Mysterious Circular Radio Objects: could they be plasmoids? A new set of precision distance measurements made with an international collection of radio telescopes has greatly increased the likelihood that theorists need to revise the "standard model" that describes the fundamental nature of the Universe.

Full paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.14805.pdf

"We have found an unexpected class of astronomical objects which have not previously been reported, in the Evolutionary Map of the Universe Pilot survey, using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope. The objects appear in radio images as circular edgebrightened discs about one arcmin diameter, and do not seem to correspond to any known type of object"

Light appears to bend around large objects in space. Proponents of gravitational cosmology are quick to interpret this to fit their cherished theory of mass bending space and time. They even invoke mysterious dark matter on occasion, but it turns out there is a simpler and verifiable explanation at hand.

Ranitesh Gupta is a professor of Electrical Engineering & Technology at Lucknow University, India. He explains it in terms of refraction. See his paper here.

From the conclusion:

"It is suggested that Gravitation is only between material bodies and that the zero-rest mass photon is unaffected by gravity. The alternative novel approach to explain phenomena such as bending of light near a star and gravitational red/blue shift is based on refraction phenomenon of optics. Bending of light is due to bending of ray due to refraction within the star's atmosphere. The red/blue shift is due to optical-phenomenon of change of wavelength (frequency remaining same) due to change in velocity of light in the atmospheric medium. Other aspects such as blackhole and gravitational-lensing are also re-examined in the new perspective of refraction phenomenon. Interesting predictions are also made. In fact many of the general-relativity-tests are explained without general-relativity on the basis of refraction. The new approach could have important bearing on understanding of space-time, gravity and cosmology."

The straightforward idea that refraction causes the lensing effect attributed to General Relativity has also been proposed by Dr. Edward Dowdye, a physicist and laser optics engineer formerly with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He has derived a mathematical solution for lensing using refraction, and presented his findings at the EU 2012 conference. Paper: Gravitational Lensing in Empty Vacuum Space Does NOT Take Place

Dr. Dowdye points to the fact that observations of solar lensing are in the plasma ionized atmosphere of the Sun, as predicted by refraction, and not at varying elevations from the mass of the Sun, as predicted for gravitational lensing. He also highlights the lack of gravitational lensing observed in the stars rapidly orbiting the Milky Way's galactic center. YouTube - The Failed Attempts to Detect Macro Lensing

"Evidence of gravitational light bending at the site of Sagittarius A*, as is predicted by the light bending rule of General Relativity, is yet to be observed."
Dr. Edward Dowdye

Schoolboys the world over know that if you put a stick in water it will appear to bend as a result of refraction. We also know that the atmosphere of planets and stars is more dense than the space between them. In other words, why resort to complicated mathematics and esoteric hypotheses when simplicity will suffice? KISS (keep it simple, stupid) is the expression that springs to mind.

Standard scientific texts focus on just three states of matter - solids, liquids, and gases. This is no small omission. Not only should plasma be added to this list, but it should take first place, not least because it constitutes 99% of the known Universe! Space travel has confirmed this fact. It is misleading to describe plasma as an ionized gas when it is in fact a state in its own right.

Given the dominance of plasma in the universe, it seems more sensible to consider solids as cooled plasma (or matter with energy removed), as opposed to highly energised or heated matter. Moreover, because of the ability of plasma to interact with electromagnetic forces, it is capable of forming far more complex structures than those seen in solids, liquids, or gases.

Plasma is for everyone, as Anthony Peratt, a leading contemporary astrophysicist, is wont to say.

[T]he professional tends to interpret the pictures by using the theory he was taught while the amateur tries to use the picture to arrive at a theory. Halton Arp, Seeing Red

Gravity works elegantly in the idealised two-body problem. Given two isolated masses and their initial positions and velocities, Newtonian mechanics can describe their motion exactly, producing stable and predictable orbits.

Introduce a third significant body, however, and the problem changes dramatically. Except in a limited number of special cases, there is no general analytical solution. Each body continually alters the motion of the other two, and tiny differences in the starting conditions can eventually produce very different outcomes.

The problem became so important that King Oscar II of Sweden offered a prize in 1885 for its solution. Henri Poincaré's work on the competition revealed the extreme sensitivity of such systems to their initial conditions and helped to lay the foundations of modern chaos theory.

This does not mean that every system of three or more bodies must quickly become unstable. Many configurations can remain orderly for extremely long periods. It does mean, however, that gravity alone does not provide the simple clockwork predictability often associated with the Solar System. Once several bodies interact, long-term behaviour must generally be explored through numerical approximation rather than exact solution.

The Solar System contains not three bodies, but the Sun, eight planets, numerous moons, asteroids, comets and other objects, all exerting gravitational influence upon one another. Its long-term stability is therefore not a straightforward consequence of a simple gravitational formula, but an inference drawn from complex models whose outcomes depend upon assumptions and initial conditions.

Wikipedia link

This is worth remembering when gravity is presented as a complete and self-sufficient explanation of cosmic structure. Even before we leave our own planetary neighbourhood, the mathematics becomes nonlinear, approximate and, over sufficiently long periods, potentially chaotic.

Within the limited confines of our own backyard, the Solar System, existing gravitational models seem to be holding up. We have succeeded in sending probes to neighbouring planets and, despite the crashes and anomalous accelerations that have afflicted many space programs, the Huygens mission scored a spectacular success - landing on Titan, a moon of Saturn, despite unexpected atmospheric conditions.

It should be noted, however, that gravity models begin to break down when we look further afield. Gravity, of course, is generally described as a property of mass. The trouble is that we have not discovered enough mass in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, to account for its fortunate tendency not to disintegrate.

The existence of mysterious dark matter is hypothesised to account for this shortfall in mass, but it is yet to be discovered despite extensive searches. Its existence is only inferred on the basis that gravity models "must be" correct. The alternatives raise too many uncomfortable questions! Furthermore, dark matter is no small kludge factor - it is alleged to account for about 80% of the universe, but accounts vary from one moment to the next. This has led to further problems in relation to expansion models, and another hypothetical, dark energy, has been invented to overcome these. In summation, dark matter and dark energy are the blank cheques required to postpone the falsification of bankrupt theories.

Moreover, as per the work of Anthony Peratt, it can be shown that electromagnetic forces are several orders of magnitude greater than gravitational forces in certain types of plasma, and also that electromagnetic forces can have a longer range. On the largest scales, evidence that plasmas exhibit external forces on physical objects such as galaxies is the same as that which has led standard model researchers to postulate dark matter and dark energy. Need any more be said?

"It is an embarrassment that the dominant forms of matter in the universe remain hypothetical." Jim Peebles, Princeton Cosmologist

In 1996, in a joint US–Italian mission, a large spherical satellite was deployed from the Space Shuttle at the end of a conducting tether more than 12 miles (20 km) long. The objective was to allow the Shuttle to drag the tether through the Earth's magnetic field, generating electrical power by electromagnetic induction. The return current was expected to flow through the Earth's ionosphere, completing a giant electrical circuit.

The deployment was almost complete when the tether suddenly broke free. Initial speculation focused on mechanical failure, but subsequent analysis indicated that the tether had been subjected to unexpectedly large electrical currents. The evidence suggested that the conducting cable had melted rather than simply snapped under tension.

The mission provided a striking demonstration that significant electrical currents can flow naturally through near-Earth space. See also Measuring Electrical Differentials in Space.

It is often said that there is no reason to believe that the universe knows about us, or that our solar system knows about the universe. In this purely mechanistic view, contradictory evidence is generally explained away as merely coincidental. Anomalies in CMB measurements seem to suggest that our solar system reacts to conditions outside it, which was not expected, but this situation is dismissed as ... coincidental.

sciencealert.com hints that new physics may be required.

Plasma Cosmology promotes a more holistic view of the universe. This is a profound differentiation, and permits many theories previously excluded in a purely mechanistic gravity-dominated universe. Bodies immersed in plasma are not isolated — they are connected by circuits.

Quasars (quasi-stellar radio sources) have long presented puzzles that sit uneasily within standard cosmological assumptions. One often-cited example is the galaxy NGC 7319, a Seyfert Type 2 galaxy whose active nucleus is largely obscured by dense dust. Its measured redshift is approximately z = 0.0225.

Nearby in projection lies a bright quasar with a redshift of z = 2.114 — a dramatically higher value.

Under the conventional interpretation, redshift is taken as a proxy for both distance and recessional velocity. If so, the quasar should lie vastly farther away than the galaxy — by billions of light years. Yet its apparent alignment with the galaxy, and the suggestion of interaction or proximity in some observations, raises questions about whether redshift always functions as a simple distance indicator.

"...past 90% it [Dark Matter] begins to make observations irrelevant." Halton Arp

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." Novelist, Robertson Davies

Cases such as this have been used to argue that the relationship between redshift and distance may not be as straightforward as often assumed. While the expanding-universe model remains strongly supported by multiple independent lines of evidence, anomalies and edge cases continue to provoke debate about how redshift should be interpreted in all circumstances.

If the quasar associated with NGC 7319 were physically connected to the galaxy, its large redshift would be difficult to reconcile with a purely distance-based interpretation. This tension lies at the heart of ongoing discussions about so-called discordant redshifts.

Intrinsic Redshift

Observations of certain galaxies have suggested structured relationships between quasars, companion galaxies, and active galactic nuclei. In some cases, quasars appear aligned along axes extending from galactic centres, and occasionally features described as "bridges" or connections have been reported.

Such observations led astronomer Halton Arp to propose that at least part of a quasar’s redshift might be intrinsic — related to its physical state or evolutionary stage — rather than arising solely from cosmic expansion.

Arp, a former colleague of Edwin Hubble, documented numerous examples of apparent associations between objects with markedly different redshifts. These observations challenged the assumption that redshift always corresponds directly to distance. His work remains controversial, but it continues to be discussed in alternative cosmological frameworks.

In Arp’s interpretation, quasars could represent younger, evolving objects ejected from active galaxies, with redshift decreasing as they mature. Over time, such objects might develop into dwarf galaxies and eventually into more typical galactic forms.

The Plasma Universe presents a profoundly dynamic, quasi steady-state picture of reality. It may seem counterintuitive to regard galaxies — enduring for billions of years — as transient phenomena, yet within this framework they form part of an ongoing process of creation and decay. Planets, stars, and galaxies are born and die. The universe, in this view, is cyclical.

In the plasma cosmology model, large-scale structures such as superclusters, clusters, and galaxies emerge from magnetically confined plasma filaments — vast, evolving networks shaped by electromagnetic forces. This approach not only accommodates the observed large-scale structure of the universe, but anticipates it. Without requiring a singular point of origin, it allows for the gradual development of complexity over extended timescales, free from the constraints of a finite beginning and open instead to a universe in continual evolution. A universe not fixed in origin, but alive in process.

When the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched, astronomers expected it to observe the first generation of galaxies forming gradually during the universe's first few hundred million years.

Instead, it immediately began finding candidates that appeared larger, brighter, and more evolved than expected. Several objects were reported at redshifts approaching 25, implying that substantial galaxies may already have existed within only a few hundred million years of the Big Bang.

Initially, cosmologists responded by refining their models. Star formation efficiencies were increased, dark matter halo evolution was accelerated, and a variety of additional mechanisms—including primordial black holes—were proposed to explain how galaxies might have formed much more rapidly than previously believed.

Then came an even more remarkable discovery.

A recently reported candidate, designated CEERS U-100588 and nicknamed Capotauro, has been identified with a possible redshift of z ≈ 32. If confirmed, the light from this object would have been emitted less than one hundred million years after the Big Bang—during the period conventionally known as the Cosmic Dark Ages, when the first stars were not expected to have formed.

Astronomers have, quite properly, explored more conventional explanations first. Could Capotauro be a nearby brown dwarf? A faint object within our own galaxy? A much closer dusty galaxy masquerading as a distant one? Each possibility presents significant difficulties of its own, and at present the high-redshift interpretation remains among the leading explanations.

If Capotauro is confirmed, the implications would be profound.

The challenge would no longer concern the efficiency of galaxy formation. Instead, it would call into question the accepted timeline of the earliest stars themselves. A luminous galaxy cannot exist before the stars that illuminate it.

Whether Capotauro ultimately proves to be a record-breaking galaxy or something entirely different, the broader trend is already clear. JWST has repeatedly revealed mature galaxies significantly earlier than standard cosmological models originally anticipated. Once again, observations are forcing theory to adapt.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” they say. The same principle surely applies to the extraordinary theoretical adjustments increasingly required to preserve the standard model.

Scientific theories are expected to evolve. The question is not whether a model changes, but whether those changes genuinely increase its explanatory and predictive power, or simply shield it from falsification.

The YouTube Geointeresting Podcast, Episode 5, below, is a fascinating interview with Cleo Loi, the undergraduate who discovered "plasma tubes" in the ionosphere circa 2016.

Her supervisor tasked her with understanding the noise of the radio telescope study of distant pulsar signals, the story goes. Cleo noticed patterns in the data, then proceeded (apparently for the first time in history) to use a parallax test available to a cluster telescope in order to determine the location (altitude) of the phenomenon. She's essentially invented the terrestrial study of the ionosphere by radio telescopes.

Cleo recounts her navigation through dismissal by her supervisors and experts in the field. Another senior professor is in on the interview, and seems slightly defensive. The situation serves as a reminder of Alfvén's interdisciplinary warning.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/z1yHghhBJGc

Cosmology is often described as the Queen of the Sciences, as it provides the foundational framework upon which many other scientific disciplines depend. This central role contributes to a natural resistance to change, as noted on the home page. Any significant shift in cosmological understanding would likely require a reassessment across much — if not all — of the scientific landscape. See also Skepticism / Paradigm Shifts.