The Energon Pub

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A giant hole in the Universe is devoid of galaxies, stars and even lacks dark matter, astronomers said on Thursday.

The team at the University of Minnesota said the void is nearly a billion light-years across and they have no idea why it is there.

"Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size," said astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick.

Writing in the Astrophysical Journal, Rudnick and colleagues Shea Brown and Liliya Williams said they were examining a cold spot using the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite, and found the giant hole.

"We already knew there was something different about this spot in the sky," Rudnick said. The region stood out as being colder in a survey of the Cosmic Microwave Background -- the faint radio buzz left over from the Big Bang that gave birth to the Universe.

"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 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 sky in the constellation Eridanus, southwest of Orion.

The researchers have posted images on the Internet at http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2007/coldspot/graphics.shtml.

Halo wrote:Oh, THAT hole.

You see, the thing is, I own that section of the Universe, and I decided that I didn't want anyone peeping in on it, because that is just so rude. So I had built this GIANT device that creates the illsion of nothingness, so people can't be all snoopin' in my space.

DesalationReborn wrote:

Halo wrote:Oh, THAT hole.

You see, the thing is, I own that section of the Universe, and I decided that I didn't want anyone peeping in on it, because that is just so rude. So I had built this GIANT device that creates the illsion of nothingness, so people can't be all snoopin' in my space.

Wrong! It is just a gaping, empty hole of no substance...

it's Burn's mouth!

Halo wrote:Oh, THAT hole.

Skowl wrote:Maybe that's where the Big Bang originated? Think about, if all the matter in the universe is getting further and further away from the point of the Big Bang, that means that the original point should be, well, pretty large and pretty empty by now...

Counterpunch wrote:Behold, I will now tell a joke!

You know what Halo said recently?

Halo wrote:Oh, THAT hole.

...and we laughed and laughed.

TheMuffin wrote:Eridanus system.... That's where John, Spartan-117 AKA Master Chief was born....It was also bombarded by the covenant and glassed till there was nothing left.....Uhh....That's a mighty odd coincidence.

Obvious Prime wrote:Uhhhh...... UNICRON DID IT!

Senor Hugo wrote:

TheMuffin wrote:Eridanus system.... That's where John, Spartan-117 AKA Master Chief was born....It was also bombarded by the covenant and glassed till there was nothing left.....Uhh....That's a mighty odd coincidence.

Yeah, that is a very odd coincidence.

Now, lets hope we don't start seeing an influx of green jellyfish squid bubble things.

Halo wrote:

Senor Hugo wrote:

TheMuffin wrote:Eridanus system.... That's where John, Spartan-117 AKA Master Chief was born....It was also bombarded by the covenant and glassed till there was nothing left.....Uhh....That's a mighty odd coincidence.

Yeah, that is a very odd coincidence.

Now, lets hope we don't start seeing an influx of green jellyfish squid bubble things.

*ahem*

Glassing a planet means firing something so hot (in the Covenants case, plasma) upon a planets surface that the surface basically melts and becomes glass. The nothing left part, it means that there is nothing left on the planet, and that it's not fit for habitation. The planets there, it's just a big ball of glass now.