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Wednesday 25 January 2017

The Universe in 101 words: Where's the loneliest place in the Universe?

Above: A map of part of the web of galaxies that fills our Universe.

If it seems far to our nearest stellar neighbour, Proxima Centauri, remember: Some star systems wander between galaxies, millions of light years from anything. The loneliest are probably somewhere in the Bootes void, a huge gap in the web of galaxies that spans our universe. 

The sky of a world in such a void would be very strange: Devoid of stars, but against the darkness distant galaxies would be visible. The dim glows of spiral arms and halos would surround their bright, star like, cores, covering as much sky as a full moon, even from millions of light years distance… 
 
Above: The Amdromeda galaxy, which is 2.5 million light years from Earth - but so big it's faint spiral arms cover as much of our sky as a full Moon.

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