Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Monday, August 27, 2007
For years I’ve been worried about a giant black hole sucking our galaxy into where ever it is black holes suck things. Nothing is more hungry than a black hole. A black hole will even eat light that comes too close. But, for now anyway, scientists are saying the new ‘void’ that was found isn’t a black hole. That’s a relief for now anyway.
This new ‘void’ is nearly a billion light-years wide. I can’t even begin to fathom, or illustrate just how large that may be. At a billion light-years wide I also suspect there isn’t any reason for me to try to determine how tall it may be either.
I’ve always tried to imagine what ‘infinity’ may look like. I wanted there to be a brick wall on the outskirts of forever, I’m told that isn’t possible. But, this new discovery leads me to believe that indeed anything is possible in the universe. In fact I’m now considering we need to have another name that better describes something that is obviously ‘beyond’ the universe. Apparently the universe is not infinite because there must be something lying beyond it…
Apparently naming what ever it is that lies beyond the universe isn’t such a silly idea. It also turns out right now that the ‘vast majority of the the cosmos is missing’. I’m going out on a limb here and saying it’s cuddled up against that brick wall at the end of the universe hiding from everyone.
Michael Turner, cosmologist at the University of Chicago explained the ‘great mystery of the dark side of the universe as being dark matter and dark energy. He also said that just “So far, the greatest achievement with dark energy is giving it a name,” “We are really at the very beginning of this puzzle.” Dark energy is “really weird stuff”. But, this newly discovered ‘dark energy’ is not the same as the giant this huge hole that has been found.
This new hole is void of matter. Any matter. Anti-matter, dark matter …or for that matter even dark energy.
This is being called a gargantuan hole. Now for a few minutes at least we can all become theoretical physicists. Any theory, that any of us have as to what this enormous hole really means, is as good as any other theory at this moment.
Maybe Homer Simpson is right.
Photo thanks NASA/Hubble, The Simpsons Movie
Labels: Giant hole, black hole, homer simpson
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Was Homer Simpson Right After All? Giant hole found in the Universe!
