Why is it that the Milky Way is so lonely? That is to say, most areas of the universe are actually packed with galaxies called clusters, but ours isn’t. Scientists have even come up with a name for our lonely little area of the cosmos, the Local Void, because it’s just that mostly empty space. However, now they say that has some pretty wild implications.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00 Why is it that the Milky Way is so lonely?
00:06 That is to say, most areas of the universe are actually packed with galaxies, called
00:10 clusters.
00:11 But ours isn't.
00:13 Scientists have even come up with a name for our lonely little area of the cosmos, the
00:17 local void.
00:18 Because it's just that, mostly empty space.
00:21 Astronomers have estimated that our void is around 200 million light years wide, or in
00:25 other measurements, around 60 megaparsecs.
00:28 Now a new study posits that the local void might be inside another larger one, and it
00:32 might be ten times that size.
00:34 And that could turn our understanding of physics on its head.
00:37 That's because this theory conflicts with the standard model of cosmology, which dictates
00:41 that all matter should be spread out fairly evenly, more or less.
00:44 Researchers say that doesn't seem to be the case in our void, and it might have to
00:48 do with the very speed in which the universe is expanding.
00:51 They say in a roughly 3 billion light year area around our galaxy, the universe appears
00:55 to be expanding faster.
00:57 The physicists say that if we are in a void of that size, that would mean there is more
01:00 matter outside that area.
01:02 Matter that has more mass and therefore considerably more gravity.
01:06 With the expansion of the universe being accelerated outwards towards that mass.
01:10 Meaning this observation could not only account for the change in speed of the expansion of
01:14 the universe around us, but the researchers say this could be the first step in changing
01:18 our understanding of gravity in more than a century.
01:21 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:24 (upbeat music)