Can A 'Distant' Quasar Lie Within A Nearby Galaxy?

University of California, San Diego ^ | 10 January 2005 | Kim McDonald

[aruanan]

Either this is an observational anomaly that will eventually be cleared up, or ... it's a very big issue indeed.

See Seeing Red and the older Quasars, Redshifts, and Controversies by Arp for a list of many such objects, with a number of them actually interacting with other objects of significantly less red-shift.

[JasonC]

How about another obvious possible source of redshift - gravitational attenuation?

It takes a certain escape velocity for a rocket to escape earth's gravity. A rocket that has done so is moving more slowly relative to the earth, than it would be if it hadn't first had to climb out of the earth's gravity well.

The same thing can happen with light. Light climbing out of an intense gravity well should be redshifted - the equivalent of "slowed" for light, which always has the same apparent speed in all reference frames, but loses energy climbing across a gravity gradient the same as anything else. Normally, this phenomenon is so weak that the shift is tiny - because gravity is weak and acts on an escaping photon for a very brief length of time.

But a black hole is defined as a region where gravity is so intense light can't escape at all. Well, near that region, light can escape - but must be attenuated by the above process. Epsilon outside the event horizon, the redshift would be enourmous - but only a tiny slice of matter can glow there, so it would not account for any meaningful signal. But extend a bit farther, and the attenuation might still be appreciable, with enough glowing matter to release lots of photons. If a quasar is an active consumer of matter, that would make a certain sense. Lots gets close, some of the energy is radiated away as light. But attentuated light, if it has to climb out of a deep gravity well first.

[JasonC]

That is my first guess, too...

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Or ? or could it could be some kind of " NEW DIMENTSION " of time measurement that we are not aware of yet besides the speed of light.

[carlr]

If a plane is traveling at 1000 fps and fires a bullet that leaves the barrel at 900 fps we were taught that the bullet would be traveling away from the plane at 900 fps relative to the planes speed and at 1900 fps relative to ground.
As a hypothetical if we had a craft capable of traveling at the speed of light and fired a projectile from it what would be the result.
A question I remember wondering about but had not thought of in a while until I read an earlier post regarding moving faster than the speed of light.

[commonguymd]

When I heard that in science class I remember asking this question. "If I were in Rocket Ship hurdling through space (while in a vacuum of course) on an interstellar cruise at the modest speed of light, and I happen to throw a rock out the front- would it go forward? Better yet - what if Nolan Ryan is along for the trip and decides to pitch a fast ball out the front hatch? Would it go faster than the speed of light? Huh smarty pants science teacher?

[commonguymd]

You beat me to it. The answer from my science teacher was:

"It will go back in time"

I always thought that was cool. A way to time travel. Made me draw a few spaceships in my tablet.

[e_engineer]

Here is the photo from the article showing the location of the quasar.

[PatrickHenry]

There's a slight qualification that should be made. Special Relativity assumes that no signal or matter can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. This leaves open the possibility that space itself can expand at "super-luminal" rates, as is proposed in the Inflationary version of Big Bang Cosmology ...

Point noted, and accepted.

[swilhelm73]

So it primarily based on apparent location of the quasar a la Arp then?

[claptrap]

What difference could this possibly make, other their distance figuring has been in error.

[longshadow]

As a hypothetical if we had a craft capable of traveling at the speed of light and fired a projectile from it what would be the result.

Excellent question. The answer depends upon what frame of reference you try to measure the projectile's speed. Also, since SR assumes that no craft can travel at the speed of light, we need to assume that the craft is doing something like 99.9% of the speed of light.

From the standpoint of an observer on the craft, the projectile seems to leave the gun in the normal manner, at the normal speed relative to the gun and craft. But to an observer on a planet adjacent to the craft's trajectory, the bullet appears to be moving only a tiny bit faster than the craft, and always less than the speed of light.

This anomaly is better understood if the craft and the ground based observers both have clocks that are observable. To the observer in the craft, he thinks his clock is running at normal speed, but relative to the ground-based observer's clock, the clock on the craft appears to be running v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. This is called "time dilation," and is an effect predicted by SR, and which has been experimentally verified by comparing atomic clicks on the ground with atomic clocks carried in jet aircraft.

The point of all this is that unlike the Galilean view of the world, in which time was thought to be absolute (all clocks should be in agreement regardless of their frame of reference), the way the Universe actually works is that each observer will measure time in a manner that is dependent upon what his frame of reference is relative to the events he is timing. Essentially, time was thought to be invariant in the Galilean Universe. But as Einstein predicted, and experiment has verified, time is "relative" whereas the invariant quantity is the speed of light: in all frames of reference, light will travel through a vacuum at the same speed.

[PatrickHenry]

As a hypothetical if we had a craft capable of traveling at the speed of light and fired a projectile from it what would be the result.

Use a beam of light instead of a projectile. I asume you'll aim it in the direction that you're already moving. The light will travel at the speed of light, no faster. If you're already traveling at lightspeed when you switch on the beam (which is highly unlikely), the beam will stay with you.

[PatrickHenry]

You keep stepping on my lines.

[longshadow]

Point noted, and accepted.

You can't fool me by agreeing with me; I KNOW you're just itching to start a flamewar!

;-)

[longshadow]

You keep stepping on my lines.

The early worm catches the bird.

[PatrickHenry]

I KNOW you're just itching to start a flamewar!

Yo momma's so ugly she's her own frame of reference.

[SauronOfMordor]

In order for a gravity to cause the quasar redshifts, essentially all of the radiating matter would have to park itself impossibly close to the quasar.

The assumption has been that any object massive and dense enough to create a significant redshift, would collapse into a black hole.

What if there was something (dark matter?) that could aggregate itself into a massive enough object that it would have significant gravitational redshift, but NOT collapse into a black hole?

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Proverbs 1 : 7. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. King Solomon said that after obtaining riches, wealth, status, education, power, that " ALL IS VANITY " God uses the simple things to confound the wise ( the educated, high minded, elitist ). God reveals his mysteries and secrets to the humble, simple and the downtrodden.

[biblewonk]

Ping. Another case of non distance/velocity related redshift?