The universe may be full of large empty spaces where the laws of nature are different
A team of astrophysicists suggests that other laws than we know may be valid in the dark and abandoned corners of the universe. They warn that this is worrying. We simply look where the light is - much like looking for your keys in a mud puddle for the light of a street lamp. This is all we can do, but in doing so we get a wrong picture of the universe, they argue. Most of our universe consists of empty spaces, from which no light emanates. In these regions, stars and galaxies cannot form, say Jeremiah Ostriker of the University of Cambridge in England and his colleagues. However, these dark regions may not be as empty as they seem, they argue.
Astronomers generally assume that where there is more light, there is more matter in the same ratio. Some of this material is visible in the form of bright stars and galaxies; Another part is the mysterious "dark matter". No one knows what that "dark matter" is - it was discovered, because it exerts gravitational forces on matter, which emits light. Ostriker's team claims that light is not necessarily a good way to discover matter.
Their computer simulation of the structure of the universe indicates that the amount of light decreases steeply as the overall density of the universe decreases. Below a certain mass density, they calculated, star formation becomes more difficult. However, it should not be assumed that this darkness means emptiness. These dark voids are likened to bits of the "low-density universe," the researchers say, in which there is matter but no stars. These regions make up about 85% of the universe, the team estimates, and contain about 20% of its mass.
