More space discovered in Space
Yahoo News reports that “Astronomers say they have discovered a “supervoid” in the universe that is 1.8 billion light years in width.
Dr Istvan Szapudi, who led a team of researchers from the University of Hawaii, has labeled it “the largest individual structure ever identified by humanity”.
The vast, large space, which is “missing” around 10, 000 galaxies, is colder than other parts of the universe. It is not a vacuum like it’s name suggests but is 20% less dense than other aspects of the universe.”
New Scientist (November, 2012) had a more detailed article on this theme which said that
“If you gaze long enough into the void, the void might begin to speak to you. Giant regions of near-empty space known as cosmic voids could help us get a handle on dark energy, the mysterious stuff that is speeding up the expansion of the universe.
If gravity were the dominant force at work, the expansion would be slowing down, as matter gives in to the pull of other matter. But more than a decade ago, supernovae studies revealed that the expansion is speeding up. This suggests the vacuum of space-time must have an inherent energy that is repulsing gravity.
Dark energy is thought to make up about 70 per cent of the universe, and several ideas are competing to dark energy density can change with time.”
Wow, there is a lot of energy in those voids! But let’s get back to Mathematics. Is there anyway that we can describe a void (or nothingness) in Math? Yes! We do this by using the ∅ symbol, or the empty set notation – { }.