VISUAL ARCHIVE / IMAGE STORY
The Great Underdensity
A dark region becomes meaningful beside the crowded structure surrounding it.
The Boötes Void is an enormous underdense region within the cosmic web, spanning hundreds of millions of light-years. This artistic interpretation imagines the staggering contrast between the universe’s crowded galactic filaments and the darkness between them.
THE OBSERVATION
What we can actually see.
The Boötes Void was inferred from the distribution of galaxy distances and positions. A void has fewer galaxies than surrounding regions; it is not a region proven to contain no gas, dark matter, stars, or galaxies at all.
THE ILLUSTRATION
What the artwork imagines.
The composition visualizes this idea: A dark region becomes meaningful beside the crowded structure surrounding it. The Boötes Void is an enormous underdense region within the cosmic web, spanning hundreds of millions of light-years. This artistic interpretation imagines the staggering contrast between the universe’s crowded galactic filaments and the darkness between them.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED ARTICLE
The story that inspired it.
The article explores the discovery of the Boötes Void and the difference between a sparse intergalactic environment and an empty sky. It uses an imagined isolated observer to ask how surroundings could change our understanding of the wider universe. This frame focuses on a dark region becomes meaningful beside the crowded structure surrounding it.
Read The Great Nothing: What If Your Galaxy Was Trapped Inside 330 Million Light-Years of Emptiness?CHECK THE RECORD
The image interprets the research below. Follow the original work for the measurements and limits behind the scene.
Research record: doi.org/10.1086/183623 Research record: doi.org/10.1086/165080 Research record: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1987ApJ...314L..33M/abstract Research record: arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9511128 Research record: doi.org/10.1086/118604 Research record: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/search/q=title%3A%22A%20hierarchy%20of%20voids%22OTHER IMAGE STORIES
Keep looking.
Absence Found in a Survey
The Bright Edges of Emptiness
The Mark Shared by Titan and PlutoEXPLORE IN 3D / MAP 13
Move outward through the cosmic neighborhood
Move from our galactic neighborhood toward the cosmic web. The explorer explains scale; it is not an observed map of the Boötes Void or the imagined civilization in this artwork.
Open Universe map