Scientists Find “42″

3:24 am EST August 24th, 2007 | News | 7 Comments

Any other explanation?

Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That’s got them scratching their heads about what’s just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That’s an expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness, a University of Minnesota team announced Thursday.

Astronomers have known for many years that there are patches in the universe where nobody’s home. In fact, one such place is practically a neighbor, a mere 2 million light years away. But what the Minnesota team discovered, using two different types of astronomical observations, is a void that’s far bigger than scientists ever imagined.

“This is 1,000 times the volume of what we sort of expected to see in terms of a typical void,” said Minnesota astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick, author of the paper that will be published in Astrophysical Journal. “It’s not clear that we have the right word yet … This is too much of a surprise.”

They’re theeeerrreeee.


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7 Responses to “Scientists Find “42″”

  1. Megamoze says:
    August 24, 2007 at 3:32 am

    The answer is God, obviously. See? We don’t need no stinkin’ science to ‘splain nothing’!

  2. pioneer says:
    August 24, 2007 at 8:36 am

    I love tidbits of information like this. The universe seems to still hold many mysteries for us to ponder.

  3. chum says:
    August 24, 2007 at 9:53 am

    Kinda sounds like what exists inside Bush’s skull.

  4. bobh says:
    August 24, 2007 at 10:35 am

    Its just a hole…in the yard.

  5. r@d@r says:
    August 24, 2007 at 1:17 pm

    it’s Azathoth!

    “[O]utside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes” – H.P. Lovecraft, from the Wikepedia entry

  6. Rheinhard says:
    August 24, 2007 at 3:20 pm

    Y’all haven’t watched enough Babylon 5. Obviously, this must be where all the First Ones (the million+ year old civilizations that have evolved and advanced to the point of near godhood, such as the Vorlons and Shadows) go to hang out when our dinky-ass galaxy just ain’t big enough any more.

  7. bartkid says:
    August 24, 2007 at 6:57 pm

    >”This is 1,000 times the volume of what we sort of expected to see in terms of a typical void,”

    And found only one week after Karl Rove left the White House.
    Coincidence?