There's a lot more to this image than the various press releases appearing on the web are leading people to believe.

This object is called Stephen's Quintet. Note that quintet means five; it's not a quartet. Also note that, despite what your eyes might suggest, the bottom blueish galaxy (NGC 7320) is not considered to be one of the four interacting galaxies. The reason is that it possesses a much lower redshift compared to the other four (which theory would place 8 times closer to us).

Calculating distances in space is a devilish process. Needless to say, there is plenty of room for error. What's important to realize is that, despite the blueish tinge that has been colored to 7320 in this image (some older images actually show all five objects with similar colors, btw), the HII component (ionized hydrogen) for all five objects are similar in both size and brightness. Some astronomers have pointed to this fact in claiming that all of these five objects are actually at the same distance.

In a paper that awaits publication (since its submission in 2004), researchers also note that the blue galaxy, ngc 7320, possesses a tail not shown here, and which trails off to the left of this image. In that paper, it was noted that the topleft galaxy with the tail (ngc 7319) interacts with 7320's tail, and the two of them appear to converge on a sixth galaxy, ngc 7319c. The image used to justify this conclusion can be viewed 2/3rds of the way down the following page. It appears that this is perhaps the only website which actually caries an image of this tail ...

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm

Interestingly, NASA routinely crops their images of Stephan's Quintet to exclude the area where this tail would be seen, and many professional scientists have claimed that they cannot actually see this tail. Obviously, from this image on Don Scott's website, it is there.

This is arguably one of the reasons why the paper has not yet been published: for these two galaxies to have interacting tails would essentially disprove that redshift ALWAYS equates to distance. If we assume, as most theorists do, that redshift can only be a function of distance, then it's just not possible for galaxies so far apart to be interacting.

But that's not the only problem that has been observed in this image. On October 3rd, 2003, a high redshift quasar was observed to be buried within the nucleus of ngc 7319 (the upper left galaxy). According to conventional theory, quasars are thought to be incredibly bright, unbelievably massive and extraordinarily fast-moving objects at the edge of space, because their redshift is strictly interpreted to be a function of distance (a foundational assumption within the Big Bang cosmology). If you look carefully, you can observe the quasar. Look at the center of the top left galaxy (7319); it's the nearest bright point source directly beneath that center which isn't actually touching the galaxy's core. Within the conventional view, not only must this object be shining through that galaxy, but THEORY PUTS THE QUASAR AT 90X THE DISTANCE BETWEEN EARTH AND THE QUINTET, literally billions of light years beyond it. For the redshift-distance relation to hold, this must be -- to put it mildly -- a very special object.

Other researchers have noted that the dust between the quasar and the center of the galaxy 7319 is energized and disturbed, with the only apparent cause the quasar itself.

This is merely one of many images that appear to show high redshift quasars in front of lower redshift galaxies -- an observation that, according to the Big Bang Theory, must be interpreted to mean that the quasar is peeking through a hole within the galaxy. Astrophysicists assure us that we can trust the theoretical distances for quasars. One famous astronomer, Halton Arp, whose namesake is attached to many galaxies to this day, actually had to move to Europe because he was investigating evidence suggesting that redshift is not equal to distance. His telescope time in the United States was yanked. He has published a book explaining evidence for nearby quasars titled Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and Academic Science.

It's interesting that when the public is shown this image, that none of the controversy surrounding this image is presented -- as if it never happened. No mention of the quasar, the tail, the material between the quasar and the galaxy, anything about redshifts or anything about Halton Arp. This is actually far from abnormal. Many of the images that the public is shown have complex, oftentimes uncertain, debates associated with them. But, in nearly every single case, the public is only informed of the interpretation which suppots the conventional theories. Over time, this leaves the distinct impression that there exists no debate or any reason to even possess any doubt for conventional theory.

And it's easy to see, within this context, why more curious people might want to read against-the-mainstream astrophysical materials. Many people honestly want to hear out a second opinion, and not just accept as fact the assumption that redshift must ALWAYS represent a distance. Halton Arp's arguments are for many people quite convincing. His book has actually convinced a great number of people that the Big Bang never happened, and that the quasar in front of 7319 is actually a proto-galaxy -- an object that's been ejected from 7319 and which will eventually develop into a galaxy in its own right. There in fact exist a great number of observations which suggest this interpretation. Within this alternate view, we observe the universe recycling itself, and there is thus no need to postulate that it began at some point in the distant past.

We'd be wise to pay attention to both sides of the debate, so that as evidence pops up, we can make our own decision as to which side to take.

that one's too stunningly cool to even come up with a clever name...nice!

2 Million miles per hour!
More facinating every day.

I like Chris Reeve's comment better than the article. I'm checking into all this.

I am tripping out on all this conjecture. Why can't science conclude anything? We all give them too much credit. All of there work should be brought into question. Theory is only that. Nothing more.

Thanks to Alan, as always, for sharing some of the most beautiful pictures of the great beyond--I particularly love these composite photos, which give us an eye for beauty (or at least an eye by proxy), an ability to somehow see and appreciate things that have previously been invisible to humankind.

I also appreciate folks like Chris Reeve, above, who come to politely dissent with the common assumptions. I greatly appreciate your explanations. While I am a music teacher (and not a photo analyst, astronomer, or specialist in the distinct science of spectroscopic analysis), I cannot form a cohesive or certain assumption about the information and photos on the website you listed. However, you have introduced me to a name (and, accordingly, a line of query) which I had not previously known.

I can only hope that I am not plagued by a puerile misconception of scientists as being curious, scrupulous, and--dare I say it--honest.

While I'm not convinced of the all-encompassing agenda of the evil and self-serving "establishment", I do have a reasonable degree of certainty that the process of science (not to mention the insatiable desire of humankind to understand the universe) will eventually lead us to a clearer understanding of the universe which surrounds us.

Respectfully Yours,

I am glad to see that, as Chris Reeve points out, the thinking public is still interested in second opinions about the Big Bang and anomalous redshifts.

Here is one I wrote a while back at http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/294  
*****
There are still many things that I did not mention in my essay that should be investigated. I'll mention one more here: high redshift astronomical objects.

Wikipedia under "Redshifts" states that "objects with the highest redshifts are galaxies." Galaxy IOK-1 has a redshift of z = 6.96. A certain quasar has z = 6.43. A certain radio galaxy is at a redshift of 5.2. Molecular material has been found with a redshift of 6.42. A gamma ray burst had a redshift of 6.7. All these redshifts imply speeds that are much greater than that of light. We need an explanation for these redshifts that will not make physicists laugh (as per Feynman; the redshift of the cosmic microwave background radiation leftover from the Big Bang, for example, is a whopping z = 1089. I think we should be laughing at that one, and the assumptions that underlie it.)

The most straight-forward interpretation of these figures is that these objects are engaged in temporal motion. In another blog I commented about the speed spectrum. From zero spatial speed at the left end we have to add 1c of speed to get up to the speed of light. And then we have to add another c to get to the temporal zero speed at the right end. And so the line is 2c in length. But that is only ONE "motional dimension". For three motional dimensions, the maximum should be 2^3c or a z of 8c maximum. An object moving at 8c would be completely non-local in a spatial reference system, and could not be seen as a discrete object.
*****
I should add that the total redshift is composed of the “inherent redshift” (Arp’s term) plus other redshifts pertaining to the overall observational situation, including recession velocity. The inherent redshift cannot exceed 8c.

Temporal motion is undoubtedly a new concept for most readers. My original essay on this topic (“An Overview of the Nature of Time”) can be found  at:

http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Fraser_NatureOfTime.pdf

2000000M/h ???

Twinkle twinkle little star.....

Thanks for the alt. theory on redshift, Chris.  There can be no movement forward scientifically without challenges to the system - and I appreciate the additional information.   Food for thought!

There's a lot more to this image than the various press releases appearing on the web are leading people to believe.

<snip wall of text>

It's a conspiracy man!  It goes straight to the top!

Excellent article Alan!  Wow 2 million mph is pretty fast for a galaxy to travel at.  We are so lucky to live in this Golden Age of Astronomy as we get to see so many first great pictures from our ever expanding array of space telescopes like Chandra and Hubble.  Soon another one will be online and we'll get even more awesome pictures of space.

Go Endeavour!

So what I don't understand is how, in a universe that is suppose to be expanding in all directions, how two galaxies could collide.  I was taught the "expanding balloon" model of the universe - in which everything is getting farther away from everything else.  Is that no longer the case?

I sure wish we were located in that "5th Beatle" galaxy and observing the other 4 from  a front row seat.

Thank you, Chris, for pointing out the fallibility of theories and the arrogance of institutions. You would think scientists would be open to new information BECAUSE it contradicts what is already accepted.

Chris, thank you for thew alternate theory...

According to General Relativity, there should be two sources of redshift in addition to that caused by the expansion of the universe (which is the one used to measure distance).
First, there is the object's proper motion--i.e. its motion relative to its local space. For every million miles per hour that an object is moving away from us, its redshift appears as though it were 40-odd million light years farther away--if it were moving at ten percent the speed of light, for example, then it would appear to be over one and a half billion light years farther away.
Second, and this is most important for quasars, which are powered by supermassive black holes as heavy as millions or billions of suns, is gravitational redshift. The gravity of the black holes stretches the light waves coming from the material falling into them, making them more redshifted. If astronomers underestimate the mass of the quasar in question, then they will also underestimate the amount of its redshift that comes from its own gravity, and thus they will overestimate its distance.

Here is the Wikipedia article on Hubble's Law, for those who are interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble's_law

In response to Brian: Your hypothesis would work out if Special Relativity were ignored, but it turns out that redshift does not scale linearly with recession velocity (though it is close to linear for z<<1, just as Relativistic motion is close to Newtonian motion for v<<c), but instead it is an asymptote curve, with redshift approaching infinity as the recession velocity approaches "c". Thus, the redshift factor of 1089 for the cosmic microwave background would be interpreted to mean that it receeds from us at something like 0.997-0.999c.

Seems like the assertion of millions of miles an hour must be false. The maximum possible speed for any object is just under 126818.1818 miles/hour.

[ALAN ADDS: I don't know how you work that out. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, and particles can be accelerated to very close to that speed. The solar wind moves out from the sun at speeds averaging about 1 million miles per hour, and can reach speeds over 2 million mph. Here's a link about the high-speed solar wind:]

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~hassler/SW_press_release.html

Our theories of the Universe, who we are, where we come from, what is going to happen is constantly evolving over time.  At one point there was no such thing as the Big Bang Theory, the answer quite simply was "God did it", because that's all humanity could understand.  As our understanding evolved, so too did our theories.  As we learn more, we question more, and we consistantly create new, or amend old, theories.  There are still groups of people that reject the Big Bang for the conventional "God did it" theory, just as there will be people rejecting alternate universal theories in favor of Big Bang.

To be quite frank; question everything.

Thank you to Chris Reeves for the unusual insight.  As I am not an astrophysicist, (although somewhat familiar with Xrays since I am an Xray Technologist), the way he phrased his comments made them very easy to understand and the accompanying link gives flesh to the bones of his theory.
 I agree that other viewpoints should be made available in any scientific debate.  The denial of other information or possiblities only hurts science as a whole.
 Once that happens you get the kind of censorship that the Bush administration used in the global warming consenus; research results deleted from published papers(even ones by the government's own scientists!), the quashing of any views not approved by the administration and the complete blockage to the public of reports by scientists from other countries.
 So hooray for Mr. Reeve and open minds.
 After all, if the Catholic church had succeded in blocking the work of Galileo where would we be today?

Starry-eyed in New Orleans

It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the average mind to comprehend these numbers and the sightings in these photo's. The astrophysicists making these observations are used to these so they comprehend it a little more easily. Actually, another thing not specifically pointed out is the fact that these images have been taken aver many years and, since the light, gas, e-rays, etc., take a few billion years to reach us for out telescopes to capture, the images do NOT depict what any of that is true today. Remember, it has had a billion or more years to change. We won't know what it is today until a billion or more years have passed! And, yes, 2,000,000 mph sounds extremely fast but you have to remember, light travels at approximately 186,000 miles per second, or approximately 6,696,000,000 mph, so 2,000,000 mph doesn't seem that fast. We get the term 'light years' from the fact that that is the distance light travels in one year, or approximately 5,865,696,000,000 miles. If you multiply that by the 1 billion or more light years away from us that this occured, you can see that at a mere 2,000,000 mph, it would take a few billion more years for it to reach us. Earth will not exist that long, for there are many more millions of calamities that exist to destroy Earth millions of years before that. That is exactly why scientist are searching for other planets more like out own to migrate to when, (not 'if') one of those other calamities reaches us. So, I'd suggest you sell your GM stock now and get out of Dodge! If Halton Arp's theories are true, it disproves Einstein's theory of relativity (E=MC2) and all we have known in the past is false! If only Einstein were alive today, how would he revise his theories?

Chris Reeve...doppler shift is a fact that indicates velocity and is observable in the solar system. Helio-seismology makes good use of it when studying the sun. Also, the connecting tails of NGC7319 and 7320 are an illusion. To conclude they are attached is also making something appear true.

Alan, thank you for the truly Cosmic subject.
To Chris Reeve, thanks for the alternative explanation.  May or may not be correct, but interesting.
To Mr. Curry, what do you think science is?  It is a journey, not a destination.  In any case we have not been on that journey very long, anyway.  Four hundred years ago the popes were burning Giordano Bruno and scaring hell out of Galileo.  We have only had really good telescopes since Hubble went up.  Yeah, Palomar is a wonder, but the recent CCD and spectral capabilities are very recent.

Observation, Conjecture, hypothesis, Collect data and modify the original hypothesis.  Eventually you will arrive at the right answer, and if you are very lucky there will be dozens of new questions raised.  If you can't handle uncertainty you can't handle reality and science.  The only people with all the answers are trapped in their superstitions and "faith".

I never believed in the Big Bang Theory. I always thought the universe was infinite in time and space. I don't talk about this, but I suspect many other highly educated people feel the same.

This reinforces my suspicion that the Big Bang is just a theory of convenience, like phlogiston in the 1800s. Before you laugh at me, I'm a research chemist.

All the more reason for us to be more concerned about Y3K.

Chris Reeve;
Your reference to "electric cosmos" is interesting.
unfortunately, the "electric universe hypothesis", while itself interesting, and sounds really cool, fails in a fundamental way that has already been tested and proven.
the hypothesis holds that in essence, everything has massive differences in latent electric charge, and that all the stellar phenomena that we see is the result of these "plasma discharges".
For the entire hypothesis to work,  the solar wind must show a difference in the electric potential of outward flowing particles, and any inward flowing particles(electrons, protons, etc.). what has been shown by space probes is that the solar wind is uniformly outwards, and electrically neutral, which completely invalidates the hypothesis.
Having said that, I do applaud the work of those that come up with alternatives to the mainstream. It is always possible that something new could come up that offers a better explanation than what we currently have. sadly though, "electric universe" is not it.

Lay astronomy lover here.

What I am about to write may seem far from the point of this discussion but I think it may be worth commenting on.  Some years ago I raised the question that if everything was expanding (on the scale of the Universe) where is the center of this expansion.  The answer I got was a rather sheepish you can't define that point since everything is INSIDE that point and the size is only relative to the point of explosion...

IF there was a "Bang" there ought to be evidence of "that" point.  What I am reading here is a more organic view of what the universe is.  It will take me a while to wrap my head around this properly; but I think what I am reading here makes sense.

Off subject: All things seem to "recycle" but black holes seem to defy this rule. Off to ponder that for a while.

Just to provide the counter-arguments to Chris Reeve's comments above...

The presence of a second tidal tail in optical images of the group is not controversial and is noted in papers going back at least 20 years. Radio observations prove that the tail is unrelated to NGC7320 and is actually connected to the X-ray emission and the two spiral galaxies on the right (NGC7318a/b). The radio lets us see cold neutral hydrogen gas in the tails and trace the southern tail even where it passes behind NGC7320; there is no sign of disturbance in the gas or a connection to NGC7320, and the hydrogen is at the redshift of the other galaxies.

The fact that a background quasar can be seen through the disk of NGC7319 does not make it special; the galactic disk is quite thin and much of the gas and dust has been stripped out of it by encounters with the other galaxies. Arp's arguments (published in the Astrophysical Journal in 2005) rest on the idea that it is very unlikely to find a background quasar whose position in the sky is so close to the center of the galaxy. However, his estimate of the number of quasars  in the sky is too low, and misses the point that the gravity of galaxies (and groups or clusters of galaxies) will act as a lens, making it easier to detect quasars behind them. In the same year a study (
http://www.sdss.org/news/releases/20050426.magnification.html ) looking at quasar counts behind 200,000 galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey showed the numbers to be exactly as predicted by standard cosmological models.

On a more general note, it's worth pointing out that there is an enormous amount of evidence from multiple sources which supports redshift as a measure of distance and the Big Bang cosmology (e.g.
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/ or http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm ). Arp originally put his ideas forward to support a steady state cosmological model which has now been very thoroughly disproved (for example
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/stdystat.htm ). While there are always uncertainties in our interpretation of astronomical data, the evidence against Arp's ideas is pretty overwhelming.

One of the wonderful things about modern astronomy is that almost all scientific papers (and many of the actual observations) are freely available on the web - if you really want to make up your own mind, why
not see what the experts and the best data have to say?

Chris Reeve,
You repeatedly refer to him as Halton Arp.  This seems a bit disrespectful.  Why do you take such liberties instead of calling him Dr. Arp.  Is his level of education so unimportant as to be disregarded?

Wow!!  Seeing a few names I haven't seen in the better part of a year at least.

In response to Brian Frasier's essay and his and Dr. E's discussion of the same, I added this post to the blog at
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/294
as they made a lot of sense to me.

Chuck Sweet wrote on Jul. 15, 2009 @ 05:56 GMT Pardon me for being a mathematical layman, but from what I can tell, you gentlemen have given a possible definition of what 'Dark Matter/Energy' is: concentrations of mass and energy in a different frame of temporal expansion. It's gravity, being instantaneous would exhibit the effects that we appear to see on mass in our own frame of temporal expansion yet we would not be able to see the photons that come from it because it is expanding at a different energy potential: one that does not interact with our own mass since it is in a totally different time location.

Your explanations would also appear to have a proof with what we know of Black Holes in that the effects of the gravity from these objects exert a temporal force on the photons that is faster than the spatial motions of said photons, in essence, greater mass is equal to faster time effects in a spatial view. This also provides a mechanism for Hawkings Evaporation of said Black Holes in that they may well be evaporating in a temporal expansion via gravity. It may well be that while it takes more energy to increase one's speed in a spatial frame of reference, it may take LESS and Less energy to travel (what appears to us to be) faster in a temporal frame of reference. This may actually be the way that gravity operates: objects will settle towards the direction that takes the least energy to move temporally, thus moving Towards the greater mass.

I may be totally wrong with my surmises kicked up by your discussion in the 15 minutes it took me to read them, but it certainly provides possibilities for modeling and food for thought does it not?? I thank you for your enlightening me (and expanding my temporal view of the Universe)


(Note: I have made a few corrections for punctuation and spelling here, and minor expansions of a couple of sentences in this version)

if you liked Chris Reeve's c omments on the failure of redshift to determine distance, you might want to check out this new book i found.  You can get a free PDF copy at the website www.electromass.com  just a few new ideas to stretch your brain with.

"I am tripping out on all this conjecture. Why can't science conclude anything?"

Because sometimes the *means* to get 'conclusive' information isn't there yet.

Because, unlike religious faith, Science never assumes that it has the absolute last word on anything. There's always the chance that new information will alter (not necessarily completely overthrow) even that which seemed to be on a pretty solid observational and/or experimental foundation.

Classical Newtonian physics seemed to be an adequate description of how things work...until it didn't work at extremes of speed (near light) mass and density. In came Relativity which explains things much better and under more common conditions gives the same answers as 'Classical' physics (relativity must be taken into account in GPS navigation for accurate positioning however, but this is invisible to the user).

Relativity and Quantum Physics don't agree or merge well either in describing the same reality. A new theory that encompasses both is needed. Nowhere was it ever said that The Last Word on how reality works (if there even *is* such a thing, but that question may be more philosophy than physics) would be found quickly or easily.

"We all give them too much credit. All of there work should be brought into question."

By whom? It's in the *nature* of science to question its conclusions when there appears to be reason to do so.

What non-scientific methodology would you use to get answers instead?

"Theory is only that. Nothing more."

Right. So? As is often pointed out in Evolution debates, the way laypeople use the word 'theory' and the way science uses it are two different things:

http://www.wilstar.com/theories.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theory

And Kevin, imagine that the *Earth* was steadily expanding. Cities would be getting farther apart, but traffic accidents within them (or any other small segment of its surface) could still occasionally happen...

On the concept of "where" the Big Bang happened and where the "center" of space is, I ask you the following question: Where on the map is the center of the Earth? Instead of being anywhere on the map, the center of the Earth is four thousand miles beneath our feet no matter where we are standing!

To illustrate, let us imagine a balloon being inflated. The two-dimensional surface of the balloon is expanding, but the center of the expansion is nowhere within that surface--it is "outside" of that space, in the three-dimensional center of the balloon. Likewise, we could compare our universe to a three-dimensional surface, with the "center" of cosmic expansion being in a direction perpendicular to our common three dimensions. Thus, the center of space is outside of the space that we can see.

The notion of additional dimensions in our universe besides the ones that we ordinarily are aware of (3 of space and 1 of time) is taken quite seriously by cosmologists--for example, String Theory, which is one more the more-deeply-explored ideas for reconciling the quantum and relativistic models, predicts that there are at least six additional dimensions to our universe, though matter that is constrained to our normal four dimensions can not move through the other six.

On the age of the universe: If the universe has always existed, then why can we not see past the Cosmic Microwave Background? Why, indeed, should the CMB even exist if there has always been stars and galaxies? Why, also, have we been unable to find, in this galaxy or others, any stars at all that are clearly more than thirteen or fourteen billion years old, despite the large numbers of stars observed that have expected total lifespans longer than that? Stars burn their fuel at a specific rate, determined by their size and composition--it's like estimating how many miles your car has driven since your last fill-up based on how much gas is left in the tank and how many miles per gallon your model of car gets. The implication of both stellar age observations and the Cosmic Microwave Background is that the part of the universe that we can see was filled with hot gas that cooled and condensed into stars about thirteen billion years ago.

Chuck,
Greater gravity, slower time.

Thank You Tim,
 Yes, I can see that, greater acceleration equaling a slower time frame, gravity would indeed slow time down relative to our own time frame via Einstein's relativity equations. I guess I unintentionally transposed symbols (processing this in my head not using the actual math), but the idea of things settling, via gravity, to a lower energy of time frame, still explains gravity; I just had the relation to our own timeframe backwards.  Thanks fer the correction!!

Phil, Newark, California (7/15, 1617)
Nice bit of mumbo-jumbo without ever giving any information.  As to your balloon, it is three dimensional.  Space, as we experience it, is three dimensional.  If we had the right gear we could take a 3D snapshot of all of space and figure out where the "geographic center" is.  Just the same as we can do with your balloon.  It's this type of answer that the question begs.  With an idea of the general direction all matter is accelerating we can determine a point of origin.  Of course, so far we can’t even see, much less track, all matter.  Our best guess now would be analogous to two people standing next to each other trying to triangulate the distance to the sun, or maybe worse, other prominent stars.  It’s a legitimate question with a real, 3D answer.  We’re all sure you’re very smart.  You don’t need to impress us by taking someone’s question to the unnecessary next level.  That is, perhaps, the trademark of not being sure of yourself.  Avoid the question and say something profound.  It’ll awe ‘em.

In answer to the original question:  If we took a grenade to deep space and set it off we’d see debris going off in different directions, in different amounts and at different speeds.  We could, with careful and complete observation determine where the grenade was and its travel direction and speed  when it went off.  The complete observation part is hampering our efforts on a universal scale.  We can make extremely limited observation.  In fact, our observation is so limited that we can’t even determine how limited it is.  It’s like trying to determine the place our grenade went off by observing a few particles of smoke.  So we’re hard pressed to come up with a location.

Making matters worse, our grenade blows up into something.  That something is three dimensional space.  If we go back to the balloon analogy and regress the balloon back to a single point then say nothing outside the balloon exists, then we’re onto something.  Instead of the balloon expanding into the space of your living room we’re looking at the space inside the balloon expanding into the balloon as it expands.  That looks like double speak but it’s not.  To further complicate things the balloon is great.  I like to imagine the universe expanding into a nice, simple spherical shape.  But balloons never do that.  The expand into egg shapes, or long skinny tubes that clowns bend into animals.  Any non-uniform expansion throws another wrench into our observations.  You’ve seen video of smoke coming off Mount St. Helens when it blew.  In general it was a big expanding cloud.  In small, local areas smoke would erupt out of the cloud and that small portion would expand in it’s own right like guts popping out of a hernia.  If we’re in an area like that then our idea of the entire universe is just one small insignificant part and what we judge to be the center is just the middle part of the “hernia” bulge.  The direction to the middle of this particular bulge has nothing to do with the more generalized center.

In short, your question has an answer.  We lack the ability to determine what that answer is.

To Chuck Sweet: I have made some comments about your blog at:
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/294

To Phil: Perhaps you could share your insights or give us all some feedback about my interpretation of "gamma", the Lorentz-Einstein relativistic correction factor. See "Advanced Stellar Propulsion Systems" at:
http://www.geocities.com/scripturalphysics/4v4a/ADVPROP.html#GammaFactor

The redshift is what is seen by the telescope. The velocity is an inference. I don't think it is appropriate to use gamma for objects with "intrinsic" or "inherent" redshifts. Such redshifts may result from temporal motion, instead of spatial motion.

Thanks, everyone.

Brian F.

sub: Quintet-compact galaxy group, 230 million light-years from Earth in the

constellation Pegasus
This image is welcome feture that confirms some of my projections to arrive at Cosmic Pot

Energy of the Universe -at scale 10^10 Light years. Many thanks for the clear picture.see
Cosmic Vision of the Universe-Part I- in Cosmology review dot com.-Dec 1999.
Vidyardhi Nanduri  

In response to the shape and center of the Universe.....
People tend to think that an explosion or "Big Bang" would have a center that would expand outward at a steady and uniform shape and size....
A "bang" does have a center, and possibly for a moment in time after the "bang" the Universe may have been that perfect sperical shape that everyone wants to envision as the current state of the Universe.
But.....
If you look at our Universe as one created by the expansion and interaction of possible countless Universes that exist around our own, fighting for space and still interacting at levels we cannot detect, you could come up with a picture of our universe that represents that of a giant soap bubble floating in the wind as it expands from the end of a straw that feeds it more fuel or mater in the form of air. It bends, wobbles and finally when it is stretched to its limits it colapses and looses its matter (air) back to the outer space it inhabits.
I stick to the theory that the "Bang was the interaction of two (or possibly more) Outer dimensional Universes colliding. HWen the energy was transfered to the new Universe(ours)it started to expand, since it was now like a supercharged piece of space, it expanded at a great rate, as it does it competes with these other Dim. Universes for space.
As the energy created from this collision weakens the shape of our universe gives way here and there to the power of other Universes outside our own..
I also think (just a thought) that Black Holes are these types of extra dimmensional hotspots that create other Dimmensional Universes....With this Personal Theory energy is not destroyed or lost but transfered in the same way that the energy to create our Universe was transfered.....A never ending cycle of energy flowing from one Dimmensional Universe to another and expanding, colapsing and creating.
Dont know for sure and I am not an expert. I have taken several classes in the field and have enjoyed the discussions with my old Profs, even to this day.
Well just a thought ......Comments? Discussions?
One of my Profs. once told me that many many works, theorys and laws start with a simple thought and go from there.....That no ones opinion, other than those who would stick their heads in the sand and say it is because it is but I know you are wrong, is not wrong....
Well I think it might have ben the Absenthe talking but it still sounds good.....
Let me know what you think of my ideas.....
Thanks

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