This week on the Space.com forums: Defining nothing, spin in space and a fun quiz!

News
By
published

This week on the forums, the community takes on the concept of nothingness.

Countless galaxies in the universe imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Countless galaxies in the universe imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. (Image credit: NASA/ESA)

 Welcome back to your weekly wrap-up of all the happenings in the Space.com forums. The community has been abuzz with theoretical discussions, trying to nail down some abstract definitions. We also test our space knowledge in one community member’s challenging quiz! 

 What is nothing? 

Image of the Deep 3 'empty' field observed with the telescope at La Silla. The image is the combination of 714 frames for a total exposure time of 64.5 hours covering a total area larger than one square degree. (Image credit: ESO)
Join the conversation

Let us know what you think of SpaceX, science fiction and more in our Space.com Forums here! 

It's a deceptively simple question. However, DrWhoopsyDaisy raises a fantastic point when they say, “It’s like if someone walked into an empty room and said nothing is there but in reality there is space there which is something.” So, what exactly is nothingness? Here are some attempts at answering that question:

Nothing means nothing. No thing. Total absence of anything, including mental constructs like coordinate systems. Nothing more to be said. - Catastrophe

Space between a Quanta orbits is (nothing), exists nd has properties held up by energy levels of fluctuation. Don't break your brain thinking about it :) - voidpotentialenergy

Check out the whole conversation here.

 Does everything in space spin? 

These illustrations of Pluto’s moon Nix show how the orientation of the moon changes unpredictably while it orbits the Pluto-Charon system.

These illustrations of Pluto’s moon Nix show how the orientation of the moon changes unpredictably while it orbits the Pluto-Charon system.  (Image credit: NASA, ESA, M. Showalter (SETI Inst.), G. Bacon (STScI))

Another fascinating question, posed this time by DOGGDADD. It's a bit of a puzzler, so it’s helpful to have so many eager community members to offer up some answers:

Rotation requires a reference frame, so sitting still I’m still rotating because the Earth is rotating me with it. - Helio

Yes. Relative to something. - Catastrophe 

 Test your knowledge! 

The arc of the Milky Way galaxy shimmers over the La Silla Observatory in Chile in this gorgeous night-sky view by European Southern Observatory (ESO) photo ambassador Petr Horálek. In the center of the image is the ESO 3.6-metre telescope, and to its left is the Swiss 1.2-metre Leonhard Euler telescope. Visible beneath the righthand limb of the Milky Way's starry arc are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. Saturn is visible under the left side of the arc, with Jupiter glowing brightly just above it and slightly to the left.

(Image credit: Petr Horálek/ESO)

Finally, we wrap the week up with this challenging quiz. 

Test your space knowledge via this post from Helio!

Interstellar travel.

Jupiter’s ocean moon and its volcanoes.

A question on Percy.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Mohamed Mohammed
Community Manager