Astronomers Find Huge Hole in Universe
By SETH BORENSTEIN,
AP
Posted: 2007-08-25 23:05:48
Filed Under: Science News
(Aug. 24) – Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That’s got them scratching their heads about what’s just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That’s a giant expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness, a University of Minnesota team announced Thursday.
Astronomers have known for many years that there are patches in the universe where nobody’s home. In fact, one such place is practically a neighbor, a mere 2 million light years away. But what the Minnesota team discovered, using two different types of astronomical observations, is a void that’s far bigger than scientists ever imagined.
“This is 1,000 times the volume of what we sort of expected to see in terms of a typical void,” said Minnesota astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick, author of the paper that will be published in Astrophysical Journal. “It’s not clear that we have the right word yet … This is too much of a surprise.”
Here is the full article.
With our rapidly improving technology, do you think scientists will continue to discover many unexplainable and spectacular things?
Yes, and there will be many things I’ll never understand. But it’s nice to know that there are new stuff out there.
Yes
Susan thats where all the genuis Super GM’s go when they die. The one draw back is I hear the real estate is out of this world! ; )
The Universe is a glass bowl which has not been fully blown, a yard of ale without the ale, stil warmed and energised by the burning flame.
The questions are who are what is doing the blowing, what Universe lies outside or alongside our Universe, and will the flame ever be quenched? Are we temporarily in that happy part of the cycle between ‘all matter’ and ‘all energy’ where a mix of matter and energy makes life as we know it possible?
The answers lie beyond the chessboard.
I suspect my goldfish never knew that I created its Universe, its bowl, water and food. I gave it a mate but it ate it. It lived a long and presumably happy life, and died recently.
This sort of info is always so fascinating. Its like we’re never before unchartered territory, basically everything we discover leaves us in anazement. This story is really interesting. 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness…Hmmm. I can think of some human brains that have the same properties.
Yes!
I would not be suprised if, in the next ten years, researchers do not detect hundreds of terrestrial planets, many with water and in the habitable zone around their parent stars (Kepler mission). We may very well detect signals from the first non-earthly intelligences (Optical/radio seti), and we are slated to land again on the moon in this period(Aires/Orion).
Not bad. A fantastic time to be alive!
I always though the Universe was a fractal Mobius Strip of at least 11 dimensions.