A parsec (parallax of one arcsecond) is a unit of length, equal to just under 31 trillion kilometres (about 19 trillion miles), or about 3.26 light-years.
A Void is a particularly galaxy-poor volume of space between filaments, making up the large-scale structure of the universe. Some voids are known as supervoids.
The Giant Void is a supervoid in the Northern Galacttic Hemisphere. Discovered in 1988 its dimensions are thought to between 300 and 400 Mpc (mega-parsecs). 300 to 400 Mpc is around 1 billion light years.
A gigaparsec (Gpc) is 1 billion parsecs or about 3.262 billion light years. This is roughly one fourteenth of the distance to the horizon of the observable universe.
The fastest speed recorded for any existing spacecraft is 241,000km/hour.
Crossing the Giant Void in a craft travelling at a constant speed of 241,000km/hour would take roughly 5 billion years.
Life on earth is thought to have begun around 3.8 billion years ago. Photosynthesis is thought to have begun around 2 billion years ago. 900 million years ago the first multi-cellular life began. 540 million years ago the first animals to have a backbone emerged. 400 million years ago, the oldest known insects. 385 million years ago, the oldest fossilised tree. 250 million years ago the Permian period ends with the greatest mass extinction in Earth's history, wiping out great swathes of species, including the last of the trilobites. 200 million years ago, as the Triassic period comes to an end, another mass extinction strikes, paving the way for the dinosaurs to take over from their Sauropsid cousins. 130 million years ago the first flowering plants emerge, following a period of rapid evolution. 75 million years ago, the ancestors of modern primates split from the ancestors of modern rodents and lagomorphs (rabbits, hares and pikas). The rodents go on to be astonishingly successful, eventually making up around 40 per cent of modern mammal species. 65 million years ago the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) extinction wipes out a swathe of species, including all the giant reptiles: the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. The ammonites are also wiped out. The extinction clears the way for the mammals, which go on to dominate the planet. 55 million years ago the Palaeocene/Eocene extinction takes place. A sudden rise in greenhouse gases sends temperatures soaring and transforms the planet, wiping out many species in the depths of the sea – though sparing species in shallow seas and on land. 50 million years ago Artiodactyls, which look like a cross between a wolf and a tapir, begin evolving into whales. 47 million years ago early whales called Protocetids live in shallow seas, returning to land to give birth. 40 million years ago New World monkeys become the first simians (higher primates) to diverge from the rest of the group, colonising South America. 25 million years ago Apes split from the Old World monkeys. 14 million years ago Orang-utans branch off from the other great apes, spreading across southern Asia while their cousins remain in Africa. 7 million years ago Gorillas branch off from the other great apes. 6 million years ago Humans diverge from their closest relatives; the chimpanzees and bonobos. Shortly afterwards, hominins begin walking on two legs.
Average Human life expectancy was 68.9 years in 2008
Alienation is often regarded as being an intrinsic part of the human condition, and this sense of division is at the root of much religious and philosophical questioning and questing. People do not feel at home in the world. Life seems intrinsically meaningless.
