Related papers: The Olbers Conjecture, Revisited
The light emitted by all galaxies over the history of the Universe produces the extragalactic background light (EBL) at ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths. The EBL is a source of opacity for $\gamma$ rays via photon-photon…
Low-mass protostars are less luminous than expected. This luminosity problem is important because the observations appear to be inconsistent with some of the basic premises of star formation theory. Two possible solutions are that stars…
In this note, we propose a simple-looking but broad conjecture about star-algebras over the field of real numbers. The conjecture enables many matrix decompositions to be represented by star-algebras and star-ideals. This paper is written…
Recently published, precise stellar photometry of 72 Sun-like stars obtained at the Fairborn Observatory between 1993 and 2017 is used to set limits on the solar forcing of Earth's atmosphere of $\pm$ 4.5 W m$^{-2}$ since 1750. This…
The orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light is potentially interesting for astronomical study of rotating objects such as black holes, but the effect of reduced spatial coherence of astronomical light sources such as stars is largely…
I will review some results of observational cosmology which critically cast doubt upon the foundations of the standard cosmology: 1) The redshifts of the galaxies are due to the expansion of the Universe; 2) The cosmic microwave background…
For two decades the hot big-bang model as been referred to as the standard cosmology -- and for good reason. For just as long cosmologists have known that there are fundamental questions that are not answered by the standard cosmology and…
Why does the Sun shine? Today we know the answer to the question and we also know that earlier answers were quite wrong. The problem of the source of solar energy became an important part of physics and astronomy only with the emergence of…
The build-up of stellar mass in galaxies is the consequence of their past star formation and merging histories. Here we report measurements of rest-frame optical light and calculations of stellar mass at high redshift based on an…
For two decades the hot big-bang model has been referred to as the standard cosmology -- and for good reason. For just as long cosmologists have known that there are fundamental questions that are not addressed by the standard cosmology and…
Many have have taken in hand to write a treatise on the Star of Bethlehem, particularly on Kepler's explanation as a stellar birth, triggered by Mars joining a great conjunction (a meeting of Jupiter and Saturn), as he observed it in…
The current state of cosmology is easy to summarize: a very successful standard model -- the hot big-bang cosmology -- that accounts for the evolution of the Universe from 10^{-2} sec until the present; bold ideas based upon early-Universe…
The composition of the dark universe although hypothesised, remains one of the biggest mysteries in modern physics. On smaller scales, there are various solar puzzling phenomena which known physics cannot explain like the coronal heating…
The Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) stands for the mean surface brightness of the sky as we would see it from a representative vantage point in the intergalactic space outside of our Milky Way Galaxy. Averaged over the whole 4 pi solid…
It is currently impossible to determine the abundances of stellar populations star-by-star in dense stellar systems more distant than a few megaparsecs. Therefore, methods to analyse the composite light of stellar systems are required. I…
One of the biggest mysteries in cosmology is Dark Energy, which is required to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe within the standard model. But maybe one can explain the observations without introducing new physics, by…
The Era of the First Stars is one of the last unknown frontiers for exploration: a poorly understood billion years missing from our cosmological timeline. We have now developed several methods for finally filling in the lost billion years…
We offer a concise and direct way to derive the bending angle of light (i.e. as generally called, gravitational lensing), while light grazes a star, through the approach suggested earlier by the first author, which is fundamentally based on…
From as early as the 1930s, astronomers have tried to quantify the statistical nature of the evolution and large-scale structure of galaxies by studying their luminosity distribution as a function of redshift - known as the galaxy…
Studies of galaxy clusters have proved crucial in helping to establish the standard model of cosmology, with a universe dominated by dark matter and dark energy. A theoretical basis that describes clusters as massive, multi-component,…