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We concluded the previous presentation by introducing recent James Webb Space
Telescope images of the Seifert II galaxy NGC 7319 within Stephan's Quintet. Before
moving to those images, we need to talk a little about dust and its relationship to telescopic observations.
In the absence of any obscuring matter, the intensity of light emitted from a light
source diminishes with the square of the distance. Light in the visible portion of the
spectrum can be further diminished, or even extinguished, as a result of being
absorbed or scattered by matter between the source and receiver. Infrared light can penetrate through
dust that is opaque to visible light. The image on your screen compares visibility and optical and infrared
light in a smoke-filled room. This is a relevant example, because smoke from a fire is not purely a gas. In fact,
its major constituent is particulate matter and those particles are tiny, just
as dust particles in space are tiny. This image shows how even a relatively small
amount of dust can effectively block a visible light, while allowing infrared light to pass.
In 1784, William Herschel was heard by his sister Caroline to explain “There is
truly a hole in the heavens.” Herschel was referring to a dark patch
in the constellation Ophiuchus, where no stars at all were visible in the field
of view of his telescope. Herschel was convinced that what we now know as
molecular clouds, were what he termed ’vacancies’, or regions of space devoid of
stars as far as the telescope could see. That became the prevailing view among astronomers and was only finally
overturned when in the early 20th century, Edward Emerson Barnard assembled a body
of photographic evidence, showing that the dark regions in the Milky Way
were opaque clouds of dust that block the light of background stars. The histories
recounted wonderfully by the radio astronomer, Gerrit Verschuur in his book “Interstellar Matters”.
In this set of images of the Dark Cloud Barnard 68, the first two are within the
range of visible light. The remainder, moving clockwise, are at increasing
wavelengths of near infrared light. This is a comparison of Hubble images of
the Pillars of Creation with a visible light image on the left and a near- infrared image on the right.
Notice how the relatively tenuous, bluish glowing gas and dust surrounding the
Pillars, effectively blocks the visible light from all but the brightest background stars.
An ESA feature explains how dust affects what a telescope can see, and how that is
dependent upon the wavelengths of light being captured. Quote, “Although our eyes cannot see
infrared radiation, we can sense it - as radiant heat. Infrared radiation ‘is’ heat
and all objects, even the coldest ones, an ice cube for example, emit a certain amount of heat.”
”In fact, celestial objects with surface temperatures of about 2,000 degrees
Celsius - cold compared to the Sun which has a surface temperature of about 5,500
degrees Celsius - radiate most of their energy at infrared wavelengths... The cool
universe is best studied in the infrared.” ”Dust is the bane of the optical
astronomer’s life, blocking the view of many interesting objects. The universe is
full of dust, microscopic particles of varied composition – carbon, silicon, water
ice, minerals, frozen carbon monoxide, organic compounds, silicates - the list is almost endless.”
”The particles can be hard or soft and come in many different shapes, but their
size is usually less than one micron, or one thousandth of a millimeter. The
wavelengths of visible light is much the same size as many dust particles, so it
is easily blocked, i.e. scattered by the dust, whereas longer-wavelength
infrared radiation passes through unhindered and dust is therefore
transparent to it. And in the far-infrared, we see the glow from dust itself.” Unquote.
When dust scatters light, we may see some of that scattered light as a reflection,
just as we see in the glowing dust around the Pillars of Creation, or in the
most famous Reflection Nebula, the nebula surrounding the Pleiades. However,
as noted in the ESA feature, in the mid-infrared dust ceases to be transparent to infrared light and
instead becomes visible on account of its own thermal emission. At these
wavelengths a Space Telescope can capture the glow of the dust itself. This
is a spectacular example with an optical image of the constellation of Orion on
the left, and a mid-infrared image of the same field on the right, revealing
extensive clouds and filaments of glowing dust. This is Webb's MIRI and NIRCam composite
image of Stephan's Quintet with the relevant portion of NGC 7319 indicated
by the box. This is that portion of the Webb MIRI and NIRCam image centered on
the quasar. Notice that the quasar is surrounded by a halo. With image
processing to enhance contrast and saturation, the halo clearly has a hexagonal shape. A
James Webb technical document illustrates the morphology of artifacts
produced in both the MIRI imaging system and in the NIRCam imaging system.
Undoubtedly, the hexagonal halo is an artifact of the telescope's optics,
primarily from the longer wavelengths of MIRI. Here is a larger view of NGC 7319
from the Webb MIRI and NIRCam composite image of Stephan's Quintet, with the
quasar indicated by the arrow. Note the prominent filamentary dust lanes. Here is
the same region, this time from the Webb NIRCam image only. Note the filamentary dust lanes have all
but disappeared. It is plain that they are contributed almost entirely by the MIRI image.
And here is the same region, again from Webb's MIRI image only. The dust lanes dominate this image.
Note that the quasar coincides with a dust lane. Comparing the MIRI and NIRCam images
side by side, we see that the dust lanes in NGC 7319 are prominent in Webb's
mid-infrared MIRI image and all but invisible in Webb's near infrared NIRCam image.
This is precisely because Webb's MIRI instrument was capturing mid-infrared
light emitted by the dust itself, whereas Webb’s NIRCam instrument was
capturing near-infrared light with wavelengths that pass through the dust,
rendering it largely transparent at those wavelengths. Moreover, dust sufficient to produce the
pronounced glow recorded in the MIRI image, indicates a column density that
would, on any view, be sufficient to block visible light from a distant background
visible light source. Just as the comparatively trivial amount of dust in the vicinity of the Pillars of Creation,
seen in visible light as a reflection nebula, was able to block the visible
light of almost all of the background stars. The Hubble images of Stephan's Quintet,
released in 2000 and 2009, were both essentially visible-light images, albeit
that both include light from filters at 814 nanometers in the very near-infrared.
Those Hubble images demonstrate one simple key fact - the quasar is bright in visible light.
This collage shows the same close-up field, centered on the quasar from
Hubble's 2009 visible light image at the top left; Webb's mid-infrared MIRI
image at the top right; Webb's near- infrared NIRCam image at the bottom
left; and Webb's MIRI and NIRCam composite image on the bottom right.
In the NIRCam image, the relevant dust lane is not visible. Near-infrared light
from the countless millions of stars in the body of the galaxy is not obscured
by dust to any discernible extent, just as we would expect. However, the Webb MIRI image and Webb
MIRI and NIRCam composite, demonstrate that a substantial dust lane, seen by its
own glow, extends all around the quasar. As stated, this demonstrates the presence of
dust, sufficient on any view, to block the visible light of the quasar captured in
the Hubble image, if that visible light was coming from behind the galaxy - let
alone, for more than 9 billion light years behind the galaxy. In the Hubble image, the dust lane
appeared to coincide with the quasar, but there was still some room to debate the matter.
The proposition that the quasar is a deep-background object, shining through
the whole disc of the dusty Seyfert II galaxy NGC 7319, including the substantial dust lane captured in visible
light by Hubble - seen in both the WFC2 image released in 2000 and the WFC3
image released in 2009 - is quite simply preposterous. In summary, the Hubble and
Webb images of the quasar associated with NGC 7319 are observations that simply and
unambiguously prove that the high redshift quasar is a foreground object.
These observations falsify the redshift- distance relationship, the foundational
axiom upon which the whole edifice of Big Bang cosmology is erected.
The wisdom of Edwin Hubble's caution is demonstrated, and Halton Arp is
vindicated yet again, just as I predicted. However, Standard Model astrophysicists
and cosmologists will continue to insist that the quasar is not in front of the
galaxy and must be a background object shining through the galaxy. If they don't, they will be forced to
admit that these observations destroy the foundation of Big Bang cosmology. It's a textbook case of paradigm
paralysis. But as Chico Marx might have put it, who are you going to believe, them or your lying eyes?
Of course the quasar in NGC 7319 only adds to the numerous examples that Arp
and others have produced, demonstrating unequivocally the existence of physical
connections between objects with wildly different redshifts. Like the connection
between the low-redshift galaxy NGC 7603 and a high-redshift quasar - a connection
established even more convincingly by Martin Lopez Corridora and C. M. Gutierrez
who obtained the images you see on the screen. Or like the connections between
NGC 4319 and Markarian 205. A physical connection between these two objects of
very different redshift, was first imaged by an amateur astronomer in 1970.
Halton Arp demonstrated the reality of that physical connection in a paper
published in 1971. In 2002, the Hubble Heritage team at the Space Telescope
Science Institute released the image on the left, showing no connection, and
accompanied by a commentary stating ”Appearances can be deceiving. In this
NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, an odd celestial duo, the spiral galaxy NGC 4319 -
in the center - and a quasar called Markarian 205 - in the upper right - appear
to be neighbors. In reality, the two objects don't even live in the same city.
They are separated by time and space. NGC 4319 is 80 million light years from
Earth. Markarian 205 is more than 14 times farther away, residing one billion
light years from Earth. The apparent close alignment of MRK 205 and NGC 4319
is simply a matter of chance.” However, image processing of the STSI's own image file by Bernard Lempel, shown
on the right, brings out the bridge of matter physically connecting these objects.
In each of these cases, and many others, a physical connection is demonstrated
between objects with redshifts, so different that such a connection is
utterly Impossible on the Big Bang's foundational axiom. These examples,
as powerful as they are, are but one component of a vast body of evidence
accumulated by Arp and others that falsify the Hubble relationship and
establish that cosmological redshift is intrinsic; that quasars are ejected from
active Galactic nuclei; and evolve into galaxies in quantized redshift steps.
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