I am a novice at astrophysics and may need some help understanding. But I will post these questions to make sure I understand what you are saying.

Your iron problem solution indicates that the stars should have iron in their cores. I seem to remember in my astronomy courses that when a star reaches the point that it is fusing iron, it explodes... or something like that. Anyways, if there is iron at the heart of the star, then would it not follow that more energy is required for fusion of the heavier elements? And if the star is expanding like the balloon, then there should be less energy for fusion, not more over time. This appears to me to be a paradox.

Are you suggesting that the process is still hydrogen fusion but occuring in a spherical volume enveloping the iron core? How large is the iron core, and would the star's increasing density actually reduce the size of the star over time. Also, what is the state of iron at the core? Is it liquid or solid, or even gaseous? Would we have iron vapor at millions of degrees, and if so would that still be at the core, or would it diffuse into the upper regions of the star and eventually be expelled into space through cellular upwelling? What effect would this iron have on the sun's magnetic field. Also if ejecting of iron is accepted, has it been imaged in spectra? Even if we stipulate that the meterstick of space is expanding, would not relative relationships maintain themselves in the short term... in otherwords, are we observing iron absorption or emission spectra?

As for the great red spot, I thought I read that it has been observed only for about 300 years, that earlier observations did not detect it, so that is a relatively recent phenomenon. Are you suggesting that it comes and goes, and that it was there and went away then came back after we developed the technology to resolve that level of detail?

I am not familiar with radio galaxies and their manner of imaging. Could you explain that in more detail? I have some familiarity with optics and assume radio photons follow the same rules of propogation as visible light. If a galaxy is far away, it should seem smaller in proportion to the imaged field. The light may be brilliant, but at distance the inverse proportion law kicks in: the larger the distance the less light we see per unit area. While our sun, due to it's proximity creates umbral and penumbral shadows due to it's visible disc area, a distant star is imaged as a point source. We should not expect distant galaxies to send us collimated light for imaging. right?

If we stipulate that the meterstick of space is expanding (more than just doppler), then would that just reduce the available light? While the expansion would space out the rays of light, the angle is what determines the image size. We can only see what enters our aperture at a selected angle of view. If in a static spacetime the angle results in photons being x distance apart, and in an expanded spacetime it is, say, x*2, it won't affect the apparent size of the object because our aperture increased in a linear manner. However, the expansion of the ray's trace is propogated over time and is continuously compounded and would be depicted as a curved line. Thus it would not fall within our view and not be imaged.

About galactic redshifts. If the universe is expanding from a point source at the big bang, then the movement out from that center means everything will have a different angle of dispersal. That small velocity difference would, I think, account for at least some of the red shift by simple doppler effect. We would not see a redshift in the Milky Way because we are all moving together. That's why I don't detect a doppler shift from the radio in the car. Indeed, if the universe were expanding uniformly and within galaxies then we might expect to see a local doppler effect.

The Doppler Effect is the elongation of waveforms due to recession or compression of the signal source. However, if the universe were expanding outside of the galaxy, then the red shift could be caused by the stretching of the signal wavelengths after origination. A uniform expansion should show this within our galaxy and even between the sun and earth. However, the sun still seems yellow-white.

Another thing that seems odd to me. If I understand correctly, everything expands equally in your uniform expansion hypothesis. Would this not appear to have the same effect one sees by softening focus in a camera. Everything becomes diffuse and blends together. If everything expands apace at the same geometric rate, then would not, say, our sun's volume in time equal that of the universe? Would this result in a quantum mush and, maybe, start the big bang all over again?

It seems like everything would expand and we would not notice the difference with the exception of gravity. Have we finally decided what causes gravity and how it relates to or creates spacetime? My understanding is that gravity has infinite reach and is assymptotic. Do we know that gravity will remain constant? If it is directly related to mass, then will it also expand it's reach and force to compensate? Have we also tied it all up with the Strong and Weak and electromagnetic forces? If these nuclear forces lose their force, then would fission and fusion emit less energy? If electromagnetic repulsion is lessened, then would atomic nuclei coallesce to form super dense matter conglomerations? That would seem to counter expansion.

I just seems inuitive that light propagating as a wave through a medium is therefore affected by alterations of that medium, yet matter does not propagate, it transits space and therefore experiences time. If both matter and light are affected by a scalar expansion then how would we even detect the redshift? The yardstick we use to measure the wavelength also expands by the same factor! The fact that we are observing an expansion seems to indicate that we are, therefore, not undergoing it.

Moreover, if gravity is a function of matter, then it stands to reason that the two must remain constant, or at least be directly related. If matter becomes energy via Einstein, where does the gravity it created go? Indeed, if all matter in the universe suddenly transitioned to energy, would there be any gravity? And if not, then how would energy propagate, and through what medium? And if there is no spacetime to travel through then what is its speed, and if the speed is not c then it should be matter instead of energy. We don't know what speed c would be because there is no more distance and no more time. It just seems that E=mc^2 becomes meaningless and E becomes an imaginary number.

The hypothesis may seem to explain current observations, but my attempts to extrapolate the future and past don't seem to jive. Indeed, it seems counter-intuitive. The end seems to resemble the beginning and vice-versa.

But I'm not an expert, I just wonder about these things...

__________________
"Oh no no no I'm a rocket man Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone." -- Sir Elton John

J Pax