Historically, Big Bang has been discussed on CPF in Religious/Science threads. Some of these threads were engaging and interesing but some were somewhat unpleasant. I hope your thread stays on the topic you intended. I'll do my part.
The Redshift Desert, in theory or proven theory, however you want to look at it; is an area near the edges of the expanding universe where galaxies should have formed in the early stages of the creation of the universe, but could not be found...deserted if you will. Recently galaxies have been found there.
At
findarticles.com Charles Liu's article explains redshift:
Here's how redshift works--schematically, anyway. As Edwin Hubble demonstrated more than seventy years ago, the universe has been expanding since the beginning of time. Now imagine a beam of light traveling from one spot in the universe to another. As the light beam travels through an ever expanding space, it gets "stretched" along with space. The farther it travels, the more the beam is stretched, and so the longer its wavelength becomes. An increase in wavelength is equivalent, at least for visible radiation, to a change in color, according to the familiar order of the rainbow: violet has the shortest visible wavelength, followed by indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and, finally, the longest visible wavelength, red. So light emitted from a very distant source--it needs to be millions of light-years away for the effect to be noticeable--gets shifted in color toward the red end of the spectrum. Hence the name: redshift.
Interesting stuff for folks concerned with light and how it works.
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- Jeff