Once again the media has revealed that ratings and agendas outweigh truth and impartiality when reporting scientific discoveries. On September 27, 2005, NASA and other space institutions released reports of remarkable observations that should have been front page news. Instead, the findings did not even receive mention in many media outlets. In fact, most newspapers either buried it, or did not report the discovery at all. Imagine what kind of news story you would have if you walked into your backyard and allowed your children to plant an acorn, only to discover the next day that you are now the owner of a full-grown oak tree! This rapid growth is exactly what astronomers detected after looking through their telescopes at a galaxy named HUDF-JD2 (HUDF stands for Hubble Ultra Deep Field—BH). However, this discovery does not support the current “politically correct” evolutionary theory, and thus, the story was conveniently omitted.
Astronomers have long held that the leading theory for galaxy formation was for small galaxies to merge together and eventually form larger ones. Allegedly, after the Big Bang there were millions of years of “cooling down” before even these small galaxies began to form. Thus, one would not expect to see large galaxies until long after this “cool down” period, given the current evolutionary scenario. As Keay Davidson, science writer for the San Francisco Chronicle noted:
According to mainstream cosmological theories, the early cosmos—say within a billion years after the Big Bang—should have been a dimly lit swirl of cosmic debris. Astronomers would expect to see diffuse matter—like the smoke after an explosion—plus, perhaps, baby galaxies that hadn’t had time to become adult galaxies. Yet, astronomers say that when they recently gazed upon the early universe, some of what they saw was amazingly similar to the universe we see today (2005, emp. added).
The galaxy was initially spotted as a part of the Hubble Space Telescope’s Ultra Deep Field survey. Scientists then used NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope to capture better images. Everyone agrees that this galaxy is enormous, which poses a problem if it is really as old as suspected. Robert Britt remarked: “One of the most distant galaxies ever studied is more massive and mature than expected, astronomers announced today. The finding suggests some galaxies grew up much more quickly than conventional wisdom held” (2005, emp. added). Could it be that evolutionary dating schemes are completely wrong? In his report, Britt quoted Mark Dickinson, a study team member of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, who stated: “This would be quite a big galaxy even today. At a time when the Universe was only 800 million years old, it’s positively gigantic.”
Evolutionists allege our Universe to be 13-14 billion years old. Placing a mature and enormous galaxy on the scene after 800 million years would be like walking out back and discovering that newly planted acorn had grown into a towering tree overnight! Davidson observed: “Astronomers have spotted a huge, mature-looking galaxy dating from a time just 800 million years after the Big Bang. That’s when the universe was only 5 percent of its present-day age, or the cosmic equivalent of a prekindergarten child” (2005). Some are calling HUDF-JD2 the “Arnold Schwarzenegger” of galaxies, a label that poses some serious challenges to the evolutionary timeline.
Bahram Mobasher, team leader at the European Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute, noted: “This galaxy appears to have ‘bulked up’ amazingly quick” (Britt, 2005). He continued: “It made about eight times more mass in terms of stars than are found in our own Milky Way today, and then, just as suddenly, it stopped forming new stars. It appears to have grown old prematurely” (Britt). In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Mobasher admitted:
The puzzling thing about the discovery of such a massive galaxy this early in the history of the universe, is how such a large mass could assemble and lead to a galaxy during the 800 million years from the beginning of the universe. The present scenarios for galaxy formation would be in trouble if we find more such objects or galaxies slightly more massive than this (Davidson, 2005, emp. added).
Read that last sentence: “This evidence disproves the Big Bang timeline, but we refuse to let it go unless more evidence forces us to do so.” Never fear. Science abhors a vacuum, and therefore we can expect scientists to continue upholding the banner for the Big Bang theory until a suitable replacement is in place. Some scientists will chalk this mystery up to “dark matter”—even though we still have never measured it or proved its existence. Other’s will simply characterize the discovery as a fluke and hope the general public forgets about it.
However, one cosmologist is not buying the cover-up. In November 2005, Geoffrey Burbidge and his wife, astronomer Margaret Burbidge, received the British Royal Astronomical Society’s highest award, the Gold Medal for Astronomy. When asked about the HUDF-JD2 findings, Geoffrey indicated they didn’t surprise him. He admitted: “As you get older, you realize that you really don’t know very much. Cosmology has progressed very slowly. Mainstream cosmological theory is like the emperor who had no clothes” (Davidson, 2005, emp. added).
And yet, we still teach the Big Bang theory as fact!? When will the media rise to the challenge of honestly informing the public—even when the data discount the evolutionary theory?
REFERENCES
Britt, Robert Roy (2005), “Massive Distant Galaxy Calls Theory into Question,” [On-line], URL: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050927_massive_galaxy.html.
Davidson, Keay (2005), “Galaxy Like a 3-Year-Old With Bodybuilder Physique,” San Francisco Chronicle, [On-line], URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/10/MNGSEF53O01.DTL.
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