This article exists in an "Observation State," meaning it exists solely within the narrative backdrop of its respective setting.
Named after a famous ancient Earth explorer, the Ultravoid is an unimaginably huge area of space with no galaxies for approximately 5 trillion light years from galaxies on the edge of it. It starts around 19 gigalightyears from Earth in any direction. Before the discovery of the Ultravoid, scientists thought the universe was only 13.82 billion years old, but this was before the advent of more powerful imaging technologies. In 2502, the Ultravoid was finally discovered, using the Hubble VII Super-Telescope. The discovery also disproved the existence of the Cosmic Microwave Background, as the Ultravoid extends beyond where it was thought the CMB originated. Scientists now think the CMB was actually messages from various alien cultures scattered around various galaxies.
As far as Earth scientists are concerned, no known life exists in the Ultravoid, although single stars may exist. These are most likely incredibly rare and far between however. Dark Galaxies may exist in the Ultravoid, but they may be invisible to even current technology.
Scientists are still probing the mysteries of the Ultravoid in the current year, 10000. They now use the Hubble XXVII orbiting megatelescope, capable of resolving the planet Cervan in the Drake Galaxy at 1 meter per pixel. No stars have been found in the Ultravoid so far, but a mysterious gravimetric signature picked up by Hubble XXVIIs extremely sensitive instruments was found, matching no known pattern. If there IS life in the Ultravoid, it is either completely invisible, or extremely large and dilute.
By 150000, technological progress had advanced to the point that scientists could discern exactly what the Ultravoid is made of. As expected, the Ultravoid is not completely empty as once thought, although the matter density of the region remains at just a few atoms per kilometer. What IS there, however exhibits some extremely strange characteristics, foremost of which being that these extremely diffuse atoms are connected somehow, and it is so throughout the entire Ultravoid.
Further study, completed by 180000, still could not figure out what this diffuse matter was. Likely it will never be known, as current ships as of 200000 are nowhere near fast enough to study it directly, and communication methods are not powerful enough to send messages into the void with any managable timeframe.