One of the biggest mysteries which cosmologists supporting the Big Bang theory would have to unravel in the new millennium is the presence of stars much older than the universe, according to renowned Astrophysicist Jayant V Narlikar.
The hubble space telescope has found stars which through
nuclear reaction tests have been found to be much, much older
than the origin of the universe by the big bang theory,
Narlikar told global cosmologists and astrophysicists
attending 'cosmology week' at the M P Birla planetarium in Kolkata on Saturday evening.
“The age of such stars could be estimated from their
colours,” he said, “But since we are working at the frontiers
of technology and have enough evidence to stick to the Big
Bang theory, we have to make our observations very, very
accurate and unravel this mystery, he said in a lecture on ‘Man
and universe.’
“It was strange,” he said, “How the universe, which is
surmised to have come into existence billions of years ago
with the big bang, could hold stars even older than that. The
universe is not old enough to have such stars and the new
world astrophysicists have an enormous task on their shoulders
to explain the whys and hows of this phenomenon.”
Narlikar, Director of the inter-university centre for
astronomy and astrophysics, Pune, said that recent observations had also revealed new galaxies in the depths of the universe and
astrophysicists were puzzled over the age of these clusters
and superclusters.
Bureau Report
