard 68 may be a heap of many small dark objects that has attracted hydrogen (hence molecular hydrogen clouds). Dark objects within Barnard 68 may have clashed many times, thus producing much dust (Barnard 68 may have attracted dust as well, of course).
Barnard 68 lies in a local void; perhaps it had enough dark matter to create a local void, but not enough dark matter to attract hydrogen from further away, thus Barnard 68 may not have been able to form (much) new stars (yet), or perhaps it had bad luck to be in a region in interstellar space with relative little hydrogen.
I am talking about very small universal engines here, for the big ones are found in the cores of galaxies like our Galaxy and the very big ones may come to act (or are acting) as AGNs (5-1). End May 2003]

[July 2004: When indeed there are such objects like dark clusters of (very old cooled down) galaxies, which I call g-galaxies, then some of them may be extremely big. A (super)cluster of galaxies may have had no hydrogen fuelling from intergalactic space for a very long time and therefore may have cooled down enormously over a very long time, i.e. the galaxies within such a cluster may mainly consist of blackened stars, i.e. dark matter objects with low temperatures.
Submillimeter galaxies, which have extreme faintness in the optical and near-infrared parts of the spectrum, discovered in 1997, are remote galaxies with high redshifts (with a look-back time equivalent to 80% of the age of the big bang universe). Big bang astronomers think that such galaxies are likely to contain huge numbers of young stars heavily enshrouded by dust²¹⁰.
Such submillimeter galaxies with high redshift may not be galaxies but clusters of galaxies instead (4-4). When they are clusters of galaxies indeed then it may be a small chance that such clusters are embedded in dust (because then you need very much dust; though, if the galaxies are old galaxies then clashing of dark matter objects may have produced a lot of dust that surrounds each galaxy, though such dust then is likely to form a disk around a galaxy (4-4) and it may be a small chance that such dust disks all are in the line of sight). Such clusters of submillimeter galaxies then may be assemblages of old, darkened and cold stars, i.e. submillimeter “galaxies” may turn out to be g-galaxies.

If submillimeter “galaxies” turn out to be g-galaxies then one expects to find cooled down assemblages of darkened stars, i.e. old cooled down galaxies, nearby too. Since the mid 1980s the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) has discovered galaxies that are highly luminous in the infrared. Few of those galaxies are E or SO galaxies, which may make sense when old galaxies are spirals and Irr I's whereas young galaxies are E and SO galaxies (4-4). Big bang astronomers think that the infrared light from such galaxies comes from dust⁸, which may be the case indeed. But perhaps there is also the possibility that those galaxies are examples of old galaxies with a high number of (cold/warm) dark matter objects and therefore such galaxies may be the nearby equivalent of the submillimeter “galaxies” with high redshift. End July 2004]
[May 8 2006: Recent findings by big bang astronomers suggest that dark matter has a major effect on the formation and evolution of galaxies. Big bang researchers claim that they have observed ultraluminous infrared galaxies to be linked with large clumps of dark matter⁴¹⁵. End May 8 2006]

When even more later the young formed galaxy has turned into an old galaxy the young universal engine has become an old universal engine. I think the heart of our Galaxy (the center of the galactic nucleus) may be called an old (and small) universal engine, where quasars may be called old (and sometimes big) universal engines (5-1, 5-4).
In the galactic nucleus of our Galaxy one may even differentiate between the whole central region (which may be called a relatively young universal engine) and smaller parts of the central region, like Sagittarius A West (which may be called a relatively old universal engine), which may consist of even smaller parts like Sagittarius A* (which may be called a relatively very old universal engine, 4-1, 4-3).
Thus one may speak of “generations” as well as certain objects (like universal engines, g-galaxies or galaxies) being in a certain evolutionary state (5-4).

[May 2003: The Chandra X-ray Observatory has observed Sgr A* to show X-ray flares on an almost daily basis³⁴. The cause of the flares is not understood. When Sgr A* is a very old universal engine with very many old stars/dark matter objects then it may not be surprising that objects within Sgr A*, having attracted a certain critical amount of gas, often explode. End May 2003]
[June 2004: Right now I think that X-ray flares coming from Sgr A* can be better understood when Sgr A* is seen as a former AGN (5-1) that lies within an old spiral galaxy Sagittarius A West (4-1). End June 2004]

When speaking about “young” and “old” it is not the age in years that is meant, it is the phase a g-galaxy or universal engine is in. One may compare it with “late” and “early” type galaxies.
Systems with more mass, like our Local Supercluster relative to our Local Group, thus will be systems that need much more years to go from “young” to “old”.

[December 2004: Another example of a baby galaxy (4-1) may be the Blue Dwarf Galaxy NGC 5253, a starburst galaxy almost 100 times smaller than our Milky Way galaxy located at a distance of about 11 million light-years. NGC 5253 is quite extreme as a site of intense star formation, a profuse starburst galaxy in astronomical terminology. Astronomers have been able to distinguish stars from stellar clusters; they counted 115 clusters. The distribution of the masses of the cluster stars resembles that observed in clusters in other starburst galaxies, but the large number of clusters and stars is extraordinary in a galaxy as small as NGC 5253. The starburst galaxy has a single bright object which emits as much energy in the infrared part of the spectrum as does the entire galaxy in the optical region. The single bright object is a very massive (more than one million solar masses) stellar cluster, embedded in a dense and heavy dust cloud (more than 100,000 solar masses of dust)²⁶⁵.
Perhaps that NGC 5253 originated from a very old g-galaxy, which had many very old very shrunken (small darkened) galaxies that have lid up within NGC 5253 as stellar clusters. The pictures of NGC 5253²⁶⁵ makes me remind of the center of our Milky Way with Sagittarius A and B. Perhaps that NGC 5253 one day will be the center of a large galaxy like our Milky Way. The single bright object then may have become the center of (the center of) that large galaxy like Sgr A* in the center of (the center of) our Milky Way. End December 2004]

Mass coming into the Solar System and then steady orbiting the Sun may be a small chance, because speed and direction must be of a specific combination in order to come into an orbit that is stable and enduring (7-1).
Also: a dark matter object as big as our Earth that goes through our Solar System beyond the asteroid belt won't be easy seen at such a distance.
The volume of a sphere with a radius as big as the distance between the Sun and the asteroid belt is 0.015% of the volume of a sphere with a radius as big as the semimajor axis of Pluto. So most “Earths” that (would) pass won't be seen easily. Perhaps every million (or thousand) years a dark matter object as big as our Earth goes through the asteroid-Pluto part of our Solar System.
"Earths" that fly into the Solar system relatively close to the Sun may fall on the Sun. If dark matter as big as our Earth or Moon (or smaller pieces) would fall on the Sun, would we notice it or see that something falls into the Sun? Perhaps dark matter thus can cause (sometimes, for flares (often) seem to be tied up with the inner processes of the Sun) solar flares, which is a phenomenon that is not understood yet^8,35. (Of course, a clash of such a big dark matter object into the Sun, if possible, is a very small chance. But not for smaller objects, meteoroids (with sizes of 10 m - 10 km) may clash into the Sun regularly.)