Science/Tech

New Study Suggests That Our Galaxy Resides In A Celestial Void

By Peter D'Souza | Update Date: Jun 08, 2017 04:23 AM EDT

In 2013, an observational study by the research group from University of Wisconsin-Madison presented that our Milky Way galaxy resides in an enormous void. According to their theories, this large celestial void, which they called Celestial boondocks contained less number of galaxies, stars, and planets than expected.

Recently, UW-Madison's researcher comes with a different theoretical approach on the earlier one, which is a more compact for studying our universe. The earlier approach has some theoretical arguments about the measurement of the expanding rate of the universe called, Hubble Constant, which is rectified in the latest approach.

Here's What The New Abstract Says

According to UW-Madison based astronomer Amy Barger, this latest approach introduced this cosmos as a Swiss cheese-like structure with some voids and filaments, similar to the holes in a Swiss cheese. All these voids are made up of super-clusters and clusters of galaxies, which in turn are composed of stars, gas, dust, and planets.

In this theory, astronomers are not including the dark matter and dark energy yet because these are not identified yet. Though, the hypothesized dark matter and dark energy are presumed to comprise approximately 95 percent of the contents of the universe which doesn't interact with electromagnetic radiation. 

According to Phys.org, the void that contains the Milky Way galaxy, known as the KBC void, is at least seven times as large as the average, with a radius measuring roughly 1 billion light years. Researchers said that the void is the largest void known. The shape of the void is spherical in nature with a shell of increasing thickness made up of galaxies, stars, and other matters.

Key Advantages Of New Cosmic Theory

As per the astronomical study, this universe is still involved in the metric expansion procedure which has been started since the Big Bang. The rate of the universe expansion can be measured by Hubble constant using multiple techniques, that's why scientists could not have reached a unique conclusion.

The main reason behind this problem is if a void considered with far more matter outside of it then it will exert a slightly larger gravitational pull, which will affect the Hubble Constant. That's why we get the different values for Hubble constant if we consider the expansion with a celestial event like the Blackhole, Supernova, CMB etc. However, this consideration is effective for measuring the accelerated expansion of the universe from a supernova explosion, because those objects are relatively close to the Milky Way galaxy and released the same amount of energy within the observable universe.

However, it was ineffective for determining the universe expansion rate in terms of Hubble constant from the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In fact, CMB is the light of the early universe, Photons from CMB encodes the image of an early stage of the Big Bang, said Ben Hoscheit, a research associate.

Before the big bang period, the universe existed as a homogeneous high density and high-temperature state where the temperature difference is negligibly small. But this small amount of temperature change is crucial for measuring Hubble constant, which is not determined by the previous method. But the new method will not affect the Hubble constant whatever method anyone used.

© 2023 Counsel & Heal All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Join the Conversation

Real Time Analytics