{"id":6920,"date":"2015-10-20T14:00:21","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T21:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/?p=6920"},"modified":"2026-03-31T18:21:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:21:25","slug":"gigantic-voids-are-expanding-and-shrinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/gigantic-voids-are-expanding-and-shrinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Gigantic Voids are Expanding and Shrinking"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The Local Void: 150 million light years across (Credit: NASA)<\/p><\/div>\n

Very few researchers are studying our Universe’s largest structures<\/a>, but here’s a nice analysis of Voids<\/a>,\u00a0 some of the largest structures found so far.<\/p>\n

Voids<\/a> are nearly spherical regions of our universe with few galaxies.<\/strong> They can be described as strings of galaxy clusters on the surface of soap bubbles.<\/strong> One void appears some 3.5 billion (that’s with a “B”) light years across. The largest one confirmed is called the Giant Void at 1.3 Billion light years across.<\/a><\/p>\n

If you are like me (and most cosmologists), you might have assumed Voids<\/a> were relatively stable.<\/p>\n

Well, apparently not . . .<\/p>\n

\u00a0Along comes some clever research and analysis using calculations, which found voids are moving and changing size. Small voids are shrinking and large voids expanding; in a seemingly coherent semi-rapid fashion.<\/p>\n

A team lead by \u00a0Diego G. Lambas of Argentina’s National University<\/a> of Cordoba <\/a>examined some 245 voids using Sloan Digital Sky Survey data.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Void<\/a>

Void in Bootes (Sometimes called “Great Void” this is not the same as the Giant Void in the constellation Canes Venatic.) Credit: Richard Powell, An Atlas of the Universe<\/p><\/div>\n

While it is not currently possible to examine the sideways motion of \u00a0a Void<\/a> or a galaxy, they did look at the apparent recession velocities<\/a> of the Voids and found some new dynamics. They found that some Voids move at 300\u2013400 kilometres per second faster than their surroundings indicate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not just moving, Changing Size<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It appears the smaller Voids are shrinking and the larger Voids are expanding.<\/p>\n

The researchers hypothesize that gravity<\/strong> in denser parts of the cosmic web of the neighboring walls and filaments is pulling the smaller voids together.<\/strong> In contrast, larger voids tend to occur in less dense areas where gravity from surrounding filaments is pulling them apart.<\/p>\n

\u00a0# # #<\/p>\n

References: “The sparkling Universe: the coherent motions of cosmic voids,” by Diego G. Lambas, Marcelo Lares, Laura Ceccarelli, Andr\u00e9s N. Ruiz, Dante J. Paz, Victoria E. Maldonado, Heliana E. Luparello<\/a><\/p>\n

Vast cosmic voids merge like soap bubbles<\/a>, by Ron Cowen, Nature, Oct 2015<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Very few researchers are studying our Universe’s largest structures, but here’s a nice analysis of Voids,\u00a0 some of the largest structures found so far. Voids are nearly spherical regions of our universe with few galaxies. They can be described as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":8,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[44,35,28,47,8],"tags":[54,52,50,48,49,51,53],"class_list":["post-6920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis","category-dynamics","category-observations-change-ideas","category-research","category-structure","tag-argentinas-national-university","tag-diego-lambas","tag-giant-void","tag-laura-ceccarelli","tag-marcelo-lares","tag-ron-cowen","tag-voids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6920"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7785,"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6920\/revisions\/7785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}