{"id":16089,"date":"2025-07-22T18:45:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16089\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:45:10","slug":"could-our-galaxy-be-inside-a-giant-hole-this-bold-theory-might-solve-one-of-the-universes-biggest-mysteries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16089\/","title":{"rendered":"Could our galaxy be inside a giant hole? This bold theory might solve one of the universe&#8217;s biggest mysteries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Astronomers at the University of Portsmouth have a bold idea: what if Earth sits inside a massive cosmic void? That could explain why measurements of the universe\u2019s expansion don\u2019t line up.<\/p>\n<p>Our Universe Is Expanding<\/p>\n<p>Everyone agrees the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.futura-sciences.com\/en\/scientists-say-they-may-have-found-the-missing-half-of-the-universe_17443\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">universe<\/a> is expanding. The Hubble constant measures that rate. But here\u2019s the catch: distant, ancient observations predict a slower expansion than local data shows. This mismatch is the Hubble tension.<\/p>\n<p>At a recent Royal Astronomical Society meeting, Portsmouth researchers suggested that if we\u2019re in a one-billion-light-year-radius underdense region\u2014about 20 percent less dense than average\u2014gravity would drag matter outward. To us, that would look like faster local expansion.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"846\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/empty-earth-milky-way-1024x846.jpeg\" alt=\"\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>If we are in a region with lower than average density, such as the green dot, matter would flow out due to the stronger gravity of the denser surrounding regions, as indicated by the red arrows. \u00a9 Moritz Haslbauer and Zarija Lukic, University of Portsmouth<\/p>\n<p>A One-Billion-Light-Year Void<\/p>\n<p>Indranil Banik points out, \u201cThe Hubble tension is mostly local. On larger scales, the standard model holds.\u201d Nearby galaxy counts back up the void theory, even though mainstream cosmology assumes a more uniform matter spread.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"625\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/his-big-bang-1024x625.jpeg\" alt=\"\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) \u2013 the \u201cBig Bang sound\u201d \u2013 support the idea of a local vacuum. \u00a9 Gabriela Secara, Perimeter Institute<\/p>\n<p>A Confession from the Big Bang<\/p>\n<p>The clue lies in baryon acoustic oscillations\u2014the \u201csound waves\u201d from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.futura-sciences.com\/en\/we-have-no-explanation-this-mysterious-radio-signal-is-shaking-up-our-view-of-the-universe_18598\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Big Bang<\/a>. They froze into the early plasma and shaped today\u2019s galaxy distribution. A local void would tweak the redshift we measure. Twenty years of BAO data make a void around us about 100 million times more likely than not. Next up: a \u201ccosmic clock\u201d test, comparing galaxy ages to their redshifts.<\/p>\n<p>                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.futura-sciences.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mayer-nathalie.avif\" class=\"attachment-100x100 size-100x100 wp-post-image\" alt=\"mayer-nathalie\" itemprop=\"image\"\/>                <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t        Nathalie Mayer                <\/p>\n<p>\n    Journalist    <\/p>\n<p data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">Born in Lorraine on a freezing winter night, storytelling has always inspired me, first through my grandmother&#8217;s tales and later Stephen King&#8217;s imagination. A physicist turned science communicator, I&#8217;ve collaborated with institutions like CEA, Total, Engie, and Futura. Today, I focus on unraveling Earth&#8217;s complex environmental and energy challenges, blending science with storytelling to illuminate solutions.<\/p>\n<p>                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/auteur-fs-100x100.webp.webp\" class=\"attachment-100x100 size-100x100\" alt=\"author-fs\" itemprop=\"image\"  \/>                <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers at the University of Portsmouth have a bold idea: what if Earth sits inside a massive cosmic&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[49,48,314,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-16089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}