This is a scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm Clara Moskowitz.

Got a minute?

The universe is a dark cold place,

but it has a strange region that's even colder than usual.

Seen from Earth, it's an area where the ambient cosmic microwave background light, the

leftover thermal energy of the Big Bang, is much chillier than expected.

Now astronomers say they found in the same part of space a so-called super void, a large area

mostly empty of galaxies, and they think the overlap is no coincidence.

The super void extends 1.8 billion light years across, making it perhaps the largest

structure known in the Cosmos,

according to a report in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Supervoids' relative lack of stuff could have drained energy from light that passed through it, explaining why the

microwave background is colder there.

Here's how it works.

General relativity tells us that gravity bends space time, causing light to travel a curved path near massive objects

as if falling into a bowl. The super void then with its lack of mass is akin to a hill.

When light travels up that hill it loses energy.

Normally it would regain the energy upon exiting the void,

that is when it comes down the other side of the hill.

But because the expansion of spirit... is when it comes down the other side of the hill.

But because the expansion of spaces accelerating,

...