Why a giant ‘cold spot’ in the cosmic microwave background has long baffled astronomers

The remaining light from the early universe has a major flaw, and we don't know how to fix it. It's the cold spot. It's just way too big and way too cold. Astronomers aren't sure what it is, but largely agree it's worth investigating.

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) was created when our universe was only 380,000 years old. At the time, our cosmos was about a million times smaller than it is today and had a temperature of more than 10,000 Kelvin (17,500 degrees Fahrenheit or 9,700 degrees Celsius), meaning all the gas was plasma. If the universe expanded, ...