Void In Space
Graphic Source: My Artwork

What is going on, why is there a giant hole in our universe? That is the kind of question that scientists are asking themselves. The universe seems to be heavily populated with all kinds of things. There are galaxies, stars, planets and just all sorts of other objects. We have comets that hang out in solar systems, asteroids, pulsars, quasars and so much more. If everything in the universe is expanding like the waves that are created when a rock is dropped into a body of water, why would a huge area about one billion light years across be devoid of anything? It is kind of spooky when you really think about it. If we took our same rock, dropped it into a pond and waves were generated around the rock, but only generated out 3/4s of the way around, we would certainly think that this was very mysterious. We would wonder why waves were not going into that area. It seems, that in a way, the same thing is happening with the universe's expansion. Material is avoiding going into the void.

Where is the expanding material going? Does it go around the void, does it really go into it, never to be seen again because some unknown source is eating the material in the same manner that a black hole operates, or is it really there and we just can't detect it? There are so many questions that one could ask about what is happening here. When I first saw the void, I wondered if there was dark matter in the area and that was what we were really seeing, or should I say not seeing? Scientists claim that this is not the case, that the area is a true void. It is not the first time a void in space has been detected. There have been quite a few others, but nothing of the magnitude of this one. We are constantly learning about new things and processes that we didn't know about, as we get the equipment to examine space on a finer and finer scale. Could it be possible that there is something out there that we have no experience with? You can bet that there are still many things in space that we have no knowledge of. There may be things out there that we will not be happy finding out about and this could be one of them.

When we look at this void, we have to say to ourselves, could there be some new type of matter in the area that we are just not able to detect? I think that this could always be a possibility. Maybe there is some kind of huge gravitational force that works in reverse in the area, repelling anything from this area and that is why it is empty? Getting down to even more basic structures, maybe the space in this area is composed differently than normal space. Could we have some sort of portal to a different dimension or a different time? All these questions are fascinating. Can you imagine material going into this void and coming out somewhere else? Think of this, maybe these voids supply material for other universes such as volcanoes supply material for islands and such on Earth. Maybe the relationship we have with time is not what it seems. Time might exist in all phases at once and maybe material from this universe makes up the material of the past. Oh this is just getting too weird.

An interesting fact is that the number of discovered voids decreases as the size increases. One of the scientists that found this void said, "What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the Universe," Yep, he could say that again, it certainly can't be considered normal or we would have these huge voids everywhere. The void was found from data from the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope. The void is in the region of the constellation Eridanus. Scientists knew that something was different there, when they had checked the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation and that area come out as a cold spot. As a matter of fact, they had nicknamed it the "Cold Spot" in 2001. There were no radio waves in that area, we are talking about the radio waves that were created from the Big Bang which is said to have created our universe. This void is located somewhere between 6 to 10 billion light years from Earth.

I think an interesting question might be, "is the void growing"? Maybe this void and others like it account for the missing matter in the universe that is always being talked about? Maybe it is hidden in them some way? Could it be that because of these voids, the universe will just continue to expand, as many are saying now. The thing is that scientists were saying this without taking the voids into account, so now that we see there is less matter than we even suspected, could this prove their theory? Maybe the end of the universe will come when the voids somehow gobble up all the material that there is. On the other hand, if the voids just remain the same size, it means that they were probably created that way and have not changed, but wait, if the universe is expanding shouldn't they be expanding too just from natural forces?

More likely than not, the void will turn out to have some material in it. The fact is that it probably has such small amounts of matter that the matter is undetectable, but on the other hand it could truly be empty, which would really throw scientists for a loop. The void is so far from us, that even the most powerful telescope would have a hard time trying to zero in on it. The void is truly an enigma, but I am sure it is not the only enigma that we will find as we explore space. Maybe we will even find an area that is the opposite of the void, an area that is pushing out all of its material? Maybe this void was once an area like that and depleted everything in it, who knows?

The void is just one of the fascinating sights that the universe has to offer us, but it is so unlikely that it just can't help but attract the attention of astronomers and scientists everywhere.