Super Void

As mysterious as it can get, Universe has always been a place for strange and weird things. Now, scientists have a “Super-Void” in space which is missing galaxies!

So before we get in to the topic, first let’s discuss what is “Void”

According to Wikipedia, Voids or Cosmic Voids, as they are called, are vast spaces between galaxy filaments in the universe, which has few or 0 galaxies. Galaxy filaments are largest know structures in the universe, which have thread-like structures. They form boundaries between voids in space. These voids have very less density of matter that is considered for typical observable universe.

Voids are believed to be formed in Big Bang, followed by massive collapse its mass and compressed by Baryonic matter. After Big Bang, there were lots of areas with high and low densities, which were changing rapidly. The regions with high density collapsed rapidly under gravity eventually causing foam-like structure of cosmic web of voids. Voids located in high-density environment are smaller than regions in low density environment.

Now that you have enough idea about what is super void, let’s get into its discovery.

Scientists have discovered a mysterious empty section in space, which is almost 1.8 billion light years across and just 3 billion light years away from Earth. It has baffled the scientists as it is the largest known structure discovered which is missing almost 10,000 galaxies. It is located in space which is colder than other parts of the space and although it is not vacuum, it has density less than other parts of the space.

Even more confusing is why this place is so barren. Although Big Bang allows hotter and colder sections in the universe, this structure is quite large to be discovered. István Szapudi, of University of Hawaii at Manoa, described the object as possibly “the largest individual structure ever identified by humanity”.

It was picked up using Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) telescope located on Haleakala, Maui, and Nasa’s Wide Field Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite.

The latest study suggests that the ‘super void’ may be draining energy from light travelling through, which is why the area around it is so cold. Getting through such a big hole takes hundreds of millions of years, even at the speed of light, and photons of light slow down as they cross because the universe – and therefore the void - is continually expanding. However, the scientists claim that the void can only account for around 10 per cent the temperature drop in the cold spot.

“It just pushed the explanation one layer deeper,” said Dr Roberto Trotta, a cosmologist at Imperial College London.

This is the greatest super void ever discovered. Given the combination of size and emptiness, our super void is still a very rare event. We can only expect a few super voids this big in the observable universe