The cosmic voids aren’t empty. they’re filled with something far stranger.

Image via NASA

doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21478.x
Credibility: 959
#Cosmic Void

At first glance, the cosmic voids seem like the most desolate and empty places in the universe

They are immense regions with very little matter, stars, galaxies, or radiation.

If you removed all of that-all normal matter, neutrinos, dark matter, cosmic rays, and light-what would be left? Many people would think: nothing.

But that’s not true.

Even in these seemingly deserted spaces, “nothing” isn’t really nothing.

Modern physics, especially quantum field theory, shows that empty space is filled with something fundamental and strange: quantum fields and the so-called vacuum energy.

In quantum physics, the particles we know (electrons, quarks, neutrinos, etc.) are not the most basic things.

They are merely “excitations” or vibrations in fields that exist everywhere in the universe, since the Big Bang.

These fields are everywhere, even where there are no particles.

It’s as if space were an invisible, calm ocean, yet still full of a kind of background energy.

Because of a famous principle of quantum mechanics (Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle), this “vacuum” can never have exactly zero energy.

There is always a minimum, fluctuating energy.

When physicists calculate this energy theoretically, the numbers come out very large (sometimes even infinite), but observations show that, in practice, it is small-but not zero.

This vacuum energy is what we call dark energy.

It is responsible for making the universe expand faster and faster, a phenomenon discovered a few decades ago that still intrigues scientists.

In places full of matter, such as planets, stars, galaxies, or clusters of galaxies, dark energy makes almost no difference.

Gravity and the enormous amount of matter dominate everything.

If dark energy suddenly disappeared, life on Earth would continue exactly as before: the ball would follow the same trajectory, the microwave would heat the food in the same amount of time.

Nothing would change in daily life or in the galaxies.

But in the cosmic voids, it’s different.

These giant regions have so little matter that dark energy becomes the main force.

It is there, in the middle of these cosmic “deserts,” that dark energy truly acts, pushing space to expand faster.

In fact, the voids are not just empty areas that arose by chance.

They are actively growing and pushing the structures of the universe (such as filaments, walls, and galaxies) away from each other.

Over billions of years (probably between 5 and 20 billion years in the future), the voids will continue to expand so much that they will literally “dismantle” the cosmic web we see today.

The large, beautiful structures of the universe are temporary-and the voids are responsible for this process.

So, yes: voids are devoid of matter.

That’s precisely why we can detect and study them.

But, precisely because they are poor in matter, they become “filled” with dark energy.

They are the only places where this energy can dominate and cause the universe to expand at an accelerated rate.

No matter where you go in the cosmos-whether to the center of a bright galaxy or the heart of the deepest void-you will never be completely alone.

Space itself is always vibrating with these quantum fields and charged with this mysterious energy that shapes the destiny of the entire universe.

Published in 03/06/2026 01h32

Portuguese version

Text adapted by AI (Grok) and translated via Google API in the English version. Images from public image libraries or credits in the caption. Information about DOI, author and institution can be found in the body of the article.

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