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The Boötes void or the Great Void is a tremendously large, approximately spherically shaped nearly-empty region of space
Interstellar medium

In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the gas and cosmic dust that pervade interstellar space: the matter that exists between the stars within a galaxy....
, devoid of galaxies
Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitation system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and cosmic dust, and an important but poorly-understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter....
. At nearly 250 million light-years in diameter, it is one of the largest known voids
Void (astronomy)

In astronomy, voids are the empty spaces between galaxy filament, the largest-scale structures in the Universe, that contain very few, or no, galaxies....
 in the universe
Universe

The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and physical constants that govern them....
, and is referred to as a supervoid. It was discovered in 1981 by Robert Kirshner
Robert Kirshner

Robert Kirshner is the Clowes Professor of Science in the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University. Kirshner has worked in several areas of astronomy including the physics of Supernova, Supernova remnant , the Large-scale structure of the cosmos, and the use of Supernova to measure the expansion of the universe....
, Augustus Oemler, Jr., Paul Schechter, and Stephen Shectman in a survey of galactic redshifts.






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The Boötes void or the Great Void is a tremendously large, approximately spherically shaped nearly-empty region of space
Interstellar medium

In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the gas and cosmic dust that pervade interstellar space: the matter that exists between the stars within a galaxy....
, devoid of galaxies
Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitation system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and cosmic dust, and an important but poorly-understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter....
. At nearly 250 million light-years in diameter, it is one of the largest known voids
Void (astronomy)

In astronomy, voids are the empty spaces between galaxy filament, the largest-scale structures in the Universe, that contain very few, or no, galaxies....
 in the universe
Universe

The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and physical constants that govern them....
, and is referred to as a supervoid. It was discovered in 1981 by Robert Kirshner
Robert Kirshner

Robert Kirshner is the Clowes Professor of Science in the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University. Kirshner has worked in several areas of astronomy including the physics of Supernova, Supernova remnant , the Large-scale structure of the cosmos, and the use of Supernova to measure the expansion of the universe....
, Augustus Oemler, Jr., Paul Schechter, and Stephen Shectman in a survey of galactic redshifts. It is located in the area of the constellation Boötes
Boötes

Bo?tes Bo?tes was one of the 48 constellations described by the 1st century astronomer Ptolemy and is now one of the 88 modern constellations. It contains the List of brightest stars in the night sky, Arcturus....
, for which it is named.

According to astronomer Greg Aldering, the scale of the void is such that "If the Milky Way had been in the center of the Boötes void, we wouldn't have known there were other galaxies until the 1960s."

Other astronomers also began to study this void and soon discovered some galaxies within the void. J. Moody, Robert Kirshner, G. MacAlpine, and S. Gregory discovered and published eight new galaxies in the void in 1987. M. Strauss and John Huchra
John Huchra

John Peter Huchra is an United States astronomer and professor. He is the Vice Provost for Research Policy at Harvard University and a Professor of Astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics....
 announced the discovery of a further three galaxies in 1988, and Greg Aldering, G. Bothun, Robert P. Kirshner, and Ron Marzke announced the discovery of fifteen galaxies in 1989. More galaxies continued to be discovered, by 1997 a total of 60 Boötes void galaxies were known.

Theories

It has been theorized that the Boötes void was formed from the merger of smaller voids, much as soap bubbles coalesce to form larger bubbles. This theory would account for the small number of galaxies that exist in a rough tube shape through the middle of the void.

In fiction

  • The Boötes void is mentioned in the serial novel Accelerando
    Accelerando (novel)

    Accelerando is a 2005 science fiction novel consisting of a series of interconnected short stories by United Kingdom author Charles Stross. As well as normal hardback and paperback editions, it was released as a free ebook under the Creative Commons licenses ....
     by Charles Stross
    Charles Stross

    Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftianism to fantasy....
    .
  • The Boötes void is mentioned in Martin Amis'
    Martin Amis

    Martin Louis Amis is an England novelist, essayist, professor, and short story writer, and the son of the novelist and poet Kingsley Amis. His works include such novels as Money , London Fields and The Information ....
     novel Night Train
    Night Train (novel)

    Night Train is a novel by author Martin Amis, named after the song Night Train which features several times in the novel....
    .
  • The Boötes void is mentioned in Robert L. Forward's novel Time Master.
  • The Boötes void is mentioned in the novel House of Suns
    House of Suns

    House of Suns is a 2008 in literature science fiction novel by Wales author Alastair Reynolds . He announced the title on June 7, 2007, when he was about halfway through writing it....
     written by Alastair Reynolds
    Alastair Reynolds

    Alastair Preston Reynolds is a Wales science fiction author. He specialises in dark hard science fiction and space opera. He spent his early years in Cornwall, moved back to Wales before going to Newcastle University, where he read Physics and Astronomy....
    .


See also

  • Void (astronomy)
    Void (astronomy)

    In astronomy, voids are the empty spaces between galaxy filament, the largest-scale structures in the Universe, that contain very few, or no, galaxies....


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Footnotes