In the early days of deep space navigation, the Abyss was one of the first major hazards pioneer travelers encountered.

This interarm gap stretches at least 45,000 light years along the fading edge of the Scutum-Centaurus arm, and in places is over 2,000 light years across. The Abyss is so devoid of jumpable stars that it was once extremely difficult to cross in places - especially the western reaches of the region. With today's upgraded FSD ranges, and with the introduction of Jumponium, crossing the Abyss is no longer the daunting task it once was.

Early History of The Abyss :

In mid-January 3301 a lone Asp Explorer (the DSS Beagle piloted by CMDR 'Erimus' Kamzel), was the first starship to reach the edge of the far galactic arm and attempt to cross the foreboding inter-arm gap leading to the outer edge of the Scutum-Centaurus arm. The region looked so devoid of stars that Kamzel named it 'The Abyss' as it felt like staring into an endless void of space due to the lack of visible star systems. The DSS Beagle had reached one of the most difficult to cross regions in the known galaxy.

During that period, route plotting technology was in its infancy. The unreliable route plotter had a maximum range of just 100 LYs back then, and often failed, and manual plotting - one system at a time - became the only way to make headway in places like the Abyss.

Beagle's maximum jump range was just 34.5 LYs, and its first attempt at crossing this inhospitable region began toward the western edges of the region and ended in failure as approximately 500 lights years into the void no more systems in the ships' range could be located. At this point Beagle was forced to turn back and carefully retrace its route back into the denser sectors of the Scutum-Centaurus arm.

A few days later Beagle had traveled approximately 6,000 light years 'eastward' along the outer edge of the Scutum arm, looking for a denser ridge of stars across the void through which to make a second attempt. Eventually that ridge was located, and within 24 hours DSS Beagle had made the first known crossing of the Abyss and had entered the fading edge of the far outer arm.

Crossing the Abyss and the news that followed its announcement in GalNet at the time, became the inspiration behind the whole Galactic Mapping project, which was launched a few weeks after that first historic journey.

Several years after that first crossing, the Pilots Federation (Frontier Developments) officially recognized the name 'Abyss' for this area of the galaxy and added it to the galactic map as part of the regional overlay.

Reference : Distant Suns Expedition - the first galactic crossing