Opinion sought: edit: correct spelling of the topic should be ERIDANUS VOID According to wiki there are numerous voids found through out the visible universe. so no big deal....normally .. however apparently one supervoid has been discovered in 2007 that did not fit even the descriptions of what a void is. It is the veracity of this discovery [inconguancy] that is in question. Two dubious resources have been found on the net and I wont post the URL.s as you will probably think I am tryng to promote something. You will just have to google it for your self if interested. One image displayed is: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! another displayed is: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Both could be fabrications as no supporting resources are available. snip: Is it credible? Is there any veracity to the claims or is it a pure hoax? In the wiki list of voids this one is cited as a super void, however voids would not normally take the shape of a sphere...would they? care to offer an opinion?
Upon searching the web site for the University of Minnesota I did find this article: http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2007/UR_RELEASE_MIG_4075.html but no images of spheres...
it certainly seems that way... I agree... regarding the University of Minnesotas article I linked to above: do you know of any independant verification ? has the discovery of an apparent and significant anomoly been debunked? From a marketing perspective I tend to feel the image source may be attempting to market an alternative theory and they have generated hoax and sensational imagery to pursue that agenda. [ this is why I didn't post the link to the image source.]
The first image is just nonsense, it represents a hole in space. The second picture is an illustration of what a black hole would look like if you saw it through a telescope and it weren't surrounded by a ton of dust as they all seem to be. The centre of obviously black since light can't get out of it. The ring of purple around is a perfect Einstein ring, formed by gravitational lensing bending light from galaxies behind the black hole towards the telescope. As for the void in question, it isn't devoid of matter in the sense of nothing being there, rather that it is significantly less dense than other regions of the universe, even allowing for the known CMB fluctuations caused by inflation of quantum effects in the early universe. This suggests that the current inflationary model needs more components to it (or an overhaul, pick your preference). Of course it isn't outside the realms of possibility it's entirely consistent with the current model, after all the more or less dense regions are caused by random fluctuations. It could be just a very big fluctuation. Unfortunately there's no way to justify that position as you're talking about statistics for a seemingly one time event.
yes It appears the images are simply artist impressions of Black holes... compare this image from wiki "black holes" with the first image and they appear to be very similar except the first image is distorted, probably to hide it's orginal use. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! artist impression - c/o wiki The first image appears to have had a lot of image filtering as well... hmmm... do you feel the universities media release may have been ..premature? see snips below: because it appears there has been no follow up....maybe they are too embarrassed to retract their initial assessments. Rudick clearly refers to it as a HOLE and not a VOID
That could just be an issue of semantics. The words HOLE and VOID, in context could be referring to the same thing... And you are drawing this text from a press release not a published or even prepublished paper.
absolutely agree! However it may be semantics to us but to a qualified Astro-physicist the use of these two words is very important, I would think. Every astro-physicist knows there is a huge difference between calling a void they have discovered and naming it a void and then referring to it as a hole.......but as you say it may be a press media mistake and not that of the scientist himself. You will notice though that ther has been no attempt to correct it, or issue another media release that clarifies the confusion generated by such a comment. [ whether the correction gets published beyond the web site or not is irrelevant]
The pictures are irrelevant; they are artist's impressions of black holes, which are local phenomena formed from collapsed stars. The Eridanus Void can be described as a hole with no inaccuracy, but is completely different to a black hole. It is just a random fluctuation in the density of the universe; to be honest, the universe is unusually uniform, and perhaps the mystery is why there aren't more of them.
The other more serious bit of reseach about this issue is that according to the team the Eridanas void is over 10 billion light years from Earth. Which means that all information we have is about a historical, and very ancient 10 billion year old artifact. That may not even exist today....
