Abstract
During the nineteenth century, it was common for physicists to believe in the existence of a material vacuum composed of an incompressible fluid that fills the whole universe. This fluid was called the aether. Its original purpose was to provide an elastic tenuous medium for light propagation through space. Although it is well understood today that no such medium is needed for light propagation, the existence of a cosmic aether medium in space is still possible and its physical properties can be understood on models of cosmology that have nothing to do with Big-Bang cosmology. It is possible that electromagnetic radiation emitted by the cosmic aether medium has already been detected. The low-frequency electromagnetic radiation emitted by the aether is called the cosmic microwave background radiation. The present study outlines a model for an aether medium that explains the genesis of the microwave background radiation in a closed static (nonexpanding) universe. It is shown that the spectrum of the microwave background radiation is a perfect blackbody with a temperature T rad=2.77 K in harmony with the perfect cosmological principle. It is further shown that the aether medium is opaque at radio and microwave frequencies. This particular feature of the model does not contradict any observations regarding the existence of distant radio galaxies and quasars.
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Sorrell, W.H. The cosmic microwave background radiation in a non-expanding universe. Astrophys Space Sci 317, 59–70 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-008-9852-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-008-9852-1