It has been called a bruise on the sky - a curious cold spot in the afterglow of the big bang that has sparked wild cosmic theories attributing it to a run-in with another universe or a wrinkle in space-time. Now it seems the answer may be a little more mundane: the biggest known hole in the universe. The cold spot appears in maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the earliest light emitted in the universe. Temperature variations in the light show up as a mottled pattern in the maps, which can be explained if quantum fluctuations at the universe's birth were stretched out by a brief but spectacular cosmic growth spurt known as inflation.
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