This animation shows the Bok globule Barnard 68 in a variety of visible and infrared wavelengths. As the longer wavelengths reveal, this is not a hole in the Universe but simply a dusty cloud of gas, where the longer wavelengths of light penetrate and pass through the dust. (Credit: ESO)

No, there isn’t a hole in the Universe

The image you’re seeing isn’t a hole in the Universe, and the cosmic voids that do exist aren’t hole-like at all.

Somewhere, far away, if you believe what you read, there’s a hole in the Universe. There’s a region of space so large and empty, a billion light-years across, that there’s nothing in it at all. There’s no matter of any type, normal or dark, and no stars, galaxies, plasma, gas, dust, black holes, or anything else. There’s no radiation in there at all, either. It’s an example of truly empty space, and its existence has been visually captured by our greatest telescopes.

At least, that’s what some people are saying, in a photographic meme that’s been spreading around the internet for years and refuses to die. Scientifically, though, there’s nothing true about these assertions at all. There is no hole in the Universe; the closest we have are the underdense regions known as cosmic voids, which still contain matter. Moreover, this image isn’t a void or hole at all, but a cloud of gas. Let’s do the detective work to show you what’s really going on.

The dark nebula Barnard 68, now known to be a molecular cloud called a Bok globule, has a temperature of less than 20 K. It’s still quite warm when compared with the temperatures of the cosmic microwave background, however, and is definitely not a hole in the Universe. (Credit: ESO)