SUPERVOID

The largest known structure in the universe is a hole 1.8 billion light years across. Distinguishable by its emptiness, the "supervoid", as it's being called, isn't the only hole in the universe, but presently is the biggest area of nothingness discovered to date; considered to be abnormal in the typically evenly distributed universe. Although the supervoid isn't entirely devoid, there are an estimated 10,000 galaxies missing from this particular region. This supervoid is considered a very rare event. The supervoid isn't actually a vacuum, but it does contain around twenty percent less matter than the rest of the universe. The size of the void does not fit with predicted models; simply put it is too big to exist. The latest study suggests that the supervoid may be draining energy from light travelling through it, which is why the area around it is so cold. The void is only about 3 billion light years away from Earth, a relatively short distance in the cosmic scheme of things. The discovery of the supervoid stands to tell us something significant about physics- perhaps it is proof of the existence of dark energy, or maybe it reveals an even more astonishing truth about how gravity operates. In coming years we should learn more about the supervoid and thus the nature of the universe we live in.