Examining a supermassive "cold spot" in space, researchers say they may have discovered the largest single structure in the known universe.

According to the Guardian, the "cold spot" is actually a profoundly empty "supervoid" approximately 1.8 billion light years across. Despite its size, it seems to have fewer galaxies than one might anticipate.

"If the Cold Spot originated from the Big Bang itself, it could be a rare sign of exotic physics that the standard cosmology (basically, the Big Bang theory and related physics) does not explain," reads a University of Hawaii - Manoa (UHM) press release. "If, however, it is caused by a foreground structure between us and the CMB, it would be a sign that there is an extremely rare large-scale structure in the mass distribution of the universe.

"This void was found by combining observations taken by PS1 (Pan-STARRS1 telescope) at optical wavelengths with observations taken by WISE (NASA's Wide Field Survey Explorer satellite) at infrared wavelengths to estimate the distance to and position of each galaxy in that part of the sky."

Istvan Szapudi, of UHM's Institute for Astronomy, led the study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Astronomers first discovered the mysterious cold spot in 2004, but at the time it could not be explained.

Edward Bloomer, an astronomer with the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in London, told CNN the new study, which he was not involved in, should be treated more as a suggestion than an explanation. He compared the "supervoid" to the Grand Canyon, stating it is magnificent to behold, but what is truly fascinating is how it formed.