April 21, 2015

A map of the cosmic microwave background with inserts showing the Cold Spot as seen by PS1 and Planck Surveyor (Image ESA/Planck collaboration. Graphics by Gergő Kránicz)

When astronomers started studying a map of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB or CMBR), the residue of the earliest stages of the universe, they found what was called the Cold Spot. That’s a huge area colder than expected which could be the largest single cosmic structure never identified. According to an international team of scientists consists of a cosmic supervoid which about 1.8 billion light years across.