In 1981 , while conducting a redshift study of the distribution of galaxies , astronomers spotted something ( or nothing ) that they were n’t expecting .
" [ W]e discovered that the redshift distribution in each of the three northerly fields showed an monovular 6,000 [ kilometers per second ] break . Because these fields were separated by angles of ~35 ° , this suggest the existence of a with child void in the galaxy statistical distribution of at least like angular diam , " the team wrote in apaper in 1986 , adding , " The scurvy density of this region is of mellow statistical significance and does not appear easy reconcilable with any of the popular models for the growing structure in the universe of discourse . "
lie in the neck of the woods of the Boötes configuration , it became known as the Boötes Void , or sometimes the Great Nothing . For a recollective fourth dimension , it was the large known void in the cosmos , spanning330 million light - yearsacross . To put that in context of use , that ’s about 0.35 percent of thediameterof the entire observable universe of discourse .
A big span of nothing.Image credit: Powell, Richard.,Atlas of the UniverseviaWikimedia Commons(CC BY-SA 2.5)
While it is fair to report it as a nihility , there are galaxy within it , just a spate few than we would expect .
" If we are to habituate a rough idea of about one coltsfoot every 10 million short - age ( four clip farther than Andromeda),“NASA explains , " there should be about 2,000 galaxies in the Boötes Void . "
In fact , we ’ve find oneself 60 . While there is piffling about the void to suggest our ideas aboutgalaxy formationare incorrect – one account is that it shape from smaller emptiness merging – it is still an odd thinking experiment to picture how someone inside the void must see the universe .
As astronomer Greg Aldering put it : " If the Milky Way had been in the centre of the Boötes void , we would n’t have know there were other galaxies until the 1960s . ”
Thatwasthe tumid void that we know of . But in 2015 , a team found grounds of a much large void , assess a whopping 1.8 billion tripping - years across . The team were face in the direction of the infamouscold spotof the cosmic microwave backcloth radiation , trust that the cold spot could correspond to a massive vacancy .
for sure enough , theyfound evidenceof a void spanning 1.91 percentage of the diam of discernible universe , although the void is stillnot large enoughto explain the cryptical CMB cold smirch . For that , we may have to wait forother explanations .
