31:29
Right now we are hurtling through a giant cosmic void. And the strangest thing is that almost no one talks about it Forget the classic images in which stars are evenly scattered throughout space. If you look at all this from a sufficient distance, the universe will resemble a glowing spider's web. Galaxies are clustered into dense, bright filaments, with colossal dark voids stretching between them. And what is amazing is that it is these voids that occupy the vast majority of the universe. Sometimes it is said that this is almost 90% of the entire space. And most of the matter, galaxies, stars, and clusters, is concentrated in the filaments and walls, that is, in the threads of this web. According to one bold hypothesis, the Milky Way moves along a
completely lifeless cosmic highway. No, we are drifting inside a huge local region of reduced density, a VOC void or a local hole. Estimates vary, but some suggest it could be about 2 billion light-years across. This is a region where the density of matter can be noticeably lower than the average in the universe. Under other circumstances, this would simply be an interesting and slightly creepy fact. Well, we live in a space suburb, right? But our location within this giant sparse region may not be just a line in our galactic address. When we observe the universe from inside such a chasm, it can radically
distort the results of our measurements. For decades, scientists have been trying to pinpoint the most important number in cosmology: the rate at which the universe is expanding. To do this, they use two independent lines. The first encompasses the universe on the largest scale. It looks into the very early universe and explores the cosmos. Cosmic microwave background radiation, also called cosmic microwave background radiation. This is ancient light that has come down to us from a time when 380,000 years had passed since the big bang. Physicists do not measure the current expansion rate directly. They take a snapshot of this faint light and, using the standard cosmic model, extrapolate what the
expansion rate should be today. This long-range ruler gives a result of approximately 67 km/sku per megapascal. The second line already works with our immediate environment. Scientists use Cepheid variable stars, whose pulsation period is related to their true luminosity, to calibrate Type Ia supernovae. These supernovae are not exactly the same, but they can be standardized and used as cosmic beacons. And this local ruler stubbornly shows a different result. About 73 km/s per megaparsec. A completely different result. For simplicity, let's say 67 vs. 73, a difference of 9% might seem like a normal clustering error. But in cosmology, this is a real abyss. Two
reliable rulers point to two different universes. And this is a serious problem. Think for yourself, speed and expansion are one of the key parameters used to calculate the age of the universe. The higher this speed, the younger the universe appears to be. And this is increasingly difficult to reconcile with the age of the oldest objects - ancient stars, globular clusters and early galaxies. This doesn't mean that stars are literally older than the universe, but it only reinforces the nagging feeling that something is missing from our map. The first thought in this situation is: someone somewhere screwed up.
Perhaps the telescopes are malfunctioning or an error has crept into the calculations. But no, both lines were checked, checked again, and then checked again just in case. This discrepancy has long since gone beyond the bounds of random error. The likelihood that this is just a coincidence or a telescope malfunction is slim. About one chance in several million. However, the source of the problem, whether it's a systematic error, new physics, or a feature of our local structure, remains a mystery. This is one of the biggest puzzles in all of cosmology, and it's driving everyone crazy. So the standard cosmological model, which explains almost everything else quite well, has hit a dead end here. And this leads us to a
crazy thought. What if the problem is not in the lines or in the universe itself, but in where we are looking from. Imagine a giant transparent bubble. Its walls are incredibly dense and heavy, formed by massive clusters of galaxies and dark matter, while the inside is almost empty. Now put some galaxies there, including the Milky Way. They won't just hang in place. And here's why. Gravity is the ultimate cosmic tug-of-war. Mass always attracts weight, as there is almost nothing in the center of the bubble. There is almost nothing there to pull galaxies in the opposite direction. Instead, the dense outer walls
have enormous mass. In this cosmic tug-of-war, the edge side gains the upper hand, and the galaxies inside begin to drift toward the denser outer walls. A local flow occurs. And it is here that the solution to the mystery may lie. When our telescopes observe nearby galaxies, they measure the speed at which they are receding. But according to this model, part of this speed may be due not to the global expansion of the universe, but to a local flow. It simply pulls us and our neighbors out of the void and to its edges. Telescopes see real physical motion, but we may misinterpret its cause. If such a local movement is truly powerful, it could add those few percent to our local calculations of the expansion rate. And this is where the hypothesis
becomes particularly interesting. It doesn't solve the mystery completely, but it suggests a physical mechanism that can explain at least part of the discrepancy. We see real distance, but part of what we perceive as expansion may actually be local movement within a large-scale structure. But let's be honest, the emptiness of the FIC is still an unproven fact. This is a controversial hypothesis. Some observations do indeed indicate local matter shortages and large-scale flows. However, standard force simulations reproduce voids of this size. Furthermore, different datasets disagree on how large and sparse this area actually is
. Therefore, we do not have a ready answer, but a cosmic investigation that is still ongoing. If the VOC void hypothesis holds up, its effects should show up in measurements. To understand this, we need to look at our cosmic address. The Milky Way does not exist by itself. We are entering Laniakea, a cluster of about 100,000 galaxies. If the Void FAC hypothesis is correct, a significant portion of our immediate cosmic surroundings may lie within this local region of reduced density. And if this void really exists, it could significantly affect the motion of our galaxy. So what exactly makes us move? through space. There is no single center of gravity in the usual sense here. There are only areas with different densities. Inside
the void, there is noticeably less matter, but at its edges, in the walls and filaments of the cosmic web, the density of matter is much, much higher. This difference creates a gradient, a kind of tilt of the gravitational field. Dense regions around a void pull more strongly than the nearly empty areas inside it. As a result, the motion of the galaxy is determined not by the center of the void, but by massive structures at its edges. Eventually, the Milky Way, the Local Group, and our entire immediate cosmic environment drift together toward denser regions. Relative to the cosmic microwave background radiation, our local group is indeed moving at a tremendous speed of hundreds of kilometers per second, or about a million km per second.
But we don't fly out of the void like a bullet. Imagine that our galaxy is a ship slowly carried by the current. we are simply drawn to those parts of the universe where there is more mass, and therefore stronger gravity. And the journey to these dense shores will take so long that for us the whole picture will remain almost completely still. Inside such a void, the very dynamics, the expansion, may differ from that prevailing in denser regions of the universe. To understand exactly how, it is worth remembering two main factors that determine the fate of the universe on a large scale. The first is gravity, which tries to pull matter into a pile. The second is dark energy, associated with the accelerated expansion of space. In dense regions of the Universe,
gravity is sufficient to effectively slow down local expansion. Gravity pulls galaxies together, counteracting expansion. But inside the void, the density of matter is several times lower. Gravity there acts much weaker simply because there are too few objects around that can attract each other. Voids expand faster not because dark energy is stronger there, it's simply because the less matter there is, the weaker the gravitational pull. Therefore, over time, areas of reduced gustana become even more empty compared to dense regions. At first glance, this may seem like just dry physics, but this process has an important consequence.
Voids are a perfectly normal part of the cosmic web. But if our bubble is really that huge, it could mean we live in a region of space that's quieter than typical dense regions of the universe. In densely populated galactic metropolises, things can be much more chaotic. Frequent galaxy mergers, explosions at the bottom, and radiation from active black holes create an environment where stability is a rare luxury. Instead, we are in an area of reduced cosmic activity. Perhaps in such a calm region, some large-scale space disasters occur less frequently. But this idea should be approached very carefully. Life on Earth depended primarily on local conditions: our sun, Earth's orbit, the composition of the planet, and the
history of our galactic environment. Therefore, emptiness should be perceived not as the cause of the emergence of life, but as a beautiful hypothesis about a calmer cosmic region. The story of the local void is just a rehearsal for what awaits the universe next. We were incredibly lucky today. Our window to space is open to oil. By some estimates, there may be hundreds of billions or even trillions of galaxies in the observable universe. We are able to capture the ancient light of the big bang and accurately calculate the age of the cosmos. But this window is already closing. Because the expansion of the universe is accelerating, the space between us and very distant galaxies could be stretching so fast that the speed of their
separation would exceed the speed of light. This does not violate the laws of physics. Galaxies will hurtle through space faster than light. The very space between us is expanding. According to standard predictions, in a few billion years the Milky Way and Andromeda should merge into one giant galaxy. However, true space isolation will come much later. In hundreds of billions or even trillions of years, when almost all other galaxies have slipped beyond our cosmological horizon, the light from all those galaxies simply will not be physically able to cross the expanding space. And the cosmic microwave background radiation, that very reliable measuring ruler from the beginning of the video, will cool and stretch so much that it
will turn into elusive radio noise. The universe will literally erase all evidence of its own birth. Imagine the scientists of the future, representatives of a new civilization that will arise in that era in another star system. They will build telescopes, point them at the sky, and see almost nothing beyond their giant galaxy. No scattering of distant galaxies, no obvious expansion, no bright relict clue from the early universe. It is this cosmic isolation that keeps me from sleeping peacefully. They will provide flawless, absolutely accurate calculations. And these calculations will convincingly show them that their lonely galaxy is the entire
universe, which has always existed and never changes. And they will be terribly wrong. It is reality that will erase and hide the truth from them. Similarly, the empty space around the Milky Way may already be hiding part of the truth from us. Perhaps the main mystery of the universe lies not in black holes, dark energy, or supernova explosions. It is that the universe never fully reveals itself. It always shows only the part that can be seen from a specific place at a specific time, from a tiny point within the incomprehensibly vast cosmic web. We are used to trusting our own eyes and telescopes. But space is a true master of illusions. And even if the invisible region around the Milky Way is capable
of changing how we measure reality, the question remains: how many more such traps are hidden in our universe? If you want to continue this journey and explore the strangest and most paradoxical mysteries of space, subscribe to our channel. After all, as we saw today, sometimes emptiness is not the absence of history. Sometimes emptiness is Thank you for watching and your candid comments. See you in the next video.
