Astronomers Puzzled by Massive Blank Spot in Universe!

[T J]

An interesting find... my only guesses at this time are either a giant space amoeba(perhaps a large colony) or it's Nageliums rat maze...

LINK

 

[Gertch]

God took a holiday. "All the Universe and they're concerned about one little spot..."

 

[Neroon]

Ahhh.... the Paris Hilton Nebula.

 

[Noname Given]

I wonder if he found the place the Universe is storing all the Dark Matter that scientists theorize exists; but can't find?

 

[Twilight]

I love it when the Media tries to make astronomy juicier for public consumption.

We live in a world where a flux deficit in WMAP data becomes ZOMG GIANT GAPING VOID IN THE UNIVERSE!!!11!!


Here's the preprint of the paper - it's definitely interesting...somewhat counter to concordance cosmology...is the CMB really so homogeneous after all?

Worth putting a few thesis students on, definitely. But weird things like this pop up ALLLLL the time in Cosmology - it's an immensely fluid field in terms of developments.

http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0908

 

[M'Sharak]

Wasn't this "blank spot" reported some time ago, like a year or more?

 

[Outpost4]

Two years ago. It was the Katrina relief plan.

 

[Zachary Smith]

Maybe if we hang a picture over it no one will notice . . .

 

[zephramc]

Zachary Smith said:
Maybe if we hang a picture over it no one will notice . . .

Astronomer 1: "Hey... what's that picture covering?"

Astronomer 2: "Hmm... Ohh, nothing..."

Astronomer 1: "No, seriously..."

Astronomer 2: "...seriously nothing. Absolutely nothing. 1 BILLION LY OF NOTHING! GET IT!"

 

[Ariadne]

Can somebody explain to me how "nothing" is different from the vacuum (okay, fine, near vacuum) of intergalactic space?

 

[Arrqh]

Toresica said:
Can somebody explain to me how "nothing" is different from the vacuum (okay, fine, near vacuum) of intergalactic space?

It's not just an empty area, it's a large empty area. According to Wikipedia, this is now the largest observed void by a significant amount.

 

[Johnny Rico]

Arrghman said:

Toresica said:
Can somebody explain to me how "nothing" is different from the vacuum (okay, fine, near vacuum) of intergalactic space?

It's not just an empty area, it's a large empty area. According to Wikipedia, this is now the largest observed void by a significant amount.

Great...is this the same Wikipedia that says that NASA is corrupt?

 

[Arrqh]

Johnny Rico said:

Arrghman said:

Toresica said:
Can somebody explain to me how "nothing" is different from the vacuum (okay, fine, near vacuum) of intergalactic space?

It's not just an empty area, it's a large empty area. According to Wikipedia, this is now the largest observed void by a significant amount.

Great...is this the same Wikipedia that says that NASA is corrupt?

I fail to see your point. Do you have any particular reason to doubt the chart which supports the original article and is referenced from a paper in 1994? In fact here is the original paper! So are you just blanket assuming everything on Wikipedia is wrong or do you have something to say about the source paper?

 

[Zachary Smith]

Somehow, I'll bet the Noid lives in the void. Really, it's the only thing that makes sense.

 

[Ariadne]

Arrghman said:

Toresica said:
Can somebody explain to me how "nothing" is different from the vacuum (okay, fine, near vacuum) of intergalactic space?

It's not just an empty area, it's a large empty area. According to Wikipedia, this is now the largest observed void by a significant amount.

Ah.

Right.

A billion light years is big.

 

[TerriO]

Arrghman said:

Johnny Rico said:

Arrghman said:

Toresica said:
Can somebody explain to me how "nothing" is different from the vacuum (okay, fine, near vacuum) of intergalactic space?

It's not just an empty area, it's a large empty area. According to Wikipedia, this is now the largest observed void by a significant amount.

Great...is this the same Wikipedia that says that NASA is corrupt?

I fail to see your point. Do you have any particular reason to doubt the chart which supports the original article and is referenced from a paper in 1994? In fact here is the original paper! So are you just blanket assuming everything on Wikipedia is wrong or do you have something to say about the source paper?

Thank you for presenting the original paper.

I believe the notorious unreliability of Wikipedia is what he was referring to.

 

[Arrqh]

TerriO said:

Arrghman said:

Johnny Rico said:

Arrghman said:

Toresica said:
Can somebody explain to me how "nothing" is different from the vacuum (okay, fine, near vacuum) of intergalactic space?

It's not just an empty area, it's a large empty area. According to Wikipedia, this is now the largest observed void by a significant amount.

Great...is this the same Wikipedia that says that NASA is corrupt?

I fail to see your point. Do you have any particular reason to doubt the chart which supports the original article and is referenced from a paper in 1994? In fact here is the original paper! So are you just blanket assuming everything on Wikipedia is wrong or do you have something to say about the source paper?

Thank you for presenting the original paper.

I believe the notorious unreliability of Wikipedia is what he was referring to.

Probably, but it's just as silly to assume that Wikipedia is always wrong as it is to assume it's always right. Especially since the original paper was cited on the Wiki article which anyone who had read it would have seen.

 

[Ariadne]

^^ You probably shouldn't expect people to follow links.

Which is a shame, the links people post here are often interesting.

 

[TerriO]

Arrghman said:
Probably, but it's just as silly to assume that Wikipedia is always wrong as it is to assume it's always right. Especially since the original paper was cited on the Wiki article which anyone who had read it would have seen.

I don't want to divert this into a discussion of Wikipedia, but when linking to a source that has a known questionable reliability, you're probably better off linking to more reliable sources, like the original paper.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Of course, the wikipedia article linked to has a "References" section that corroborates the wiki article, so I don't know what the fuss is about.