In astronomy, voids are the vast empty spaces between filaments (the largest-scale structures in the Universe), which contain very few, or no, galaxies. They were first discovered in 1978 during a pioneering study by Stephen Gregory and Laird A. Thompson at the Kitt Peak National Observatory. Voids typically have a diameter of 11 to 150 megaparsecs; particularly large voids, defined by the absence of rich superclusters, are sometimes called "supervoids". Voids located in high-density environments are smaller than voids situated in low-density spaces of the universe. Voids are believed to have been formed by baryon acoustic oscillations in the Big Bang by collapses of mass followed by implosions of the compressed baryonic matter.
Famous quotes containing the word void:
“Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.... Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.”
—Jean Arp (1887–1948)