Across The Great Void: Scientists discover a hole in the universe a billion light years in length.

Click the illustration to see a detail of the void

Astronomers at the University of Minnesota have found a gigantic void in the universe, a billion light-years across, and they have no idea why it is there [ed's s note: and needless to say, no idea Who put it there]. The void itself is utterly devoid of galaxies, stars and even dark matter. There is not even a puff of smoke! "Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one..." according to professor Lawrence Rudnick.

"What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the Universe," one of the discovering scientists said in a statement.

The astronomers said the region even appeared to lack dark matter, which cannot be seen directly but is usually detected by measuring gravitational forces. The void is in a region of the constellation Eridanussky, southwest of Orion.

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