Artistic Science

kenobi-wan-obi:

thinksquad:

Discovered in 2007, this is the largest known void in the universe. More info: http://bit.ly/17CJxaA

I hate to be that guy but this is extremely false and misleading. If I’m not mistaken (please correct me if I’m wrong), this is actually Barnard 68. B68 is a dark nebula:

“Barnard 68 is a molecular cloud, dark absorption nebula or Bok globule, towards the southern constellation Ophiuchus and well within our own galaxy at a distance of about 500 light-years, so close that not a single star can be seen between it and the Sun. American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard added this nebula to his catalog of dark nebulae in 1919. He published his catalog in 1927, at which stage it included some 350 objects. Because of its opacity, its interior is extremely cold, its temperature being about 16 K (−257 °C). Its mass is about twice that of the Sun and it measures about half a light-year across.” [source]

It’s actually a blob of dust gravitationally collapsing in on its own mass to eventually become a star in like 100,000 years.

This is simply a photoshopped version, whoever did this must have used the liquify tool to give the nebula’s figure a slightly different shape. But what caught my attention aside from that suspicious description about being “completely empty of normal matter and dark matter” was the fact that I remember what the brighter stars surrounding B68 look like.

This is B68:

See how similar it looks? down to the position of the closer stars most visible? The above pic is a sham :/ I love the mysteries of the Universe as much as the next person but there’s really no point in misleading stuff like this. Oh and p.s. the link provided above in the original post is a completely different article talking about a completely different occurrence unrelated to the provided image of B68.

The force is strong with this one

(via thenewenlightenmentage)