Scientist says neutron stars, not black holes, at center of galaxies(Forwarded)

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December 1, 2005

SCIENTIST SAYS NEUTRON STARS, NOT BLACK HOLES, AT CENTER OF GALAXIES

ROLLA, Mo. -- For the past 50 years, black holes have been all
the rage. Now, a University of Missouri-Rolla researcher says they never
existed.

Scientists have long believed that hydrogen fusion generates
heat and light in the sun and other ordinary stars for billions of years
before the star collapses into a neutron star or black hole when its
fuel is exhausted. "Most scientists think neutron stars are dead matter,
rather than energized, and that eventually they can collapse and form
black holes at the center of galaxies," says Dr. Oliver Manuel, a
professor of nuclear chemistry at UMR. "In this scenario, the end game
is the end of light as we know it."

Manuel thinks neutron stars are at the beginning of an
astronomical renaissance, so to speak.

In a new paper, http://arxiv.org/pdf/nucl-th/0511051 , Manuel
and his co-authors claim massive neutron stars are the energy source at
the center of galaxies. "The neutron stars break up and form smaller
stars, which drift apart to form planetary systems," Manuel says.

Manuel is the lead author of the new paper, "On the Cosmic
Nuclear Cycle and the Similarity of Nuclei and Stars." In the abstract,
the authors state, "This cycle involves neither the production of matter
in an initial Big Bang, nor the disappearance of matter into black
holes."

Since the 1960s, scientists have more or less assumed that
black holes populate the center of galaxies. Manuel says that assumption
just doesn't make sense to him.

"You should find a hole there, not a huge outpouring of energy
and light," Manuel insists. "If black holes exist at the center of
galaxies, stars should be falling in -- instead of explosively moving
away from the center."

According to Manuel, all of the "fragmentation" created by
neutron stars and the fission of heavy elements at the centers of
galaxies can be explained by "neutron repulsion."

"Neutrons and protons in the nucleus work like the north and
south ends of magnets," Manuel explains. "Neutrons repel neutrons,
protons repel protons, but neutrons attract protons. Neutron repulsion
is the force that energizes neutron stars. This empirical fact was
discovered by five graduate students working with me to decipher the
nuclear mass data for the 2,850 known nuclides in the spring of 2000."

Manuel and the group of UMR graduate students published their
findings in 2000 in the Journal of Fusion Energy.

Last summer, Manuel and other UMR researchers reported that a
small neutron star is at the core of our sun and other ordinary stars.
Those conclusions are forthcoming in the Proceedings of the First Crisis
in Cosmology Conference by the American Institute of Physics.

"The heat, light and hydrogen pouring from these stars are
produced by neutron repulsion in their cores," Manuel says.

Furthermore, according to the UMR scientist, our sun once
belonged to a larger neutron star that exploded to form the current
solar system. He imagines massive neutron stars to be like giant nesting
dolls that give birth to smaller stars.

"The super massive neutron stars break up and form galaxies of
smaller stars, just as the nuclei of the heavy elements break apart,"
Manuel says.

In their paper "On the Cosmic Nuclear Cycle and the Similarity
of Nuclei and Stars," Manuel and co-authors Michael Mozina of Emerging
Technologies and Hilton Ratcliffe of the Astronomical Society of South
Africa argue that neutron repulsion also explains the luminosity of the
sun and other ordinary stars.

"Additionally, neutron repulsion explains extremely high
energy events like quasars, which are associated with high-density
regions of space," Manuel says. "These were previously attributed to
black holes."