ORG:Astronomer's Findings Challenge Main Theory of Cosmic Evolution

   New findings about distant and nearby structures in the universe
have created what some astronomers believe are serious challenges to
the standard theory of how the cosmos evolved.

   Several groups of researchers reported results that, taken together,
appeared to contradict the standard idea of how the universe
developed... ...a theory known as "cold dark matter."

   ... Gravity, explosions, and other physical processes are believed
to have given the universe its large-scale structure, according to the
theory. But some scientists say the time at which the process is
believed to have ocurred is not consistent with the new discoveries.
One of the most difficult to to explain is the recent discovery of a
distant quasar. The quasar's light took 93% of the age of the universe
to reach Earth. The oddity involved in this is that according to the
Big Bang theory, it is not possible to have a quasar in that location.
The existance of this quasar puzzles scientists and is not explained by
the Big Bang.

   Robert P. Kirshner, an astronomer at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. says "The big problem is where the
galaxies came from and where the structure of the universe came from.
The background radiation is exceedingly smooth, so understanding how
the inhomgenities today grew from that background has been a difficult
challenge for theorists."

   According to current theory, another structure recently discovered
is totally unexplainable. This is the "Great Wall," a structure that
extends, like a huge wall, for millions of light years distance, and is
made up of compacted galaxies.

   John P. Huchra, another Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer, said the
reason their discovery seems to be incompatible with current models of
the universe is that such a structure, which is located in a part of
the universe that is about 10 billion years old, would need 100 billion
years to develop to its present size according to those models.

   "Here we have a giant structure that is a huge perturbation, but the
background radiation is very, very smooth," He said. "How did the
universe get so lumpy? That's the conundrum."

   Given these various oddities, that are unexplainable by current
models, scientists now have to rethink on how the universe was created.

   David N. Schramm, a professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the
University of Chicago shares "All of these discoveries, taken together,
cause a real problem for cold dark matter. It means that the growth of
structures had to happen very rapidly, not just from random
fluctuations in the early universe, but from large, correlated things."
