Posted on 08/23/2007 7:36:01 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - 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 an 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."
Rudnick was examining a sky survey from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which essentially takes radio pictures of a broad expanse of the universe. But one area of the universe had radio pictures indicating there was up to 45 percent less matter in that region, Rudnick said.
The rest of the matter in the radio pictures can be explained as stars and other cosmic structures between here and the void, which is about 5 to 10 billion light years away.
Rudnick then checked observations of cosmic microwave background radiation and found a cold spot. The only explanation, Rudnick said, is it's empty of matter.
It could also be a statistical freak of nature, but that's probably less likely than a giant void, said James Condon, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He wasn't part of Rudnick's team but is following up on the research.
"It looks like something to be taken seriously," said Brent Tully, a University of Hawaii astronomer who wasn't part of this research but studies the void closer to Earth.
Tully said astronomers may eventually find a few cosmic structures in the void, but it would still be nearly empty.
Holes in the universe probably occur when the gravity from areas with bigger mass pull matter from less dense areas, Tully said. After 13 billion years "they are losing out in the battle to where there are larger concentrations of matter," he said.
Retired NASA astronomer Steve Maran said of the discovery: "This is incredibly important for something where there is nothing to it."
Maybe this is the celestial block house where God ran to after He stated the Big Bang?
Karl Rove quits White House. Huge Black Hole discovered in universe. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Not content with murdering brown people with hurricanes, he’s now targeting the entire universe! Evil!
Could be, IT may be representative of the void that existed before Genesis began and our world came into being... or maybe it is where God can have some peace amidst this turbulent and most awesome latest creation and mull his next one.
This just about sums it up.
As Roseanne Roseanna Danna said all too oft..
“It’s always something.”
“He used to enjoy talking about ‘nothing’ and that there still has to be something”
“Nothing” is the absence of something, which qualifies it as a of being which is ~something~....:)
My post was as necessary as yours. Pound sand.
Come to think of it, Alan Dean Foster wrote a bunch of stories about Flinx and Pip, many involving a huge blank spot in the universe with something evil in it. Hmmm, I wonder?
Lets survey & subdivide this huge tract of real estate.Who knows,it will be worth a fortune in a few billion years time!
That’s at the end of the universe :)
It made me laugh. I only looked at this thread to see which would be first, Bush’s fault or global warming, which wasn’t until post #14.
Norm, good call adding the note - that’s a seriously misleading headline.
Just more proof how small humans are in the grand scheme of things. The other day I was driving to Lubbock at 0430 I stopped to urinate on the side of the road south of Post Tx. truly in the middle of nowhere the next town was a half hour away.
I pulled over and turned off my lights why i’m not sure since I had not seen another car in at least half an hour. I noticed that there was not a single light on the horizon, not a single manmade source of light was around. No other evidence of man other than the road and my truck was there. It was then I looked up. For those who have never been in total blackout conditions like this city boy I was awestruck as to the shear number of stars. No clouds that night no moon from horizon to horizon nothing but stars of all colors like I had never seen before the Milky way looked like a river of light across the sky. The air was so clear they did not twinkle it was like you could see them on a flat infinite surface. Not another human for miles around just one man, under the backdrop of infinite space.
The experience of being truly, utterly, and totally alone for the first time in my life was sobering. I could not help feeling that even when totally alone there was something out there that put all of this greatness together chance could not explain the order. It was right then I realized that I was standing in the presence of the Almighty. I’m 30 years old and had never been touched by God till that moment. As a budding Geologist I always had a hard time with knowing that the earth is at least 4.6 billion years old, the evolution process, fossil records, plate technotics all are science thats is not explained in any of the worlds religions as such I have never had strong faith. As a scientist I always looked for science to answer the big questions. Looking out from our little world that 5 minutes previously I was content in the knowledge that I knew how it was formed, and how Its’ geophysics worked I stood humbled in the face of greatness.
I guess there’s a lot that scientists don’t know.
>>It was right then I realized that I was standing in the presence of the Almighty. I’m 30 years old and had never been touched by God till that moment. As a budding Geologist I always had a hard time with knowing that the earth is at least 4.6 billion years old, the evolution process, fossil records, plate technotics all are science thats is not explained in any of the worlds religions as such I have never had strong faith. As a scientist I always looked for science to answer the big questions. Looking out from our little world that 5 minutes previously I was content in the knowledge that I knew how it was formed, and how Its’ geophysics worked I stood humbled in the face of greatness.<<
That’s wonderful. And its so hard to communicate to someone who has not experienced it.
And it doesn’t negate your previous point that we are physically small. But whether we are the only planet with life or not we the only inhabited planet we have meaning.
If we are the only planet with intelligent life then no matter how large the universe may be, our place is still that preserving and building on the our special conscientious.
But if there are other planets with intelligent life then we have ahead of us the greatest of quests. To preserve and advance human society long enough to make contact and learn about life throughout the universe.
Lewis Black.
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