Huge “hole” in universe, cosmic evolution theories need some work

The hole is a billion light years across. No galaxies, no stars, no matter. It was discovered by the studying data from cosmic background radiation. Technically the hole is called a “void”.

Small voids have been seen before, but not gigantic holes like this. With considerable honesty, astronomers from the University of Minnesota admit in this article from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory that this void has nothing to do with their simulations of the evolution of the universe. The first clue came when an area which is considered a “cold spot” in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation was found. This background radiation is measured in millionths of a degree. Astronomers have been studying the ancient radiation of the universe for some time, trying to piece together the structure. The current version of the structure of the universe is a pretty weird looking thing, even without gigantic holes in it. The object in the cube in this picture is the universe as it’s been surveyed so far. The Cosmic Microwave Background picture above is one of the graphics used to map cosmic background radiation. Add a huge cold spot to either, and you see the problem. Giant voids haven’t been part of the thinking until now. Current theory says that when radiation passes through a cold spot, it loses temperature. The exact physics of this discovery aren’t clear. There’s no information at all on how the hole itself is developing, whether it’s expanding, or how it’s affecting the warmer areas around it. Even the distance from Earth is a bit vague, estimated to be anything from 6-10 billion light years away. Astronomy is going through a very steep learning curve as the new science and new instruments open up fields of study which weren’t much more than theoretical possibilities or curiosities even ten years ago. One possibility, in my opinion, is that big voids are actual structural components of the universe. Heat transfer and radiation have a lot to do with how this universe operates. Big cold areas could be driving the macrocosmic weather like low pressure zones on a meteorological chart. Given the size of this thing, the effects could be subtler and more wide ranging than purely local effects on space in its area. It may be that currents are created by the temperature variants, and those affect the surrounding regions, to whatever distance. The CMB is composed of a lot off odd structures and variants. How those form is of great importance to getting a working picture of the evolution of the universe. They’re obviously the machinery, but how it works, as a whole, is going to take a bit of thinking to really understand it.