09-07-2025
Is Earth sitting inside a giant hole in space? Astronomers make big discovery
Astronomers have proposed a groundbreaking theory that suggests Earth and the entire Milky Way galaxy may reside within a vast, mysterious hypothesis, unveiled at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) 2025 in Durham, aims to address the long-standing issue of 'Hubble tension,' a discrepancy between the expected and observed expansion rates of the proven, this theory could redefine our understanding of the universe's true age, estimated at around 13.8 billion
The concept of the Hubble constant, introduced by Edwin Hubble in 1929, measures the universe's expansion rate through the observation of celestial objects and their velocities as they move away from us. However, current models predict a slower expansion compared to actual observations, particularly in the local universe."A potential solution to this inconsistency is that our galaxy is close to the centre of a large, local void," explained Dr. Indranil Banik from the University of this scenario, gravitational forces pull matter towards denser regions outside the void. As the void empties, the velocity of objects moving away from us appears faster, giving the impression of an accelerated local expansion idea of a local void is supported by direct galaxy counts, indicating a lower galaxy density in our vicinity compared to surrounding regions. However, this notion remains controversial as it contradicts the standard cosmological model, which expects a more uniform distribution of matter on such large Banik's presentation at NAM 2025 highlighted data from baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs), described as the 'sound of the Big Bang.'"These sound waves travelled for only a short while before becoming frozen in place once the universe cooled enough for neutral atoms to form," he noted. "They act as a standard ruler, whose angular size we can use to chart the cosmic expansion history."The presence of a local void is suggested to distort the relationship between the BAO angular scale and redshift, due to increased velocities and gravitational the last two decades of BAO measurement analysis, this void model appears significantly more plausible than a void-free model aligned with the parameters of the Planck satellite research will involve comparing this local void model with other methods for estimating the universe's expansion history, such as cosmic chronometers. These methods involve analysing galaxies no longer forming stars to determine their age and expansion observing their spectra, astronomers can assess what types of stars they contain. The combination of these findings with galaxy redshift data provides further insights into the cosmic expansion narrative.- Ends
