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)
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