The Universe is empty

Hi Spacecats, I'm Dr Maggie Lieu and welcome to my channel, where you can find all things space, astronomy and physics! Do you ever feel empty? Well there might be a good reason for that. Our Universe is so devoid of anything it's scary!

Media credits:
Solar system: NASA/JPL
Alpha centuri: ESO/DSS 2
Solar system zoom out: Garching/OPIS
Milkyway zoomo out: ESO/Kornmessa/Calcada

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[DavidBrant]

Dunno about sand, but my brain is a good example of empty space 😅❤great vid, Maggie 😊

[ionut]

Our human minds combined cannot comprehend how vast the universe is...

[johnlewis]

Truly mind boggling! I don’t think we’ll be having any visitors any time soon.

[michaelginever]

Thank you. It is almost terrifying to contemplate the emptiness, vastness and darkness/ coldness of the universe. Of course there are some hot spots like our sun, but as you point out, it's over 4 light years to find anymore such places. On average it's just 2.7° K out there. That's like minus 270.3° C. And emptiness of "solid" matter. Standing on a solid floor which is basically nothing. What stops us? just electromagnetic force. We really never touch anything, we just feel EMF

I keep returning to the vastness of space though. It's both humbling and terrifying.

[alnilam]

With your presence Maggie, the Universe shall never be empty! {\}

[ShawnLX]

From the smallest to the largest. Great video :D

[johnh]

Almost the most overlooked aspect of reality . another grate episode.🌌

[Roland]

Feel quite empty-headed after your explanation.

[Petertronic]

Loved this video. Amazing how everything is made of these little tiny dots jiggling around!

[williamhoward]

Your explanation of how much space exists within the air that we breathe finally explained a scuba diving question I've had. I've always wondered how you can compress air into a tank without compressing the actual atoms / molecules. Basically it sounds like there's plenty of room there you just have to push the molecules closer together and fill up more of the empty space. I wonder if there is a limit?

[atmrtwbike]

Not what I was expecting. 🙂 But certainly found it fascinating!

[georgejackson]

Didn't you get your analogy the wrong way round? Isn't it the case that there are more stars in our own galaxy alone than there are grains of sand in any handful of sand you may pick up from a beach? There are certainly more stars in the observable universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth. Or at least, that is how this analogy is normally explained. It gives a more impressive understanding of the sheer size of the universe.

[alwaysdisputin]

Good video, TY
please try to stop the sound distorting e.g. at 6:04 "Most of our universe, regarR$£&#!dless what scale we look at, is empty space."

[jamesgodoy]

It blows my mind, maybe the time of the universe is only a moment of firework exploded with a debris of splashing embers until it all dies in time

[rcfp]

The way I heard it once put. If an atom were the size of a cathedral then it's nucleus would the the size of a house fly.

It's also not fair that for something so vast the universe's speed limit is so slow. It's the same as travelling from one side of Australia to the other at 8cm/hr but dying of old age before we complete 1mm.

[tonyx]

If this video needed a theme tune, Galaxy of Emptiness by Beth Orton might have been appropriate :).

[akhilnikhil]

hey Maggie, if u include dark matter and dark energy then how would the numbers change because most of the empty space is made of dark energy and dark matter

[weathercat]

In the context of QFT does it even make sense imagining anything really "filling" space?

[mballer]

I wonder how much space is inside a quark.

[duk]

It is awkward using ly instead of pc that kinds of high quality lecture 😀