Mysteries of "The Redshift Desert" --Why Do Galaxies in the Early Universe Appear Old?

[Speck Tater]

7. Steady State hypothesized the continuous creation of new hydrogen

at the rate of something like 1 hydrogen atom per cubic meter every billion years, which is plenty.

There are other problems with Hoyle's version of steady state, and with the various variations of it, which is why I said I don't support steady state. But I don't rule out the possibility that some incarnation of steady state might come along that addresses the objections.

But consider too that the big bang is based on the observation that the universe is expanding. That the universe appears to be expanding is a conclusion drawn from observed red shift, and the assumption that velocity is the only meaningful contributor to the red shift of distant galaxies. But suppose that there were some other mechanism that contributed to red shift? A discovery like that could (and I grant it's pretty far-fetched, but still possible) result in discovering, over night, that the universe is not expanding after all, and that the lion's share of the red shift is the result of something other than velocity.

So the book is never closed in science. The "ultimate truth" is never known, and the one thing that has been constant throughout the history of science is that yesterday's truths look like foolishness today, and today's truths will look like foolishness tomorrow. That's what makes science so exciting!