"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, and the mysterious, unseen "dark matter." While earlier studies have shown holes, or voids, in the large-scale structure of the Universe, this new discovery dwarfs them all. [...]
WMAP Cold Spot: Illustration of the effect of intervening matter in the cosmos on the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
"What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the Universe" Williams said.
[...] "We already knew there was something different about this spot in the sky," Rudnick said. The region had been dubbed the "WMAP Cold Spot," because it stood out in a map of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotopy Probe (WMAP) satellite, launched by NASA in 2001. The CMB, faint radio waves that are the remnant radiation from the Big Bang, is the earliest "baby picture" available of the Universe. Irregularities in the CMB show structures that existed only a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang. [...]
<3 to Luna
WMAP Cold Spot: Illustration of the effect of intervening matter in the cosmos on the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
"What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the Universe" Williams said.
[...] "We already knew there was something different about this spot in the sky," Rudnick said. The region had been dubbed the "WMAP Cold Spot," because it stood out in a map of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotopy Probe (WMAP) satellite, launched by NASA in 2001. The CMB, faint radio waves that are the remnant radiation from the Big Bang, is the earliest "baby picture" available of the Universe. Irregularities in the CMB show structures that existed only a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang. [...]
<3 to Luna
