SCIENCE WATCH: EMBRACING THE VOID: INSIDE "THE GREAT NOTHING"

SCIENCE WATCH: 

EMBRACING THE VOID: INSIDE "THE GREAT NOTHING"

​When we look up at the night sky, we are captivated by the countless stars and galaxies, but what if I told you that the majority of the universe is defined by something else entirely: a profound, overwhelming emptiness?

​Welcome to the world of cosmic voids, enormous stretches of space that contain virtually nothing. These aren't just the relatively empty spaces between stars; they are voids that span billions of light-years, making the space between our Sun and the nearest star look crowded by comparison.

​The Boötes Void: A Vacuum of Cosmic Proportions

​The most famous of these empty zones has earned a fitting, almost ominous nickname from scientists: "The Great Nothing". This title belongs to the Boötes Void, a truly staggering region over 300 million light-years across.

​To put its emptiness into perspective:

​This area should statistically contain approximately 10,000 galaxies [00:13].
​Instead, the Boötes Void contains only about 60 galaxies.

​If you could travel to the center of such a void, you would see almost no stars or galaxies—just an absolute, isolating darkness.

​The Universe as "Cosmic Foam"

​This uneven distribution of matter reveals that the universe is not smoothly spread out. Instead, it is structured more like a colossal cosmic foam.

​Galaxies cluster together on the thin, dense "walls" and filaments of this foam.
​The cosmic voids fill the enormous bubble-like middle sections.

​In fact, the emptiness is winning: these empty voids account for a massive 80% of the universe's total volume. We, and everything we know, live within the bustling 20% that actually contains "stuff" 

​The Lonelier Future of Space

​This story of emptiness doesn't end there. The vast voids are constantly expanding, their size being pushed by the mysterious force known as dark energy

​This expansion is making the universe emptier and lonelier over time. Eventually, billions of years from now, galaxies will be so far apart they will no longer be visible to one another. Future civilizations, trillions of years into the future, will look out into the cosmos and see nothing but an enveloping, eternal darkness 

​The stars we see today are a precious, temporary concentration of matter in a cosmos that is inherently, overwhelmingly empty. It is a sobering reminder that the universe is mostly nothing, and as the saying goes, "it's winning" 

​ 

MORE ON THE GREAT NOTHING

1. YOUTUBE SHORTS

For a visual look at the largest empty space in the universe, check out this video:
The Largest Empty Space in the Universe 🕳️ Billions of Light-Years of NOTHING
https://youtu.be/jWFGhlMRsD8?si=nXlT3sSg3fRkcxwc

2. WIKIPEDIA, THE FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA

Boötes Void
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%B6tes_Void

Grateful thanks to 

Google Gemini for its great help and support in creating this blogpost 

and

YouTube and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for supplenting it.