Researchers have found an incredible hole measuring 1.8billion light-years across deep space. The ‘Supervoid’, according to scientists is the most massive structure known in the Universe. It is shaped like a small spherical ball and distinguished by its mysterious emptyness. The Cold Spot was discovered by astronomers who examined a map of cosmic microwave background (or CMB) radiation leftovers from the Big Bang. The Big Bang theory states that the infant universe contained warmer and colder spots. It was surprising to find a place this big and cold. It is found in the constellation Eridanus, in the southern galactic region. (Credit to ESA Planck Collaboration). Now Dr. Istvan Sapudi of the Institute for Astronomy at University of Hawaii at Manoa and his colleagues think they have a way of explaining the Cold Spot’s existence. Their findings were published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, an academic journal (citation below). The Cold Spot and Supervoid might have been created by the Big Bang. This is a sign that exotic physics exists, which the Big Bang theory as well as related physics cannot explain. It could be caused by an extremely rare structure. If it’s due to a structure that is foreground between us and the CMB, then it is indicative of a unique, large structure within the mass distribution. After analyzing the data of both the WISE satellite (Wide Field Survey Explorer), and the Hawaii PS1 telescope (Pan-STARRS1), Dr. Szapudi’s team discovered that this supervoid has a much lower density than the rest of the universe. Combining observations from WISE’s infrared wavelengths and PS1’s optical wavelength observations, the supervoid was discovered. This allowed for the calculation of distances to each star in the area of the sky. Similar studies were done in Hawaii in previous years. However, the scientists could not find any very distant structures in this area of the sky. It is harder to find larger structures. This is because we need to map larger areas of the sky in order to locate the nearest structures. This study was made possible by the large, 3-D sky maps that Dr. Andras Kvacs created using WISE and PS1. He works at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest. This supervoid lies approximately 3 billion light-years from Earth. According to the researchers, this is an extremely short distance in the “cosmic scheme of things.” Consider the void to be a hill. This hill must be climbed by the light as it enters the Void. The universe would be expanding slowly if it didn’t. Light would then descend this hill to regain its energy. The hill is now flatter than it was when the light first entered the void. This means that the light can’t pick up any energy lost in the process. “The light leaves the void at a lower wavelength and with less energy than it received when entering the void. This means that the light cannot pick up all the energy lost in entry to the void. According to the authors, “While the presence of the supervoid is not sufficient to explain the Cold Spot,” “It’s very unlikely that the Cold Spot or the supervoid at the same place are a coincidence,” “Stadium of a Supervoid” was discovered by Istvan Szapudi and Benjamin R. Granett. Monthly Notices of Royal Astronomical Society. 19 April was the first online publication 2015.. DOI: 10. 1093/mnras/stv488.
