Huge Hole Found in the Universe

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2007-08-24 06:10am

The universe has a huge hole in it that dwarfs anything else of its kind. The discovery caught astronomers by surprise.

The hole is nearly a billion light-years across. It is not a black hole, which is a small sphere of densely packed matter. Rather, this one is mostly devoid of stars, gas and other normal matter, and it's also strangely empty of the mysterious "dark matter" that permeates the cosmos. Other space voids have been found before, but nothing on this scale.

Astronomers don't know why the hole is there.

"Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size," said researcher Lawrence Rudnick of the University of Minnesota.

Rudnick's colleague Liliya R. Williams also had not anticipated this finding.

"What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the universe," said Williams, also of the University of Minnesota.

The finding will be detailed in the Astrophysical Journal.

The universe is populated with visible stars, gas and dust, but most of the matter in the universe is invisible. Scientists know something is there, because they can measure the gravitational effects of the so-called dark matter. Voids exist, but they are typically relatively small.

The gargantuan hole was found by examining observations made using the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope, funded by the National Science Foundation.

There is a "remarkable drop in the number of galaxies" in a region of sky in the constellation Eridanus, Rudnick said.

The region had been previously been dubbed the "WMAP Cold Spot," because it stood out in a map of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation made by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotopy Probe (WMAP) satellite. The CMB is an imprint of radiation left from the Big Bang, the theoretical beginning of the universe.

"Although our surprising results need independent confirmation, the slightly colder temperature of the CMB in this region appears to be caused by a huge hole devoid of nearly all matter roughly 6 to 10 billion light-years from Earth," Rudnick said.

Photons of the CMB gain a small amount of energy when they pass through normal regions of space with matter, the researchers explained. But when the CMB passes through a void, the photons lose energy, making the CMB from that part of the sky appear cooler.

Hillary · Post by **Hillary** » 2007-08-24 07:06am

Is the location of this between the two ears of GWB?

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2007-08-24 07:23am

That's not really a 'hole' per se...more of just an sort of cosmic bald spot.
I do have to wonder why it's there, though; hope we figure it out.

OmegaGuy · Post by **OmegaGuy** » 2007-08-24 11:41am

Crap, they found my test zone.

Luckily I have another bomb.

Invictus ChiKen · Post by **Invictus ChiKen** » 2007-08-24 11:45am

Makes me think of Star Trek the 50th Anniversary for NES.

Checkov: Captain THERE'S A HOLE IN SPACE!!!

Kirk: Spock!?

Invictus ChiKen · Post by **Invictus ChiKen** » 2007-08-24 11:46am

Invictus ChiKen wrote:Makes me think of Star Trek the 50th Anniversary for NES.

Checkov: Captain THERE'S A HOLE IN SPACE!!!

Kirk: Spock!?

CRAP! It send to early

Anyway I can't wait to here the how and why of this. I wonder if there are any more like this out there...

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2007-08-24 01:06pm

So, what's the year 2016 like?

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2007-08-24 01:11pm

Drooling Iguana wrote:So, what's the year 2016 like?

And more importantly, why the fuck are they putting games out for the NES again?

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2007-08-24 01:15pm

I heard about this last night on the radio really late. It actually kinda freaked me oput about htinking there there is an area of the Universe over a BILLION Lightyears across that has Nothing in it..... I Really hope they don't find its getting bigger ._<

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2007-08-24 01:16pm

Are they absolutely sure this isn't a result of a gravitational lensing effect?

Invictus ChiKen · Post by **Invictus ChiKen** » 2007-08-24 01:48pm

D'OH!

25th Aniversary.

As for life in 2016.

Well the Republican party is no more as it self destructed allowing the Green Party to take it's place. It was also a massive blow to Big Oil after some scandles came to light.

Peak Oil became the new Y2K thanks to some massive sweeping reforms that included using a verity of alternate power supplies.

Some examples include but are not limited too.

Stop Lights being solar powered. (Not to mention laws requiring all new houses to have solar paneling.)

Thanks to developments in various fields of science solar energy can also be directly beamed to the Earth like in Sim City.

In religious news Neo-Paganism is overtaking Christianity. The more fundamentalist of the Christians have become very Democrat friendly suddenly along with massive revisionism and talking about the evil Liberal Slander campaign against the Clinton family.

All in all things are rather good. The economy is going up, education and health care reforms are making the U.S. a better and more liberal state to live in (One wonderful add on was making Technical colleges and community colleges free for everyone).

This was achived by a very simple three step plan.

However the important issue. The new NES.

Nintendo's new system is the Nintendo Entertainment System Mach II or just NES to the fans.

ThatGuyFromThatPlace · Post by **ThatGuyFromThatPlace** » 2007-08-24 01:50pm

Crossroads Inc. wrote:I heard about this last night on the radio really late. It actually kinda freaked me oput about htinking there there is an area of the Universe over a BILLION Lightyears across that has Nothing in it..... I Really hope they don't find its getting bigger ._<

Given that the Universe is expanding, I probably is getting bigger.

I have to wonder;

Theoretically, wouldn't there be something of a 'bald' spot like this in the near vicinity of where the Big bang took place? since matter is supposed to be accelerating away from the Big Bang, it makes sense (to me) that there would be a hole as described in that vicinity.

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2007-08-24 02:04pm

ThatGuyFromThatPlace wrote:Theoretically, wouldn't there be something of a 'bald' spot like this in the near vicinity of where the Big bang took place? since matter is supposed to be accelerating away from the Big Bang, it makes sense (to me) that there would be a hole as described in that vicinity.

No such this as "where the big bang took place" it took place everywhere al lat once.. so theres no "center"

FedRebel · Post by **FedRebel** » 2007-08-24 03:43pm

Crossroads Inc. wrote: No such this as "where the big bang took place" it took place everywhere al lat once.. so theres no "center"

Then how can the universe be expanding?

If the Big Bang took place 'everywhere', then there is 'nowhere' for it to go.

Crossroads Inc. · Post by **Crossroads Inc.** » 2007-08-24 03:57pm

The universe is epxanding equally in all directions.

Blow up a balloon with dots on it... The dots expand equally in all direction. The thing is we ar not "in" the balloon, instead, try to imagine us in the "Skin" of the balloon.

to our eyes, it seems everything is going away from us, that we are in the middle, but thats because everything else is equally moving apart.

The universe is like the "skin" of that balloon, Its expanding everywhere al lat once, and as such, there is no "center" of the universe.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2007-08-24 04:13pm

FedRebel wrote:
Crossroads Inc. wrote: No such this as "where the big bang took place" it took place everywhere al lat once.. so theres no "center"
Then how can the universe be expanding?

If the Big Bang took place 'everywhere', then there is 'nowhere' for it to go.

Stop imagining the universe as an interior and imagine it the surface of a balloon.

And since the Big Bang is the increase of space, not some huge bit of dynamite, 'nowhere' is rapidly becoming 'Somewhere'.

Tanasinn · Post by **Tanasinn** » 2007-08-24 04:24pm

Invictus ChiKen wrote: *snip*

Nice try, Ondore.

Are there any theories at all that might hint at what such a large bald spot is doing existing?

Post by **NecronLord** » 2007-08-24 05:13pm

I blame Mantrid.

Invictus ChiKen · Post by **Invictus ChiKen** » 2007-08-24 05:21pm

Tanasinn wrote: Nice try, Ondore.

Okay I must ask "Ondore?"

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-08-24 05:22pm

Tanasinn wrote:
Invictus ChiKen wrote: *snip*
Nice try, Ondore.

Are there any theories at all that might hint at what such a large bald spot is doing existing?

Perhaps the universe has a Goatse fetish.

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2007-08-24 11:45pm

NecronLord wrote:I blame Mantrid.

Or at least we know it'll take a long time for Galactus to get here.

Ariphaos · Post by **Ariphaos** » 2007-08-25 12:52am

Crossroads Inc. wrote:I heard about this last night on the radio really late. It actually kinda freaked me oput about htinking there there is an area of the Universe over a BILLION Lightyears across that has Nothing in it..... I Really hope they don't find its getting bigger ._<

Not only is it getting bigger, it's getting bigger than any other known void. Gravity still retards the expansion of space, and because of this, a void will expand faster than its neighboring superclusters.

One example, it is estimated that the Virgo supercluster is slowing the Milky Way down by about 10%, or over a hundred km/sec.

This... ultravoid has fewer such limiters for its volume.

SirNitram wrote:Stop imagining the universe as an interior and imagine it the surface of a balloon.

And since the Big Bang is the increase of space, not some huge bit of dynamite, 'nowhere' is rapidly becoming 'Somewhere'.

I dislike this example because it implies curvature, which hasn't been observed. A better one, in my opinion, is the rising bread model - imagine an infinite loaf of bread, the air pockets are the voids and the actual dough matter being the galactic filaments.

Szass Tam · Post by **Szass Tam** » 2007-08-25 01:42am

General Zod wrote: Perhaps the universe has a Goatse fetish.

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2007-08-25 03:43am

For some reason the idea of such a giant void creeps the fuck out of me.

freker · Post by **freker** » 2007-08-25 05:34am

maybe the void is slurping up all energy and matter to prepare for a new big bang.
it is already shown that photons loose energy in the void.
maybe the void is some kind of a "gnab gib" i.e. the counter of the big bang.