A Rebuttal to the Infrared Redshift Interpretation of Type Ia Supernovae

[Jzz]

The standard cosmological model relies heavily on redshifted light from Type Ia supernovae to support the theory of an expanding universe. It claims that light from distant supernovae is stretched due to cosmic expansion, causing originally visible light to shift into the infrared. However, this interpretation breaks down under scrutiny, particularly when one considers the abundance of naturally occurring infrared radiation already present in the universe. This post argues that the identification of redshifted supernova signals in the infrared is not only flawed—it is physically implausible.

The universe is replete with infrared radiation from countless sources: Interstellar and intergalactic dust warmed by starlight, planetary systems and debris disks, star-forming regions and molecular clouds, warm galaxies, especially those undergoing active star formation, brown dwarfs and stellar remnants, These emit in a continuous range of infrared wavelengths, creating a dense, omnipresent IR background. The infrared sky is not a quiet or empty place — it is crowded, complex, and noisy, much like a city during rush hour.

According to the expanding universe theory, a supernova whose light was originally in the visible range (e.g. around 500 nm) could, at high enough redshift (z ~ 1.5–2), appear in the infrared region (e.g. 1–2 microns). Infrared telescopes are then used to "find" this redshifted signature. But in a universe where: Real infrared radiation is already dominant, and where composite radiation fills the longer wavelengths, —it becomes unreasonable to believe that a redshifted visible-light signal could be distinguished from the surrounding infrared background. The signal-to-noise ratio would be catastrophically low. Identifying such a signal would be akin to trying to hear a single violin note in the middle of a stadium full of drums. The claimed detection becomes not a feat of science, but an exercise in statistical self-confirmation interpreting ambiguous data through the lens of an a priori model.

Redshift in the Infrared is a Mirage. The belief that we are observing redshifted visible light from distant supernovae in the infrared band is, when examined in the light of known infrared saturation and emission physics, untenable. In a universe already glowing with genuine IR radiation, the idea that astronomers are identifying faint redshifted optical signals in that sea becomes not science, but circular reasoning.

To continue insisting that we can see into the deep past through this fog is not only speculative—it may be scientifically irresponsible.

 

[contrarian]

Redshifted light from Type Ia supernovae have specific spectra for elements known to occur in objects of this kind. This IR is specific to the point source.

It seems rather unlikely that such observations are not reliable just because the universe is awash in low-level IR.

If you are getting specifically enhanced spectral lines (i.e. spectra) from a Type Ia supernova point source, it should stick out significantly from the background. Searches provide many papers on this, using spectra to define these supernova, and their distances.

You are suggesting that all of this data is wrong, which seems like a hard sell to some.

https://supernova.lbl.gov/PDFs/spectra.pdf

 

[Jzz]

Redshifted light from Type Ia supernovae have specific spectra for elements known to occur in objects of this kind. This IR is specific to the point source.

It seems rather unlikely that such observations are not reliable just because the universe is awash in low-level IR.

If you are getting specifically enhanced spectral lines (i.e. spectra) from a Type Ia supernova point source, it should stick out significantly from the background. Searches provide many papers on this, using spectra to define these supernova, and their distances.

You are suggesting that all of this data is wrong, which seems like a hard sell to some

Contrarian:

Firstly thank you for the link, very informative and very interesting. The referenced paper on low and high redshift spectra of type 1a supernovae paper tells us that : Redshift (denoted as z) refers to the phenomenon where the light from an object moving away from us is stretched to longer wavelengths, shifting it towards the red part of the spectrum. In astronomy, this is a key indicator of how far away a celestial object is and how fast it is receding from us due to the expansion of the universe. A higher redshift means the object is farther away and we are seeing it as it was further back in time. A lower redshift means the object is closer and we're seeing it more recently in the universe’s timeline.

The paper presents data for 14 supernovae with redshift values between 0.17 and 0.83. These are high-redshift in the sense that they are relatively distant (and from earlier in the universe’s history) compared to local or nearby supernovae with low redshift values (e.g., z < 0.1).

The conclusion arrived at in the paper suggests that Type Ia supernovae look and behave the same whether they exploded billions of years ago or more recently, which is essential because their consistency allows them to be used as "standard candles" to measure cosmic distances and study the expansion of the universe.

A few points: how bright is this redshifted light? According to planck

According to Planck’s law:

For infrared (longer wavelengths), the exponential in the denominator grows smaller (for lower T), and the total radiance is lower than for visible or UV light. The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the overall radiance will be very low. Let us go into things in a little more detail. A lot of poetic like verse is used to distinguish redshifted light from ordinary light (i.e., from other sources) such as: “A hot object (like a supernova) has a Planck curve corresponding to a high temperature, and it also shows broad absorption lines, like Si II or Ca H&K, that are characteristic of high-energy events.”
This maybe so but look at the facts. Here are the calculations for the intensity drop based on the inverse square law for the two extremities of high redshift mentioned in the paper:
For redshift
z=0.18:
The corresponding distance is approximately 2.38 × 10^25 meters.
The intensity drop factor is 1.76 × 10^-51.
For redshift
z=0.83:
The corresponding distance is approximately 1.10 × 10^26 meters.
The intensity drop factor is 8.30 × 10^-53.

Making a very rough calculation of the signal strength after red shift :
Here are the actual figures for a Type Ia supernova at redshift
z=0.5:
Average Power Output (after redshift correction) over 20 days:
≈3.86×10^ 37 Watts
Observed Flux at Earth (Intensity per square meter):
≈7.03×10^−16 W/m^2

So this redshifted supernova would be: Millions of times fainter than the dimmest star you can see, but within range for professional observatories. Further millions if not billions of infrared sources transmitting at the same frequencies

Coming now to the shape of the spectra, the redshift we see is for the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, what happens to the rest of the spectrum I declare that after being redshifted and at such low intensities they would be all but invisible. That is why I maintain that once an object is redshifted to these extents its reliability drops exponentially to the point where it is no longer credible. Therefore, merely the act of pointing in the required direction is not enough considering the final resolutions, and distances AND redshifts calculated in this manner are open to question.