Shadowing Practice: This Is the Scariest Place in The Universe - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The vast majority of the cosmos is voids.
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Gigantic, unfathomably large spaces of empty nothingness.
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Bubbles of eternal night, stretching hundreds of millions of light-years, almost entirely devoid of galaxies, stars, or light.
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The loneliest places in existence.
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Voids are not just the absence of stuff but weird worlds of darkness that are growing, drifting, colliding and merging with each other – Inside them space itself is stretched violently and it's almost impossible to enter them.
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Simply put: voids are weird and scary.
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But they sculpt the entire universe and may ultimately decide its fate.
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Today we know of over 8,000 voids and supervoids, and we keep discovering more.
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No matter how large a cluster or supercluster of galaxies gets, there always seems to be an even larger void nearby.
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Let’s jump off the cosmic cliff and drop into the heart of cosmic nothingness.
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The Loneliest Place in the Universe You are zooming away from Earth, at thousands of times the speed of light, leaving our solar system and our solar neighborhood behind.
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Now we see the entire Milky Way with its 200 billion stars and dozens of dwarf galaxies zipping around it.
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2.5 million light-years away on a collision course is giant Andromeda and its own swarm of satellite galaxies.
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We are now moving a million times faster than the speed of light, seeing the local group of over 50 galaxies woven together by gravity, rivers of gas, and invisible scaffolds of dark matter.
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This is our pocket of the universe, 10 million light years across, no human will ever leave it.
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Except for you apparently.
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As we zoom away even faster we see the Virgo Supercluster, a colossal wall of more than 2,000 galaxies spread over roughly 100 million light-years.
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Careful now, you are right on the edge of the cosmic cliff where the true, deep darkness begins: the Local Void – a gigantic, empty bubble 200 million light-years across.
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If it was a bright thing and not absolute darkness, it would fill 40% of the night sky we see from earth.
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All around us are dozens of other superclusters and gigantic voids filled with suffocating emptiness.
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You are now traveling towards the greatest and emptiest nothing in existence – right into the center of the Boötes Supervoid.
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A cosmic desert around 300 million light-years wide.
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So gigantic it should contain thousands of galaxies.
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But instead, what do you see?
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You are surrounded by perfect darkness, the most absolute blackness the human mind can conceive.
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There is no up or down.
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No motion. Nothing to orient yourself.
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There is not a single sign that the outside universe even exists.
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It’s an inescapable prison.
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And this isn’t some exotic corner of the cosmos.
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This is how the vast majority of the universe feels to human eyes.
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Just silent blackness without any movement.
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Everywhere.
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Forever. Although there is something mysterious hiding in the dark – faint tendrils of dark matter, penetrating into the void like cosmic lichen.
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A miniature echo of the much larger forest of dark matter filaments that forms the scaffold of galaxies and galaxy clusters outside the void.
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And at their tips we find faint blueish specs in the ocean of darkness: Void galaxies, lonely fireflies unable to light up the night.
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The rarest galaxies we know, very isolated, very lonely.
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A Universe of Bubbles Before we could look deep into space, astronomers thought we lived in a uniform cosmos with galaxies spread out evenly.
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But instead, we found that galaxies, cosmic gas and dark matter were arranged into a vast cosmic web.
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A recurring pattern of sheets and filaments, organized around enormous empty gaps, meeting at dense knots with galaxy clusters and super clusters.
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But this structure is not static, it just seems to be because the distances between galaxies are so incredibly vast.
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In reality galaxies shoot through space at speeds of millions of kilometers per hour.
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They are on collision courses, orbiting each other, moving towards the center of larger galaxy clusters millions of light years away.
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But they always seem to stick to the rims of voids like reflections of light on soap bubbles – which is kind of weird.
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If they are this dynamic, shouldn’t a galaxy shoot into a void occasionally?
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Well voids are actually extremely hard to enter for galaxies from the outside – at least naturally – because gravity becomes weird at their edges and even weirder deeper inside them.
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If you didn't know better, you might think voids spit out anything trying to get inside, pushing galaxies to the edge.
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The way gravity works is that everything with mass in the universe attracts every other thing with mass.
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And since there is almost no mass inside, the cosmic web of galaxy super clusters on their edges are pulling things out of voids.
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The emptier a void is, the harder gravity is pulling on what remains.
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It's really like a tug of war where one side isn’t even trying.
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Over time voids are really only getting even emptier and the walls and knots around them denser and brighter.
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Would it be hard to fly into a cosmic void with a spaceship? Well not technically, the hardest part is escaping the gravity of your home galaxy.
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It also doesn’t make much sense because… what exactly do you want to visit inside a void? It makes sense to fly into a void if you want to hide.
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Like really, really hide.
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But what cosmic horror would be scary enough for a civilization to try to escape into a cosmic void?
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Galaxies in the crowded cluster regions like our milky way are very active, since its neighbours’ gravity tugs and pulls at it, they collide and merge.
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Void galaxies are so isolated that they are aging in slow motion.
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They tend to be smaller, bluer and full of gas, birthing new stars slower and calmer.
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So void galaxies could be the last places that will stay habitable in our dying universe.
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The last star in the universe will likely be born here.
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So maybe in a 100 trillion years or so a desperate alien race will embark on an impossible journey to stretch their existence just a bit longer inside a void galaxy.
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There is one more thing that makes voids unique places: Dark Energy.
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The mysterious force that most scientists think is accelerating the expansion of the universe and will ultimately cause its demise.
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We can’t see dark energy do anything inside our galaxy or inside clusters because there is too much stuff pulling things together via gravity – but we can see its effects inside voids.
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Here dark energy blows up the bubbles of nothing.
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This is where the acceleration of cosmic expansion becomes visible.
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As voids are getting larger and larger, they are breaking the structure of the universe, the beautiful galaxy filaments are slowly being ripped apart.
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As the emptiness encroaches, walls of thousands of galaxies are thinned out and pulled towards the edges – attracted by much denser regions at the margins, giving space to the emptiness of two void bubbles becoming one.
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In the far, far future supervoids will take over the observable universe.
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Crushing clusters, and expanding further and further, until the entire observable universe is nothing more than a gigantic void of nothingness.
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The loneliest place in existence.
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Let’s head back to Earth.
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When we land, please exit through the gift shop and pick up a few souvenirs.
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We created this latest Space Souvenir Drop for all of you who have been travelling with us for so many years now. While you’re there, take a look around, you might discover a unique product dedicated to your favorite science topic.
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Everything is created with lots of care by our team of scientists and designers to inspire you and spark your curiosity.
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Thank you for traveling with kurzgesagt space tours.
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will practice your English speaking skills by exploring the fascinating yet eerie concept of cosmic voids in the universe. You will enhance your understanding of the vocabulary related to space and darkness, while also learning how to articulate complex scientific ideas. Engaging with this content will provide an opportunity to refine your speaking abilities, particularly through the use of the shadowing technique. By mimicking the speaker's tone and pace, you’ll improve English pronunciation and gain confidence in discussing intricate topics.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Voids: Vast, empty areas in space almost devoid of galaxies or light.
- Cosmos: The universe seen as a well-ordered whole.
- Supervoid: Larger voids that contain even fewer galaxies.
- Dark matter: A type of matter that doesn’t emit light or energy, making it invisible.
- Cosmic web: The large-scale structure of the universe, made up of matter and voids.
- Galaxies: Massive systems made up of stars, gas, and dust, bound together by gravity.
- Gravity: The force that attracts a body toward the center of the earth or any other celestial body.
- Light-years: A unit of distance that represents how far light travels in one year.
Practice Tips
When watching and listening to the video, apply the shadowing technique to enhance your English speaking skills. Here are some tips to effectively practice:
- Start Slow: Initially, play the video at a slower speed to ensure you can catch every word and phrase. This will help you build your confidence for when you practice shadow speech.
- Pause and Repeat: Use the pause button frequently. After a sentence or a key phrase, pause the video and try to repeat what you heard. This practice is essential in improving English pronunciation.
- Focus on Tone: Pay attention to the tone and emotion conveyed in the narrator's voice. This will help you add the necessary intonation to your shadow speak.
- Record Yourself: After shadowing, record your voice. Listening back will highlight areas for improvement in your pronunciation and fluency.
- Repeat Regularly: Regular practice with a shadowing app can reinforce your learning. Try to integrate new vocabulary related to the topic into daily conversations.
By incorporating these strategies into your learning process, you'll enhance your ability to articulate complex subjects while mastering the rhythm and sound of English speech.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.