[The Epoch Times, August 22, 2022](The Epoch Times reporter Di Rui compiled and reported) A group of scientists proposed that the numerous and huge void structures in the universe may be the source of mysterious dark energy, which together promote the The expansion of the universe.
Void is the largest ‘celestial body’ in the universe
Scientists have found that the galaxies, constellations and other substances in the universe are not evenly distributed in the universe. Some of these substances are connected together to form a long silk-like structure; From a macroscopic point of view, these substances show a network structure in the cosmic space, also called “cosmic web”.
And the areas outside the lines in the universe, that is, a large number of voids, from the existing observation conditions, there is nothing inside. These regions are quite large, with the smallest spans spanning 20 million light-years and the largest found so far at 160 million light-years. Imagine the shape of a spider web, and it is not difficult to understand that most of the space in the universe is occupied by this hollow structure.
If the void is also regarded as a celestial structure, it can be said that the void is the largest object in the universe. Scientists first discovered empty regions in the universe in the 1970s, but because there was nothing in them, they didn’t get much research and attention. Scientists are studying more visible matter such as various stars and galaxies.
Mysterious power or from the void
In modern times, from the study of visible matter, scientists still touch on some invisible mysterious matter and power. Because only from the perspective of various forces between visible matter, there are still many unanswered questions, such as what force is driving the expansion of the universe, and is it accelerating the expansion?
Scientists have put forward many theories to try to explain these invisible matter, one of the important theories is the existence of dark energy. The new study builds on that with an updated idea: voids are where dark energy comes from. The research was published on the preprint website arXiv in July and has been accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Paul Sutter, a professor of astrophysics at Stony Brook University in the United States, wrote about the study in Live Science, saying that the sense of cosmic expansion is not obvious in star systems or galaxies, such as the solar system and The Milky Way isn’t noticeably getting bigger. This may be because the gravitational pull between the massive amounts of visible matter inside these regions outweighs the effect of dark energy on them. However, those huge void areas are more obviously affected by dark energy. So scientists began to consider that it is worth studying dark energy from an empty perspective.
This study not only found that the role of dark energy in the cavity is obvious, but also believes that the cavity is the source of dark energy.
Void or will dismantle the cosmic web
Since there is nothing in the void, how could it cause the universe to expand? This study believes that void is also a form of matter, and it also has a development and evolution process from small to large.
This study believes that billions of years ago, the distribution of various stars in the universe was relatively uniform, but later, some regions with slightly larger mass of matter were able to attract more matter, resulting in their larger mass and thus larger gravitational pull attracts more matter. After billions of years of evolution, matter gathered to form various celestial structures such as galaxies, star clusters, and constellations.
At the same time, the area from which the material was siphoned off became hollow, and the area that was already hollow is also growing. The study found that the void structure doesn’t just passively grow, its growth puts pressure on surrounding structures. For example, the boundary walls between galaxies gradually thinned and then disintegrated, causing the cavities that had divided them to merge together. In a few billion years, the void is likely to dismantle the entire cosmic web structure, causing future galaxies, star clusters and other matter to be like isolated islands in the ocean, separated from each other by the void, hundreds of millions of light-years apart.
This study proposes that the overall force of dismantling the cosmic web by a large number of voids in the universe is very large, driving the accelerated expansion of the universe. Their model shows that this void-driven accelerated expansion of the universe is consistent with the accelerated expansion predicted by dark energy theory.
Of course, scientists need further research to test this theory. Sartre said that on the one hand, it is necessary to calculate the number of holes in the universe, and then calculate the dismantling ability of all the holes. On the other hand, it is necessary to probe whether the power of dark energy has changed significantly over the past few billion years. In this way, it can be verified whether the pushing expansion effect of the void is the effect mentioned by the dark energy theory. ◇
Responsible editor: Li Qiong#