Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into two of cosmology’s greatest mysteries: the Fermi Paradox and the Hubble Tension. In this thought-provoking episode, they explore the latest research suggesting that Earth—and the entire Milky Way—may be located in a massive cosmic void, potentially explaining why we haven’t encountered alien life and why the universe’s expansion rate seems inconsistent.

Discover how new findings about primordial black holes, cosmic voids, and the structure of the universe could reshape our understanding of reality. Malcolm and Simone break down complex astrophysics concepts in an accessible, entertaining way, mixing scientific insight with their signature humor and candid conversation.

Whether you’re a space enthusiast or just curious about the universe, this episode offers fresh perspectives on the search for extraterrestrial life, the nature of cosmic expansion, and the future of humanity in the cosmos. Plus, enjoy personal anecdotes, behind-the-scenes banter, and a glimpse into the creative process behind their channel.

If you would like to explore this topic more, please check out “Testing the local void hypothesis using baryon acoustic oscillation measurements over the last twenty years“ by Indranil Banik and Vasileios Kalaitzidis.

Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more episodes that challenge the way you think about the world—and the universe beyond!

Episode Transcript:Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00 ] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Simone, were you aware that there have been a number of findings that recently in cosmology that might explain two of cosmology biggest mysteries?

One, the Fury Paradox Really. Yes. What affirming paradox, why we have not seen aliens may have just been explained what not. Just the firming paradox. By the way, you should watch our video on our explanation for that, which is I think one of our best videos. But also might explain the Hubble tension.

Simone Collins: What I don’t even know, the Hubble tension. The only news I’ve seen recently about. Space stuff is the things about that asteroid that’s close to the sun and people are like, Ooh, stuff’s coming off of it, aliens. And obviously that’s not true and it’s dumb. So I’m not, I don’t click on the links, but this is interesting stuff.

But what’s this second mystery that I’ve not heard of before? Oh, hold on. I’m gonna.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So Fury Paradox, it’s why we haven’t seen aliens yet, which we [00:01:00 ] really should have. You know, if, if when we look at the challenges to developing intelligent life on earth, we’re aware of most of the bottlenecks that humanity had to go through, or life had to go through to get where we are.

Mm-hmm. And they’re just really not that strong. If you, we actually have an episode on Agenesis how life emerged on Earth. And it was. Pretty much almost inevitable because there were like multiple potential paths. You can look at the e episode on why we think it’s almost inevitable where we go into the detail on that.

Mm-hmm. But so we go into, into extreme detail on why life, the, like, the actual evolution and then getting multicell organisms was also almost inevitable. Intelligence was also almost inevitable. Just given the advantages sexual selection was also almost inevitable. And, and we go over why with data in that episode.

And so now you’re like, okay, well if all those things are almost inevitable, you know, when you’re looking at planets that have like this sort of an eco like, like he, you know, starting materials, we can look out in the universe and see. Other planets like the, it’s earth is rare, but not [00:02:00 ] that exceptionally rare that we shouldn’t have seen other aliens at this point.

Right. And so, then the thing is, is well, maybe it’s really hard to get into space, or maybe it’s really hard to invent a super intelligence. The problem is, is now that we’ve invented ai, we’re like, oh. We’re actually already to being a grabby alien. Like the grabby alien theory is already, we’re already there.

We’re already a grabby alien. We’re already about to spread into space. Right. And so, if that’s the case, then we are aware of all the hurdles, right? We actually have a really important theory of ours that if you’re not familiar with, you haven’t seen our ference at all, called the Inverse Gravity Alien Hypothesis, which basically means, well, if we are already a gravity alien, then we can actually use the same equation that was originally used in the Gravity Aliens Equation that.

But sort of input as a variable, the probability that life evolves on a planet. Because we have that number, we no longer have to treat that as an unknown variable and then determine the probability that AI becomes a gravity alien. IE AI just constantly wants to expand and murder everything. And.

Through that we can get a calculation that says [00:03:00 ] grab AI basically never happens. But there might be another explanation, which you’re about to find. But even the bigger thing is the Hubble constant. Now, the Hubble constant has been one of the biggest problems in cosmology in the past a hundred years, I wanna say.

Is

Simone Collins: this the space noise Mystery.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. They, they, they things seem to be drifting apart at different speeds at different times in the universe’s history.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: And then it shouldn’t be possible given what we understand about physics. And so we have to make up all sorts of fancy rules and you know, about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But let’s get into this because this is really fascinating. Okay. So first of all, we’ve, we’ve sort of known this already, but it’s been more hard confirmed recently.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Which is that research suggests that earth, along with the entire Milky Way galaxy, might be located at the center of a massive cosmic void, a vast unin region of space with fewer galaxies and less matter than average across the universe.

Simone Collins: So we’re like down a long country low road in space. [00:04:00 ]

Malcolm Collins: No, it’s almost like. We are in the middle of like, if, if you look at the pictures of this that have come out recently, it’s almost like you have like our, our galaxy in the Milky Way. Mm-hmm. And then like a huge black ring around both from Heavens and then the rest of the universe.

Simone Collins: So we’re like Hawaii.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. We like the Hawaii of space and that’s why the other people haven’t found us yet. You know, it took the colonist a very long time to find Hawaii. Yeah. Wow. Cosmic voids are enormous empty spaces in the universe’s large scale structure where galaxy density is significantly lower than surrounding regions.

They form a part of the cosmic web, a network of fi bulence walls and voids shaped by gravity over billions of years. The void in question is estimated to be about 1 billion light years in radius. Whoa. Or roughly 2 billion light years across.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So, so keep in mind how wild that is. Like if you’re like, why [00:05:00 ] would an alien, like, okay, we might be in a remote region of space, but like surely it’s worth a detour.

None of, there’s a billion light years in between you and where the rest of the expansion pathway is. Well, and so

Simone Collins: much else, everywhere else.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And keep in mind how many resources you might need to consume. You might need to consume far more resources than you could get from our local galaxy. That’s true.

Not worth the

Simone Collins: trip. Yeah. To our local

Malcolm Collins: galaxy. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Just like going to Hawaii.

Malcolm Collins: Just like going to Hawaii. Yes. Now what’s new In July, 2025, researchers led by Dr. Imber Blank from the University of Portsmouth,

Sorry, misspoke there he is actually with St. Andrew’s Mine University. , He just issued the three parts of his channels.

Malcolm Collins: presented this updated void model of the national astronomy meeting in Durham, uk. Their analysis draws on data collected over the past 20 years, focusing on Barian acoustic isolations baos.

Essentially the sound waves from the [00:06:00 ] big bang that propagated through the early universe’s plasma. Mm. These waves left imprints on the distortion of galaxies, acting like cosmic ruler for measuring distances and expansions. By combining BAO measurements with observations of the cosmic microwave background c and b radiation from the plank satellite, the team found a void.

Model fits the data better than the standard homogenous universe model? About a hundred million times more likely, actually. Oh, so that that’s what they found, that the void model. Fits a hundred million times better than the standard homogenous uni universe model.

Simone Collins: Okay?

Malcolm Collins: If it were not a void, it would distort these BOA patterns locally due to gravitational effects and indeed velocities making the universe appear less uniform in our vicinity.

Galaxy counts in the local region also support this showing lower density than expected. Hmm. [00:07:00 ] Implications on the Hubble tension, an