The Boötes Void is one of the emptiest places in the universe, and it seriously freaks astronomers out. In this video, we explore why this massive cosmic void exists where thousands of galaxies should be. We’ll break down just how big it is, how rare it is, and why it doesn’t fit neatly into our models of the universe. No scary hype — just real science explained in a way that actually makes sense. If cosmic mysteries and mind-bending space facts pull you in, this one’s a must-watch. 🌌🕳️ Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
00:00Don't be nervous, but there is a hole in our universe.
00:04Is it leaking?
00:05It's larger than anything we've seen before.
00:08The human mind can't even imagine something this huge.
00:11Well, mine sure can't.
00:13Is it a growing black hole?
00:15Is our solar system going to end up sucked into this giant nothingness?
00:20Am I blowing this all out of proportion?
00:22Well, let's figure it out.
00:24The universe isn't packed evenly with stuff.
00:27Huge empty areas called voids make up about 80% of it.
00:32Our own Milky Way even sits inside of one, known as the local hole.
00:37But one void is on a whole different level.
00:40It's called the Bahutis Void, and people often nickname it the Great Nothing.
00:46It's a massive, almost empty bubble of space located far away in the Bahutis constellation.
00:52Its sheer size makes this bizarre formation unbelievable.
00:56The Bahutis Void stretches a whopping 330 million light-years across.
01:03For comparison, our little solar system has a width a bit more than 3 light-years.
01:09Yet, the Bahutis Void contains very few galaxies.
01:13Compared to the rest of the universe, it's basically empty.
01:16That makes it one of the largest known voids, and one of the biggest empty spaces we've ever found.
01:22If our galaxy were inside the Bahutis Void, we wouldn't have seen any other galaxies for most of history.
01:30Until the 1960s, our telescopes just weren't powerful enough.
01:34Other galaxies would have been way too far away and too faint to spot.
01:39It wasn't until the 1960s, when telescopes got much better, that we could finally see very faint, faraway galaxies.
01:47If we had been living inside that void, that's when we would have first realized other galaxies even existed at all.
01:56But let's figure out a very important question.
01:58How do such giant empty spaces even form?
02:02After the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe started spreading out.
02:07But it didn't spread out perfectly evenly.
02:10Tiny, random differences, called quantum fluctuations, meant some areas had a little more matter than others.
02:17The denser areas had stronger gravity, so they pulled in even more matter.
02:22Over time, this left other regions almost empty.
02:25That's how galaxies clumped together, and how huge voids were created in between.
02:31So over time, galaxies attracted each other too, linking up into long, thread-like structures called filaments.
02:39Together, those filaments formed a massive, foam-like web across the universe.
02:44The galaxies gathered along the threads, while the empty spaces in between became voids, kind of like bubbles in foam.
02:52Smaller voids slowly merged into bigger ones, which is how enormous regions like the Bohudy's void formed.
02:59Today, filaments and voids make up the largest structures in the universe.
03:04The filaments are hotter and more energetic, while the voids are colder and much emptier.
03:10Now, the Bohudy's void is enormous.
03:12It makes up about 0.35% of the diameter of the entire observable universe.
03:18But inside this massive space, there are only about 60 galaxies, mostly stretched out in a tube-like shape through the center.
03:27Normally, a region this size would contain around 2,000 galaxies.
03:31The void is also surrounded by massive galaxy clusters, like Ursa Major, Shapely, Hercules, Corona Borealis, and Bohudy's.
03:41This makes the emptiness in the middle even more shocking.
03:44Now, scientists first noticed those huge empty spaces and big galaxy groups in the 1970s, when new technology finally let them see the universe in 3D.
03:55As for the Bohudy's void, it was discovered in 1981 by American astronomer Robert Kirshner from the University of Michigan, which also has a pretty good football team.
04:05At the time, he and his team were mapping the universe in 3D by measuring how fast galaxies were moving away from us.
04:13This method is called a redshift survey.
04:16So, while doing this, they noticed something weird.
04:20A huge region of space where almost nothing showed up.
04:24It was basically a giant blank spot on the map.
04:27Scientists ruled out a few dramatic ideas right away.
04:30The Bohudy's void isn't a black hole, because it does contain a small number of galaxies, just far fewer than expected.
04:38It's also not a dark nebula, which is a dense cloud of gas and dust that blocks out light.
04:45The Bohudy's void isn't hiding galaxies.
04:47There simply aren't that many to begin with.
04:50The Bohudy's void helps scientists learn how the universe changes and grows.
04:56Because it's so empty, it's a great place to study dark energy.
05:01Our universe consists of normal matter, dark matter, and dark energy.
05:06Normal matter is everything you can see with your own eyes or with the help of instruments.
05:10It makes up around 5% of the universe.
05:14About 27% of the universe is dark matter.
05:17And dark energy takes up around 68%.
05:20It's a force responsible for the expansion of the universe.
05:24We really don't know what dark energy is, so scientists are excited about any chance to study it and learn more about how it works.
05:34Voids are also useful for studying neutrinos, tiny, tiny particles that can travel throughout space without getting stuck.
05:42They're often called ghost particles, because they're almost impossible to catch.
05:47They fly through space, and through us, without leaving a mark.
05:51Right now, trillions of them are passing through your body, and you don't feel a thing.
05:57Neutrinos are made in places with lots of energy, like the sun, exploding stars, and nuclear power plants.
06:04They are everywhere, second only to light particles in the universe.
06:09What makes neutrinos really strange is that they can change as they travel.
06:14They come in three types, and they can switch between them while moving.
06:18Scientists also don't know how much neutrinos weigh, or which type is the heaviest.
06:24Learning more about them could help explain how the universe works.
06:28Well, anyway, with time, space missions will look closely at these empty regions.
06:34By comparing what they see with computer predictions, scientists hope to learn more about neutrinos and better understand how the universe works.
06:42One of such space missions is Euclid.
06:46Its data will be used to study and analyze the Bohode's void and other similar cosmic voids.
06:52Euclid's job is to study the dark universe.
06:56It does this by making a huge 3D map of space, looking at billions of galaxies as far as 10 billion light-years away, and covering a big part of the sky.
07:06Now, scientists know that dark energy makes the universe expand faster, and dark matter helps galaxies form and stick together.
07:15But they still don't know what either of them really is.
07:19By watching how the universe has changed over the last 10 billion years, Euclid helps scientists understand how space grew, how galaxies formed, and what dark energy, dark matter, and gravity might actually be like.
07:33Euclid is about 15 feet tall and 12 feet wide.
07:38It has two main parts.
07:40One part runs the spacecraft, like power, computers, and steering.
07:44And the other holds the telescope and two cameras.
07:48One takes pictures in visible light, that's what our eyes can see.
07:52The other sees an infrared light, which helps scientists spot very distant galaxies.
07:57Now, Euclid launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida in July 2023, and officially started doing science in February 2024.
08:08It now orbits far from Earth, nearly 1 million miles away.
08:13It stays in a special spot in space where it moves with Earth around the Sun.
08:17This keeps its view stable and makes it easier to study the universe.
08:22Euclid is supposed to work for about 6 years, but it might keep going longer if it doesn't run out of fuel.
08:29In October 2024, Euclid released the first part of its huge map of the universe.
08:35Over time, it'll scan more than one-third of the sky outside our Milky Way galaxy, capturing billions of galaxies,
08:43some so far away that their light took up to 10 billion years just to reach us.
08:48The images taken by the space probe are about 4 times sharper than those taken by telescopes on Earth.
08:55Euclid also studies light in detail, to learn what galaxies are made of and how they move.
09:01It'll do this for hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies.
09:05And all of this will create a massive space data library, one of the biggest ever made by a space mission.
09:11Oh, by the way, Euclid was named after an ancient Greek mathematician who helped invent geometry, the study of shapes in space.
09:20Scientists picked this name because understanding the shape of the universe helps explain how matter and energy are spread through space.
09:28So now you know.
09:30That's it for today.
09:32So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:37Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.
Be the first to comment