The Abyss
The Abyss is a northern region of the galaxy, located near the fading point & between the Scutum-Centaurus & the Sagittarius-Carina arms. It stretches roughly 45,000 lightyears across the edge of the Scutum-Centaurus arm, and is over 2,000 lightyears wide in some places. It's considered as one of the most difficult areas to navigate in through the entire galaxy. Even crossing it in a fully optimized, exploration-geared & engineered Anaconda proves to be a tough challenge.
It's considered to be the major hazard for all explorers willing to reach Beagle Point, due to its extremely low star density. It is fairly common to see stars being 40 to 50 lightyears away from one another. Extreme precautions are to be taken when crossing the Abyss, such as manually plotting your route, carefully choosing your waypoints & paying constant attention to your fuel. Running low on fuel, jumping in a system & not being able to jump out can happen very fast, faster than you may think.
Notes
- The area is called "The Abyss" due to its extremely low star density, which feels like staring at a bottomless abyss, devoid of anything but pure blackness.
- CMDR Kamzel, aboard his Asp Explorer dubbed the "DSS Beagle" was the first successful player to cross the Abyss & reach Beagle Point (Originally called Ceeckia ZQ-L c24-0) in January 2015. His first attempt at crossing the Abyss resulted in him having to backtrack 8,000 lightyears along the outer edge of the Scutum arm in the hope of finding a passage through a dense ridge of stars. That ridge was eventually found, and so CMDR Kamzel realized the first successful crossing of The Abyss.