What’s the darkest place in the solar system? What about the universe?
Look up at the night sky and you might feel like space is a vast expanse of darkness. But are there some regions that are darker than others? What is the darkest place in the world? solar system and, on a larger scale, the universe?
In short, the answer isn’t simple and it depends on who you ask, experts told Live Science.
Darkness also “depends on how you define it.” Andreas Burkerttheoretical astrophysicist at the University of Munich, told Live Science. The visible light spectrum illuminates certain places in the universe with light. However, other wavelengths on the electromagnetic spectrumlike gamma rays and ultraviolet light, affect almost everything. This means that space, seen across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, is quite bright.
Low albedo
If we consider only visible light, there are extremely dark places in space. Several factors contribute to this obscurity.
First, cosmic objects may be made of light-absorbing material, making them very dark. Scientifically, this is called albedo, or the amount of light reflected by a surface. A perfect mirrorfor example, would reflect 100% of the light aimed at it and have an albedo of 1, while charcoal would have an albedo of 4%.
The nucleus of comet Borrelly (also called 19P/Borrelly) is one of the darkest spots in our solar system, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The comet, 8 kilometers long, is made up of dust and ice that reflects less than 3% of sunlight. based on an image taken in 2001.
Likewise, the darkest known exoplanet in the universe, trES-2breflects less than 1% lightwhich is believed to be due to high amounts of sodium vapor and titanium oxide gas in the atmosphere. In contrast, Earth reflects about 30% of the sun’s light.
Black holesthey too are dark because they capture the light that passes through the event horizon. But interestingly, “that doesn’t mean there isn’t light,” Burkert said. “He’s just trapped.” Consequently, “when you enter the black holeit’s actually extremely bright,” he explained.
Block light and distant objects
Darkness can also exist if something blocks the light from nearby stars. For example, some craters on our moonlocated at the poles, never see sunlight. These places are very dark because they are in “permanent shadow,” Postman explained. Shaded craters Pluto can also be quite dark, due to their distance from the sun.
Far beyond this, dense dust clouds, called molecular cores or Bok globules, are also thought to be pitch black. They look like “a hole in the sky,” Burkert said. Indeed, the globule, made up of a mixture of molecular hydrogen, carbon oxides, helium and silicate dust, blocks almost all visible light from surrounding stars, causing them to disappear. However, this light blocking is not as deep in the infrared spectrum, noted Burkert, who studied Barnard 68, a globule located about 500 light years from Earth.
Finally, some areas of the sky are dark simply because they are far from any light source. These locations were documented by NASA’s New Horizons telescope, an instrument sent to take photos of the outer corners of the galaxy.
Based on a 2021 article published in The Astrophysics Journal, these distant regions are very dark. “On average, the sky is 10 times darker than near Earth,” said Postman, co-author of the study. However, these regions still benefited from light coming from the background glow of the cosmos.
Burkert noted that Earth lies in a relatively dark cavity in the Milky Waywhich uniquely allows us to have a clear view far into space.
“We’re sitting in the middle of this big bubble and so we can see a lot of stars,” Burkert said. “If we hadn’t been in the bubble, maybe astronomy wouldn’t have developed. [darkness] is a very relevant, I think, important idea and question. »
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