I believe that we all know that the universe we live in is very empty, but if you ask, how empty is the universe? It is estimated that many people have no specific concept the universe is so empty that it is likely to be more than you can imagine. To illustrate how empty the universe is, we might as well start with the Earth and the Moon, where we would normally imagine the Earth-Moon system as follows.
But this is not the case in reality, because the average distance between the Earth and the Moon is about 380,000 km, while the radius of the Earth is about 6,371 km and that of the Moon is about 1,737 km, so the real situation of the Earth and the Moon should look like this.
As you can see, there is a much emptier space between the Earth and the Moon than one might think, so what can be put down in this space?
Yes, just between the Earth and the Moon, there is room for all the planets in the solar system except for the Earth. After talking about the Earth-Moon system, let's take a look at the solar system, starting with the diagram.
Starting from the top left, in clockwise order, the outermost part of this diagram is the orbit of Jupiter in the first part, the outermost part is the orbit of Pluto and the Kuiper belt in the second part, and the outermost red orbit in the third part belongs to the asteroid Sedna, whose perihelion is about 76 astronomical units from the Sun and aphelion is about 937 Astronomical units.
The outermost part of part 4 is the Oort Cloud, whose inner edge is 2,000 to 5,000 astronomical units from the Sun, and whose outer edge is about 1 light-year away from the Sun, beyond which it can be considered as flying out of the solar system.
It is important to know that the Sun occupies about 99.86% of the mass of the entire solar system, and the majority of the remaining mass is occupied by the eight planets and their satellites, as for the small bodies orbiting in the solar system it is much more sparse than expected, even in the "dense" asteroid belt of small bodies, the average distance between each Even in the "dense" asteroid belt, the average distance between small bodies is about 770,000 km (much farther than the Earth-Moon distance).
Seeing that we have a concrete idea of the emptiness of our solar system, let's take a look at the Milky Way.
The stars in the Milky Way are very unevenly distributed, specifically, the further away from the center of the galaxy, the lower the density of stars, in the core of the galaxy, the highest density of stars can reach 289,000 per cubic light year, while in the location of the 100-second gap from the center of the galaxy (about 326 light-years), the stellar density drops to 2.9 per cubic light year.
In the region where our solar system is located, the stellar density has dropped to 0.004 stars per cubic light year, and at the edge of the galaxy, the stellar density is as low as 0.0003 stars per cubic light year, which means that the average density of stars in the galaxy is about 0.006 stars per cubic light year, which means that there is about one star every 167 cubic light years, and the average distance between stars and The average distance between stars is about 5.5 light-years.
To understand the emptiness of the Milky Way, let us assume that there are two stars as big as the Sun, and the distance between them is 5.5 light years, on this basis, if we shrink these two stars to the size of soccer, the distance between these two "footballs" will be about 8223 km after the same scale of shrinkage. kilometers.
Observations show that other galaxies in the universe are about as empty as the Milky Way, and more importantly, the distance between galaxies in the universe is often hundreds of thousands or millions of light-years, and there is very little matter in the vast space between galaxies, almost nothingness.
In addition, there are many "cosmic voids" in the universe, in which the number of galaxies is extremely rare, or there are no galaxies at all.
The span of these "voids" is usually very large, and some of them are even larger than you can imagine, for example, in the direction of the constellation Shepherd's Hollow, about 700 million light-years from Earth, there is a 250 million light-years diameter "Shepherd's Hollow", which spans about 0.26% of the entire observable universe.
The distribution of galaxies in the universe is already very sparse, and the existence of the "cosmic hole" further increases the degree of the emptiness of the universe, and as mentioned above, the galaxies themselves are very empty, and this series of circumstances superimposed, of course, the universe will be ridiculously empty, how ridiculous is it?
Theoretically, we only need to measure the volume and mass of the universe to calculate the matter density of the universe, but obviously, we cannot do such a thing, so we have to settle for the second best, to see what the matter density of the observable universe is.
At the macroscopic level, the matter of the observable universe is uniformly distributed in the whole, and since the volume of the observable universe is known, it is only necessary to measure the mass of a part of it to estimate the matter density of the entire observable universe. The mass of a proton.
What is this concept? Let's say there is a square box with a prism length of 1 meter, containing 6 protons, and now we enlarge the box to the size of a common glass marble (about 1.5 cm in diameter), then the prism length of this square box will be enlarged to about 9 billion kilometers in the same proportion, as a comparison, the average distance between Pluto and the Sun is only about 5.9 billion kilometers.
In a giant square box with a prism length of 9 billion kilometers, there would be only six glass marbles with a diameter of about 1.5 cm, and this would be considered the degree of the emptiness of the observable universe, how about, is it a little beyond your imagination?
It should be noted that the scientific community generally believes that the universe is composed of "ordinary matter", "dark matter" and "dark energy", as we have no idea about " dark matter" and "dark energy", we cannot be sure whether they exist or not, so the scope of this paper is limited to "ordinary matter", and does not include "dark matter" and "dark energy". "dark matter" and "dark energy" are not included.
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Robert Jack
One of the secrets of emotional stability for adults is to keep the expectations of others to a minimum.
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International Reactions: Mostly Negative Around the world, reaction to Myanmar’s elections has been overwhelmingly critical. The UN, Western governments, and human rights organizations argue that the polls are designed to prop up an authoritarian regime, not reflect the will of the people. Civil society groups in Asia have also condemned the election, urging countries not to recognize the results. The junta’s international supporters, however—countries like China and Russia—may continue diplomatic engagement, making it harder to isolate the regime completely. The key takeaway? While the junta may claim legitimacy, global acceptance is far from guaranteed. Looking Ahead: What Happens Next? The final phase of voting is scheduled for 25 January 2026, and it’s expected to follow the same patterns: military dominance, restricted opposition, and contested legitimacy. 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Conclusion Myanmar’s second-phase election may look like a step toward democracy on paper, but in reality, it’s a highly controlled, military-managed process with limited participation and credibility. With opposition voices silenced, ongoing conflict, and millions of citizens excluded, the so-called vote is widely regarded as a sham exercise. For the people of Myanmar, the future remains uncertain. While the junta may claim victory, the country’s deep political, social, and ethnic fractures mean that true democracy and stability are still a long way off. This election is a reminder that sometimes, the act of voting alone doesn’t equal democracy—especially when freedom, fairness, and choice are nowhere to be found.
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