Outrageous things astronomers would have us believe!
Thoughts from an Astronomical Devil's Advocate
The following is a short list of contemporary astronomical thought that I find impossible to believe, and therefore cause me to question most of what Astronomers tell us:
The redshift of quasars is supposedly due to the Doppler effect. If this is true, they are receding from us at speeds up to 99.99% of the speed of light. It would take unimaginable energy to accelerate objects larger than the solar system to such velocities. A cyclotron requires a city's worth of electricity to accelerate a few atoms to such speeds.
Quasars are relatively small (some known to be just a few light-months across) and yet appear to emit energy equivalent to the energy of entire galaxies. They wouldn't be considered to have such massive energies if they were relatively nearby. In other words, if our distance measurements to quasars is wrong, the whole concept of massive energy for quasars (which defies explanation!) disappears. In the 35 years since quasars were first discovered, they still are a complete mystery.
Quasars are thought to be up to 20 billion light years away, but the estimated age of the universe, based on the Big Bang, is only about 15 billion years.
If all quasars are billions of light years away, why do some have proper motions? For at least one, if its distance is correct it is moving across the heavens at over 5,000 times the speed of light! Clearly the measurement of distance is wrong!
And why aren't there any nearby quasars?
Renowned astronomer Halton Arp spent years trying to show that some quasars and galaxies were clearly interacting, and that quasars were obviously much nearer than was believed. He was eventually ostracized by the astronomical community and took employment in Europe!
The Hubble law was developed to measure the distance to galaxies, based on their redshift. When quasars with high redshifts were discovered, this law was used to estimate their distances, without any justification at all. If this law is not valid for quasars, then most of the mysteries surrounding them would disappear.
In May, 1998, astronomers observed a cosmic-ray burster which they claimed released energy equivalent to one second of energy from all of the 10 billion trillion stars in the universe combined. This is based on its distance of 12 billion light years, computed from a redshift of z = 3.418 and the Hubble law. This ridiculous assertion would disappear if the distance to quasars was less than currently believed.
Astronomers believe there are "massive black holes" at the center of most galaxies, and these have a gravitational force billions of times that of the sun. But astronomers have not definitely found even one small black hole yet, and have absolutely no idea how such a massive object could have formed within the estimated lifetime of the universe.
Astronomers claim that 90-99% of the mass of the universe is "missing" or invisible. They can't find it (because it doesn't exist)!
According to Big Bang theorists, the universe is about 15 billion years old. But it is utterly impossible for the various structures in the universe (galaxies, galactic clusters, etc.) to have formed in this short time. This alone should invalidate the Big Bang theory!
The Cosmic Background Radiation is used to "prove" that the Big Bang occurred. But the radiation should be "clumpy", to match the clumpiness of the universe. Instead it is extremely smooth. Also, the temperature of starlight was computed to be 3 degrees in 1926 by scientist Arthur Eddington. The CBR is 2.78 degrees - very close to Eddington's prediction, and far closer than George Gamow's Big Bang prediction of 5-30 degrees.
Pulsars are considered to be rotating neutron stars. If that is true, then several of these 10 mile diameter neutron stars are spinning 600 times a second! At this rotational rate, the surface would be traveling at 50% of the speed of light.
Astronomers have absolutely no idea where ultra-high-energy cosmic rays come from.
These are just a few of my problems with modern astronomy. To me they raise a flag that much (or even most) of what astronomers are telling us is utter nonsense! It is time for a new look at the universe.