6 billion trillion miles of nothing
August 24th, 2007 2:01 pm
We’ve all made road trips where we’ve had to drive through long stretches of land that look as if it has never been settled.
Well, how would you feel if you had to pass a stretch of highway that went on for 6 billion trillion miles?
Astronomers at the University of Minnesota have found a hole in the universethat is far bigger than anything they’ve ever seen before. Within this void there is nothing. No stars, galaxies or anything from the periodic table of elements.
Scientists have found voids before, that’s nothing new. It’s how big this one is that have scientists so baffled.
And before you ask about the matter in the universe that you cannot see, dark matter, no, this void doesn’t have that either.
Said astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick:
This is 1,000 times the volume of what we sort of expected to see in terms of a typical void. It’s not clear that we have the right word yet … This is too much of a surprise.
I guess I will no longer be so impressed with the emptiness I experience every time I drive down I-65 in Indiana to visit my folks.