A hole in the universe

Astronomers have found an enormous hole in the Universe, nearly a billion light-years across, empty of both normal matter such as stars, galaxies and gas, as well as the mysterious, unseen "dark matter".

They have known for years that, on large scales, the Universe has voids largely empty of matter. However, most of these voids are much smaller than the one found by Rudnick and his colleagues. In addition, the number of discovered voids decreases as the size increases.

What makes this vast area of the universe a hole? The area shows almost no signs of cosmic matter, meaning no stars, planets, solar systems or clouds of cosmic dust. Researchers couldn't even find dark matter, which is invisible but measurable by its gravitational pull. There were also no signs of black holes that might have gobbled up the matter once present in the region.

The hole was initially detected by a NASA program studying the spread of radiation emitted from the Big Bang, which scientists believe spawned our universe. It was then further examined using information gleaned from the Very Large Array (VLA) telescope, used in the NRAO VLA Sky Survey Project to study large sections of the visible sky.

The universe is populated with visible stars, gas and dust, but most of the matter in the universe is invisible. Scientists know something is there, because they can measure the gravitational effects of the so-called dark matter. Voids exist, but they are typically relatively small.

Also most physicists believe that the Big Bang created billions of Black Holes. These would have formed from quantum fluctuations grown large by expansion of the Universe. Size of a Black Hole is limited by a horizon distance that light can travel. Because the speed of light was much faster, primordial Black Holes could have formed in any size. The largest were true monsters devouring everything in sight. They are theorized to have cleared immense voids in Space, exactly as observed. The 71.62% of the Universe ascribed to "dark energy" could easily be hidden in those voids.

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