Universe

The Boötes Void – A Patch of Space With Few Stars

Astronomy is more than just a study of the heavens. Humanity’s first great venture into the scientific world is synonymous of mankind’s desire to learn more, to know more and never be satisfied with current learning. For every answer astronomical studies provides, there are inherent questions not too far behind. A discovery made in 1981 is a prime example of this.

Measuring a mind-numbing distance of 250 million light-years in diameter, there is a region of space approximately 700 million light-years from Earth that is roughly spherical in shape. It can be found with equipment powerful enough to see not too far from the constellation of Boötes. The description of this region and its location has given it the name of The Boötes void and is one of the largest examples of this phenomena yet known. This is likely the reason for it’s pseudonym The Great Void. The void was initially discovered as part of a study into the existing process of redshift – or the movement of interstellar objects to or from Earth. After it was discovered, astronomers focused more attention on it and quickly found that inside the void were galaxies. Approximately 60 have been found to date, which for a region of that size is a limited number.

Nobody knows one way or another at the moment but studies are ongoing. These have yielded some results and a few details about this void have been established. As well as it’s size and distance, a quite surprising statistic has been proposed. Scientists believe that in order to grow or evolve to the current appreciated size of this void, it would have to pre-date the accepted age of the Universe. In other words it would have be more than 13 billion years old and have been in existence before the Big Bang occurred. There may be another, as yet undiscovered, explanation for this though.

One idea that has been suggested is that this is the combination of two or more voids that have coalesced at some point in the past. This is a conclusion based on the opinion of some that the known galaxies contained within the void have formed a tubular style structure and may mark the boundaries of former voids that have come into contact with each other. These galaxies are stuck within the void and, if the Universe endures for long enough, they may end up escaping it.