Biggest Object in the Universe is a Cold Expanse of Emptiness

Discovery of the biggest structure in the universe may have just helped astronomers solve a decade-old mystery.

A team of astronomers announced the discovery of a supervoid, a massive structure that measures 1.8 billion light years across. It contains 10,000 galaxies fewer than other regions of universe and could be the elusive explanation for the Cold Spot discovered in 2004. The Cold Spot, a drastic temperature dip in the cosmic microwave background, has remained unexplained until now. The supervoid is centered on the cold spot

Additionally, the supervoid is being dubbed as the 'largest individual structure ever identified by humanity'. The study led by Istvan Szapudi of University of Hawaii, also noted that the supervoid does not account for all of the coldness of the Cold Spot but it is unlikely that the Cold Spot and the supervoid could exist at the same location without being related.

Researchers have also proposed to explain the Cold Spot.

"If the Cold Spot originated from the Big Bang itself, it could be a rare sign of exotic physics that the standard cosmology (basically, the Big Bang theory and related physics) does not explain. If, however, it is caused by a foreground structure between Earth and the CMB, it would be a sign that there is an extremely rare large-scale structure in the mass distribution of the universe," researchers wrote indicating that the large structure could be the supervoid.