Astronomers Find Huge Hole in Universe

realwx writes "Astronomers are surprised by a recent discovery of a space hole that is nearly a billion light years across. "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.""

Normal

[RAMMS+EIN]

How can it not be normal if it occurs in nature?

Declaring something is not normal because it doesn't agree with our imperfect idea about how things work seems to be the wrong way about it to me.

Re:Normal

[Baumi]

How can it not be normal if it occurs in nature?

Declaring something is not normal because it doesn't agree with our imperfect idea about how things work seems to be the wrong way about it to me.

The full quote is: "What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the universe."

That doesn't mean it's not normal per se. It means that this void is caused by some factor not previously observed or taken into account in simulations, i.e. "If these simulations were 100% correct, something like this couldn't occur."

(Let the speculations commence...)

Re:Normal

[k8to]

Uh, you are railing against the phrasing. The fact is the scientist did not mean what you think she meant. The phrasing validly can be seen to mean (in context) what you think it should say. In short, you are nitpicking the phrasing while believing you are complaining about the content.

-1 Boring.

Re:Maybe

[VagaStorm]

Not to be nagging, but maybe cosmology is not common as knowledge as you would like to think, references to easily readable information should always accommodate a post like that, or it will easily come of as slightly elitist and patronizing flamebait instead of something useful and informative. :p

I am disappointed

[Shohat]

I am not an astronomer/astrophysicis, but this is a really interesting story, it's a real shame that 80% of the >filter comments are "Funny".

Breakdown of modern cosmology

[Ginger_Chris]

One of the fundamental approximations in modern cosmology is that the universe is both isotropic and homogeneous over large scales (such as those which treat galaxies as point objects). This size hole s fairly big, and is noticeable on even this scale. This means there could be a special point in the universe, which caused all sorts of problems. Does this mean we have to re-think our basic theory of cosmology, or is this size hole possible under current theories, even if it is extremely unlikely to form. (the universe is a big place, even if something has a minuscule probability it still could happen somewhere out there. Personally I think it was placed there by the universe to test our belief in God not existing.

Axiom doesn't hold

[Anonymous Coward]

The axoim used is false so the whole statement doesn't hold. I always knew atheists are not real scientists, they just try to use psuedo-science to there advantage, there hate for the creation by G'd is really sad.

Re:Well I guess the joke is on us.

[alexj33]

Boy, it would be nice if people could get points by bashing the beliefs of non-Christians on this site too.

Re:hm..

[0xABADC0DA]

More likely still is that the server responsible for simulating that section of the universe crashed and hasn't been restarted yet (or will never restart). The civilization there probably started using too many quantum calculations causing the simulation to take too long doing useless things like reversing encryption keys instead of sending us more photons.

In any case, I would not worry about this since we'll probably just be rolled back to a known-good state once the problem has been fixed.

Repeat after me ...

[Lucas123]

"We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything" -- Thomas Edison. Think about it. Light travels roughly 5.8 trillion miles in a year. Our galaxy is about 120,000 light years across, give or take 40,000 light years, and it contains an estimated 100 billion stars (scientists are only guessing; they can't see them all). This newly reported area of "dark matter" (translation: uh, we don't know what it is), is a billion light years across -- a billion light years. Any attempt to place definitive explanations on the origins of the universe, its size, how it is expanding (or not), and what fills it, is an exercise in lunacy. We're like blind people feeling away in the dark and trying to describe what we can't even touch. We don't even know what a black hole is; we're only guessing based on what happens at the event horizon. Science is a great discipline -- I fell in love with it even before college -- but the scientific community needs an enormous dose of humility; and that's not something I see a lot of these days. Every news story that I see about scientific discovery is more often than not missing huge qualifiers, such as scientists theorize that... Think about it. The laws of physics that apply to us here and in the space that immediately surrounds our infinitesimally small portion of our galaxy may not apply in other regions of the universe -- of that I'm convinced based on what we can't explain. It's an amazing universe. Personally, I can't wait to see what we stumble on next.

Re:Normal

[pragma_x]

Thank you for this delightfully sane post. Please write more often; slashdot needs this.

But, let me ask you guys this: sn't it just possible that the cold spot *is* related to the void ...

I'd go as far as to say that they're right, and that the void *is* a positive indication that there is a big (mostly and unusually) empty spot out there.

While I'm not as deeply read as yourself in these matters (as your post strongly suggests), I've always been skeptical about the Big Bang as proposed, largely because matter in the universe is... well... lumpy. The obviousness of the world we live in, clinging to this sizable chunk of baryonic matter we call Earth, just seems to tell me that the true origin of things isn't going to be that simple, nor elegant.

Moreover, I find myself leaning more toward the concept of "mutliple, not so big bangs" being responsible for the observable universe.

So when I first read about this, I wasn't really suprised at all, since everything else is clustered in the Universe, from atoms all the way up to strings of galaxies. I think this lends weight to the argument that the CMB is radiation that originates from the excitation of matter as something close to what we observe now, which would explain it's "lumpyness" as well as the correlation cited in the article. Less matter nearby, less CMB.

"... and that the Big Bang is a paradigm in its death throws?"

I think we're going to be stuck with it for a long time, in one way or another.

If the current understanding of quantum mechanics is any indication of what to expect, the machinery of the universe may very well continue to be a mysterious thing, no matter how deep we dig. Or, it there could be a very "elegant" unified theory that exists, but only so within a number of dimensions well beyond any one person's comprehension. Either way, I think we're going to be stuck with progressively better, yet partially incomplete theories for the foreseeable future. So the "Big Bang" is going to endure since it's mostly right, plus it's easy to get your head around, even if it's going to be constantly proven as inaccurate.

It's going to take a long time, and something much, much better to supplant it before it'll completely go away as a good theory, or even as a teaching tool. Chemistry class still references the Bohr model, to help illustrate the relationship between electrons and the atomic nucleus; it's not 100% accurate anymore, but we still use it. On the other hand, I don't think "the four humors" comes up in biology class as anything more than a footnote.

Re:Normal

[Anonymous Coward]

'strange, unobserved "locally generated" "electric fog"'

Oh, the CMB you mean? Yes, quite strange and unobserved.

Humility is no longer allowed

[markbt73]

When you have a bunch of yahoos shouting about their imaginary friend every chance they get, and trying to force their 2000-year-old slasher novel down everyone's throats, it becomes much more difficult to use the proper qualifiers. You almost have to make assertions in that situation, so you don't get shouted down: "You don't know? HA! It must be Jeebus, then! See, you guys are all going to Hell! Jeebus, Jeebus, Jeebus..." It's wrong to state things as fact, but I can't really fault people for doing it.

Those of us who are brave and smart enough to accept the answer of "we don't know" are in the minority. Maybe someday in the future, we can get the God-botherers to shut up long enough to make the methodology of science widely enough understood to be able to speak intelligently in public about the findings of science.

But unfortunately, I'm not holding my breath.

Re:Repeat after me ...

[Bearhouse]

With you 100% - but then again, if you look at;

1. The biographies of many 'great' scientists, (selfish, obsessed and frankly quite often mad),
2. How hard it is to get funding for 'real' science these days,

Then I suppose a little hyperboyle is inevitable, indeed perhaps necessary

Re:Breakdown of modern cosmology

[ceoyoyo]

This void (it's not a hole) is just a particularly large version of the large voids that were known before. On large scales galaxies seem to arrange themselves into filaments. The spaces between the filaments are voids. This is a big one. There's no particular reason to think it can't be described by the same processes that caused matter in the early universe to clump.

Re:Repeat after me ...

[Paracelcus]

I seem to remember some PhD windbag pontificating in a very (don't you dare question me) tone that there really isn't that much more to learn and that the fundamental knowledge base for theoretical physics has been laid to rest. I really wanted to scream, foam and spew at him but I didn't.

Let's not break our arms patting ourselves on the back, we really don't know shit!

Ya forgot to read the ending...

[Lucas123]

The Bible isn't a slasher novel, it's a love story. It's about these kids who run away from home seeking independence and what they perceive as life's true fulfillment, and a father who desperately tries to get them to return. The father pleads with them for years to come home and enjoy the shelter and comfort of his house, but they continue to ignore him until finally the father makes a tremendous sacrifice in order to open the door for them to return. Some of the children realize the father's sacrifice and unconditional love he has for them, and come home. The others continue to wander aimlessly. The subtle, but real, plot of the story is that the father knew all along what it was going to take to be reunited with his children, but he also knew he had to let his children suffer in order for them to realize what they'd given up and the importance of the sacrifice it was going to take to save them. You should read the whole book sometime. It's amazing!

Re:Ya forgot to read the ending...

[elton247]

So basically I would have to first decide what God's motives (his love in this case) are then read everything in that context, rather then reading the bible and then deciding what it says? Sounds a little backwards...

Re:Answer to the Fermi Paradox?

[quantaman]

This void is around 450M light years wide. An advanced civilization expanding for a billion or so of years would produce this kind of void by capturing and using all radiated energy for its own use.

Note that we can see the other side of the hole so we're not talking about something like a giant dyson sphere. However your explanation could work if they found a way to do something like remove that region from our universe (thus leaving the hole) and make their own separate mini-universe, one with shiny walls and stuff to keep radiated energy in.

Re:Ya forgot to read the ending...

[metlin]

A love story where this god character tortures his children by throwing them into pits of fire and hurting them for all eternity?

Sounds like *your* god has a thing for BDSM, dude.

Re:Well I guess the joke is on us.

[serialdogma]

You FSM freaks, your faith is illogical.