From Joshua Sokol at New Scientist:
The problem was that the Boötes void was just too big. Voids grow because their dense edges have a much stronger gravitational pull than anything at their centres. But the universe wasn’t yet old enough to have inflated such a big bubble.
For an explanation, we had to wait until the 1998 discovery of dark energy: a cosmic pressure that forces empty regions of space to expand as if someone was blowing air into each of the universe’s soap bubbles all at once.
Many astronomers, now in a boom of cataloging and mapping voids, think these spooky regions that expose the naked fabric of the universe could point to the next big discovery. More.
But dark energy is not only a spooky concept, it is, like ghosts, one that has been questioned. The topic goes back and forth, because what’s missing is demonstrable evidence apart from what the concepts would account for.
See also: How do dark energy and dark matter relate to ID?
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