Our galaxy is in a giant cosmic void that stretches 1 billion light-years across, according to recent research.
First proposed in 2013, the idea of the void came from observations that showed our galaxy lies in a relatively sparse area of the Universe, compared to the density of galaxies and planets elsewhere.
Imagine the Universe is a block of Swiss cheese. The filaments of matter, things like galaxies and stars, make up the cheese. Areas of relative nothingness in between are the holes in this cheese. In particular, the theory says our hole happens to be seven times larger than the average void, or 1 billion light-years across.
Now, physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have added weight to this theory after showing the cosmic void idea can be used to solve another problem astronomers have observed; the expansion rate of the Universe.
“No matter what technique you use, you should get the same value for the expansion rate of the Universe today,” said Ben Hoscheit, a Wisconsin student and lead author of the research. “Fortunately, living in a void helps resolve this tension.”
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