![]() The latest measurements indicate that the vacuum behaves like the cosmological constant that Albert Einstein added to his equations a century ago when he considered the hypothetical possibility of a static universe, in which the attractive gravity of matter is balanced by the repulsion from the vacuum. A dominant fraction of the cosmic mass budget-roughly two thirds-is currently associated with the “ dark energy” that pervades the vacuum, exerting a repulsive gravitational push on matter and accelerates the expansion of the universe. Indeed, the early atomists in ancient Greece thought that the vacuum is literally nothing. Still, one might naively imagine that the space in between these particles is empty. Also, one electron and half a billion photons and neutrinos, all left over from the big bang. Even outside galaxies, an astronaut could find at least one proton, on average, in every cubic meter. The reality is that space in neither empty nor dark. Is there a modern scientific interpretation to Rilke’s poem? Without ever having ventured into space (obviously), Rilke wrote a century ago: “Night, shuddering in my regard, but in yourself so steady inexhaustible creation, enduring beyond the fate of earth.” So did the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, in a poem e-mailed to me by writer Dror Burstein. Astronauts describe the emptiness and darkness of space far from Earth as a startling experience. ![]()
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