SL102: How did the Universe Begin and Evolve?
David Noel
<davidn@aoi.com.au>
Ben Franklin Centre for Theoretical Research
PO Box 27, Subiaco, WA 6008, Australia.
The Universe
In spite of a common belief that the Universe had its origin in a so-called "Big Bang", some 13.7 billion years in the past, it is easy to show that the Universe has always existed. It has neither an origin nor an age.
When asked their views about the Universe, most people feel easy in their minds if they can accept a development history of the Universe as a whole. They also feel easy about the idea of galaxies, packed with millions of stars, being virtually static -- unchanging, or else changing only slowly and imperceptibly. This is true of professional astronomers, as well as of the general public.
In fact, the true picture is the opposite of both these ideas. Looked at at the largest, coarsest scale, that of galaxy clusters and combinations of these, the Universe is more or less the same over all times and all areas. But galaxies and their components all do change dramatically, all evolve and reform continually, although this may be very slow.
The Universe is continually Recycling itself
All matter and energy within the Universe is subject to continual recycling and interchanging. One obvious feature of the Universe is that it holds stars which are continually turning part of their mass into light and other radiation.
This happens in the normal (Fusion) stars which make up most of those we can observe in our own Milky Way galaxy. Fusion stars operate processes which fuse lighter atoms (such as hydrogen) into heavier atoms, and in the process a small part of their mass is turned into energy, as in the Einstein equation. This energy is released from the star as light (and other electromagnetic energy, such as ultraviolet and infrared).
This is a very obvious feature of the Universe, and until recent times almost everything we have been able to learn about the Universe came from observation of this starlight. But this process, by which mass is converted into energy, is not the only mass/energy interchange process operating in The Universe.
If it were, then the Universe would be running on a one-way path. It would be gradually using up all its initial mass and converting it into energy. Until more recent times, this one-way path was believed followed. leading to the idea of the "Heat Death of the Universe", when all matter had been converted into heat.
Nowadays it is realized that the Universe contains other mechanisms which convert energy into mass, and so can balance Fusion star radiation and allow a Standard-State Universe, where everything recycles. In this picture, galaxies and stars develop, evolve, age, and die -- individual components do have life cycles and histories. But the end result is that the greater Universe is essentially unchanged -- it does not need to have a beginning or an end.
This real situation is not necessarily accepted by everyone at present, and it will require time for education and change. Older people are known to resist change within their lifetimes, so it may be a matter of a generation turnover before the current reality is accepted..
The Structure and History of Galaxies
Until the 1920s it was thought that what we call our Milky Way Galaxy comprised the whole of the Universe. This was reasonable, with -eye observation only able to see objects within the Milky Way, with the exception that under ideal viewing conditions, someone with excellent eyesight can make out the Andromeda Nebula.
Then, in the 1920s, Edwin Hubble and others proved that this Nebula was actually another whole galaxy, similar to our own, lying some 2.5 million light-years distant. The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across, so this implied that between us and the Andromeda Galaxy there was largely empty space for some 2.4 million light-years.
With ever-improving telescopes, people have been able to probe further and deeper into space, and uncountable new galaxies have been identified. Figure F1 shows a sample of different types of galaxy -- there is a huge variety here, with every possible combination, there is no sharp division between the different types.
Fig. SL102-F1. .Some types of galaxy.
However, there is a graduation to be seen. Many galaxies are diffuse, vaguely globular, while some, as with the spiral galaxies which include our own, show more detail. And, very important, these spiral galaxies are flattened, disc-shaped, rather than being more spherical.
How were Galaxies Formed, and from What?
Here are two fundamental questions about the Universe which, perhaps surprisingly, do not have ready answers in today's science. Apparently for the first time, this series of Solutions gives answers here which are logical and sensible.
First, on materials. About the only basic idea accepted in galaxy formation is that each galaxy has been formed by gravitational attraction and clumping of material which was in between galaxies. Where did this material, this mass, come from?
In the old Big Bang picture, all this material was formed during the early years of the Universe, when it might have been scattered roughly uniformly throughout space. This picture gives no answer as to why different types of galaxy have been formed since then, nor any answer as to why these galaxies show a huge range of ages.
Sources of Mass in the Standard-State Universe
In the interpretation followed here, there are two main sources of mass going towards galaxy formation. The first is from the death of normal fusion stars.
All fusions stars have definite lifetimes, from very short (millions of years) for very massive stars, up to many billions of years (and perhaps more, depending on definitions) for the lowest-mass stars. When they enter their time of death, their blowup phase, fusion stars separate internally into an outer shell and an inner core.
The outer shell is eventually blown unto interstellar space. If this happens very rapidly, the event may be called a supernova. This is conventional science. The outer-shell material, probably mostly hydrogen with some light elements, is the first source of mass for galaxy building.
The second source of material is from Fusion Stars. These are all very-rapidly rotating bodies which emit beams of radiation and mass along their rotation axes. They range in mass from White Dwarfs, through Neutron Stars and the Stellar Black Holes which may result from the inner cores of fusion-star blowup, up to AGNs (the Active Galactic Nuclei or Supermassive Black Holes) which lie at the centres of all galaxies. AGNs are formed from the merger of stars.
Vortex Stars are large and enduring sources of mass and energy. They are called Vortex Stars because they behave like typical vortexes in two important aspects. First, they rotate, in some cases very rapidly. Second, they tend to draw in material from outside.
Fig. SL102-F2. A Vortex Structure.
Figure F2 illustrates a vortex structure, in this case that of a tornado. In this example, the typical properties of a vortex are very evident. Tornados can be seen to be rotating rapidly. They are also known to suck in objects, and eject them rapidly.
Lifetimes of Vortexes
Tornados are known to sometimes move across a landscape for long distances and times, only collapsing when they lose power for some reason. Vortex Stars also exhibit lifetimes, perhaps tens or hundreds of billion years -- longer than the Big Bang idea of the Universe's age. This lifetime is not dependent on mass, as with fusion stars, but depends purely on how much energy and mass can be sucked in from outside, and how much energy and mass is being ejected. Many vortex stars end up being incorporated into other, bigger vortex stars, a voracious cannibalism among celestial objects.
In the case of the development and evolution of galaxies, it has been taken for granted that each developed on its own plan, more or less in its current position. This assumption is not justified.
At any given instant of time and from any local viewpoint, observing your part of the Universe shows up a mess of galaxies of every type, usually quite widely separated. Logic tells us that material must exist between the galaxies, material thrown out from fusion-star blowup and material ejected from vortex stars.
How does a new galaxy come into being? While material in interstellar and intergalactic space can be expected to amalgamate and build up under gravitational attraction, forming a thin "Oort Soup" between obvious fusion stars, how does this build-up of solid bodies operate?
Figure F3 shows a cluster or group of galaxies. These galaxies are clearly very mixed in nature and position. There are some nicely-defined spiral galaxies, including many which are seen partly edge-on -- they are disc-shaped, seen at at an angle. The whole mixed set shows various bodies which have all aggregated to star size or above -- they are visible from the light which these more massive aggregations give out.
Fig. SL102-F3. A cluster of galaxies.
Between these visible bodies there must lie a fairly random mix of bodies of all types and masses less than that of a star or galaxy. Let us think about what must be occurring in one of these volumes outside of a visible galaxy.
Within the volume, there must be localized "cells" which happen to contain more mass than other cells of similar volume nearby. Under the influence of gravity, the contents of a more-occupied cell will come together to form a solid body from the cell contents. The nature of these cell contents is not defined -- often described as "dust and gases", in fact it may be mostly gases and frozen gases, including ice.
For more on this largely neglected matter, see SL111 -- How do Solid Bodies form in Space?.
Galaxies and their surrounds are a churning, unregulated matrix
It is common to think of a galaxy as a regulated, spinning disc or globe, with components circling the centre at nice regulated speeds. This is far from the truth.
From simple parallax measurements, we can show that many of the nearest stars to the Solar System (such as Scholtz's Star, Barnard's Star, and Alpha Centauri) are moving quit rapidly with respect to us. The Solar System is itself moving quite rapidly across the disc of the Milky Way, much faster than its speed in orbiting the Galactic Centre [D].
For more on the unruly nature of a galaxy, see "The Greater Averaged Universe (GAU)" [D]. and "Chaos In Oort" [E].
How a Galaxy Forms and Evolves
Within and around our Milky Way galaxy, there are many bodies with mass less than that of stars which exist between the stars, as in our Oort Cloud [C]. Because they are cool enough that they don't emit their own light, and because they are far enough from stars not to reflect a star's light, they will appear dark to most observers.
Galaxies form from the "Oort Soup" matter of intergalactic space, and by sucking in existing stellar and other bodies. In contrast to the usual assumption, they do not have a similar size all their lives. Instead, they start off wide and diffuse and change toward a denser form, usually with a particularly dense central body.
Another representation of the forces involved in a vortex is the Gravity Well. Figure F4 shows the gravity well for our Solar System.
Fig. SL102-F4. Our Solar System Gravity Well.
The gravity well is shaped like a funnel. The horizontal rings each represent the orbit of a planet at the appropriate distance or energy level above the Sun (not shown) at the bottom of the funnel. The funnel is a vortex, spinning but not all at the same speed, instead parts distant from the Sun spin slowly, and closer parts more rapidly.
What happens when a body such as a comet approaches the gravity well from outside? In most cases, the comet will have enough energy in its trajectory to fall into the well, then climb up the opposite side and over the rim, passing on into outer space,
But other bodies may have insufficient energy to climb out of the funnel. They will then be captured and incorporated into the Solar System material, perhaps as aa repeating comet like Halley. Particularly unfortunate bodies may be drawn into a planet's gravity, and end up as a moon of the planet, or crash into its surface.
The latter cases are instances of how a vortex may draw in and capture material from outside itself. Most vortexes only take in stuff, never giving it out. Scenarios where solar systems "eject" planets or other objects usually lack sound mathematical backing.
Back to galaxy formation. An incipient galaxy, perhaps a loose, sparsely-populated globular assembly, will eventually form within it a larger central mass. As it grows by gravity, other bodies near it will fall into more or less random orbits around it. The central body will continuously increase its mass, drawing in bodies from greater and greater distances, essentially "clearing" its neighbourhood of other major bodies.
As an example our Galaxy may have originated as a diffuse globular mass a million light years across, and pulled itself into the current 100,000 light year-diameter disc through gravitational forces. The central mass eventually builds up to an AGN, a supermassive black hole, and the globular shape pulls itself down into an approximate disc in the AGN's plane of rotation through Spin Gravity [F].
Our Sun is moving slowly towards the Galaxy Centre
Currently our Solar System lies on one of the Galaxy's spiral arms, about two-thirds of the way out from the centre to the rim. Apart from their own intrinsic movements, all the Galaxy's stars are moving very slowly towards the Galactic Centre, sucked in by the vortex.
This inward movement, which is due to the Spin Gravity [F] of the Galaxy's AGN, can be calculated. Typically, a star may take 20 billion years to move inwards over half the Galaxy's width.
As well as the mass (and rotational energy) which our AGN is accumulating, it is also losing mass (and energy) out through its axial beams. So there is at all times an energy/mass equilibrium balance for a galaxy. Continuing success at attracting more stars and other objects at the rim will lead to continuing output of mass/energy through the axial beams.
Axial-beam outputs consist of two parts, energy and mass. The energy is electromagnetic radiation (light) and is very tightly collimated like a laser beam. This feature allows us to pick up sources much more than 10 billion light-years away, the beams have not diverged too much. The mass is particles (principally protons, electrons, and some helium nuclei, probably with their antiparticles), all of which carry charge. The particles are somewhat scattered by ambient magnetic fields in space and so their ultimate sources can seldom be recognized.
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AOI articles with relevant evidence
[A]. R.I.P. Expanding Universe (b. 1930, d. 2012): (The Big Bang never happened)..
[B]. UG101: Recycling the Universe Neutron Stars, Black Holes, and the Science of Stuff.
[C]. UG102: Understanding Vortex Stars: White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars, Black Holes, and AGNs.
[D]. P4: The Greater Averaged Universe (GAU) -- How the Solar System cannibalizes the Oort Cloud.
[E]. OC407: Chaos In Oort.
[F]. BS806: Mass Gravity and Spin Gravity -- Adjusting the Universe
[G]. SL111: How do Solid Bodies form in Space?.
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SL101 Commenced writing 2025 Feb 26. First version 1.0 on Web 2025 Mar 8.
