Nihilophobia Sufferers May Not Want To Read This

Maybe they should call it the "Seinfeld" anomaly. A University of Minnesota astronomer says he has found the largest expanse of -- well, nothing -- ever seen in the known universe.

And when we say nothing, we're not talking about any ole' run-of-the-mill black hole (like the one shown above). Professor Lawrence Rudnick says the six billion trillion mile-wide hole (think about that for a minute... but stop if your brain starts to hurt -- Ed.) shows no sign of any stars, galaxies, or light.

It's literally... nothing. And Rudnick is positively giddy at that.

"We are in the business of discovery, of doing research that is exciting, mind-blowing," he told the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune. "So when there's a discovery like this, it's really just fun."

Rudnick, who has taught at UMN since 1979, has reportedly been fascinated with vast, empty spaces for years. In a freshman seminar entitled "Nothing" the professor encourages students to consider the artistic, scientific, and physiological (think placebo effect) merits of nothingness.

"Nothing," he says profoundly, "is everywhere."

Rudnick (shown at right) announced his discovery last week. The newly discovered "hole in the universe" is 1,000 times larger than any previously discovered, reports the Star-Tribune.

The expansive void is located a mere six to 10 billion light years away, in the constellation Eridanus, near the foot of Orion. Rudnick -- along with colleagues Prof. Liliya Williams and grad student Shea Brown -- studied images taken by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in New Mexico. They zeroed in on a so-called "cold spot," an area of space where scientists had detected a drop in the temperature of cosmic waves of background radiation.

By measuring the intensity -- or lack thereof -- of waves in the area, the team came up with an estimate of the void's size.

And unlike black holes -- which contain extremely dense matter -- the void is devoid of any matter the scientists can identify. "The hole in the universe that we found, as best we can tell, is devoid or almost empty of matter in any form," Rudnick said.

Rudnick admits the discovery is unlikely to attract a lot of attention outside the astronomy community. "It's not going to be tomorrow's pacemaker or anything like that," he says. "It is, however, part of the story of how we got here."

He also acknowledges his team could be wrong, and that other scientists "will find that we misinterpreted the data."

"That's what keeps us awake at night," he adds.

Well, until that happens... the rest of us will be kept awake by the possibility he may be right...

FMI: www.astro.umn.edu/