what is the possibility that there are not so many stars and galaxies?

Question

Astronomers have found visible evidence that gravity and other events can bend large widths of light so that light could be redirected back to us after being sent away from the source of the light. What is the possibility that some of the stars and galaxies are simply the light of our star, or galaxy being bent some where and reflected back to us, giving us more stars than we actually have?

allow me to clarify...

I am not saying they are all reflextions, but that there is possibility that more than what is thought. This could result in some stars being closer and others being furhter.

Yes, I know there are differences between a star and a galaxy... but both emit light and possess gravity. Gravity lensing is not an unknown phenomena, and if the theory that the universe is curved, then it would require lensing to bend the light about the curves, thus it could be possible that more lensing effects are going on than we think... right?

OK, so what prevents light from being bent multiple times before being directed towards us. My understanding (admittedly limited) regarding redshift is that as the source of the light moves away, then it reddens. Where as, it goes bluish as it gets closer. This would cause the resulting light to differ from source. Further, regarding what we see, the bending due to gravity lenses could also cause other things like focusing and bluring. If one effect has been found there is probably the other effects, including filtering, which could change color, magnification in either the positive or negative way. x-rays, Gamma and Delta waves could all be adjusted as well.

As pointed out, we are learning and finding that we have much more to learn.

Final question: without more evidence than a math equation, how does astronomy employ "theories" since they must be able to be tested? I don't believe math is sufficient to test a theory.

Answer 1

Every time astronomers find an answer to one question several more questions are raised. This is what makes the study of astronomy enjoyable and exciting. Your hypothesis probably sounds far fetched to most but that does not mean you should give up trying to find facts to support it. Best of luck.

Answer 2

The very shortest way to get there is to be there in the first place and if not make it so. So if you take into account all those people over there than you better have a star that we all can enjoy or else take what we all get from confusion.

Then there's the explanation of light as in wavelengths and even photons but even if you go quantum there's still the explanation to the explanation and that's the Physics there. As in the star or planet or what have you that you see illuminated by light. So I guess that's the question isn't it. Is what's illuminated by light infinite or just random and variable?

I'll say there's more to it than just a few million billions of stars I'm guessing that if you include stars that are traveling at light speed and beyond the number approaches zorro if you don't have one in mind and infinity plus one if you do.

Answer 3

A very interesting thought. However, the number of stars that act as gravitational lenses from our viewpoint is very few. And the multiple images of a singe star or other cosmic body can be identified because they have identical light signatures and identical red shift readings.

The distances from the earth that stars exhibit cannot be distorted by a gravitational lense. The distance of a star far enough away so that its image is affected by such a lens tends to be measurable only by red shift. If a star is close enough to us so that its distance is measurable by paralax is generally too close to be affected by a gravitational lense phenomena.

Answer 4

There are theories of cosmology that hypothesize that the Universe has a repetative structure, and that the actual size of the Universe is many times smaller than it appears to be. The Universe then would then appear to consist of repeating pictures of a volume that is, perhaps, only a few million lightyears on a side, and as we look over billions of lightyears we see many repeating versions of this volume (which, of course, includes ourselves), at earlier and earlier ages.

There is, however, no observational evidence for this theory. It has been looked for in the pattern of Cosmic Microwave background anisotropies, but has not been seen.

Answer 5

No possibility whatsoever.
There is not enough mass in the Universe to bend all the light to us.

Answer 6

it is not a possibility because if you look up. you can see lots and lots of them. those are the bright ones only, but how about those that are not so bright.

Answer 7

But stars and galaxies are all different.....
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