Researchers Have Discovered a Cosmic Network of ‘Highways’ Formed by Gas and Dark Matter Filaments

Matter isn’t evenly distributed in the universe. Galaxies like the Milky Way are large clusters of matter where stars are born and die, along with planets, asteroids, and other objects. But that’s only part of the story.

A glance at the discovery. A team of researchers captured a direct, high-resolution image of the so-called cosmic web, a network of gas filaments stretching across millions of light-years of intergalactic space. They used the Very Large Telescope (VLT), operated by the European Southern Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

A cosmic web. Matter in the universe isn’t only concentrated in galaxies. The matter spread throughout intergalactic space plays a fundamental role in shaping the cosmos. Physical interactions cause this matter to form massive filaments, creating a vast web that connects surrounding galaxies.

Gas accumulating in this network of “cosmic highways” feeds the stars of bright galaxies at the intersections of the filaments.

Huge and nearly invisible. According to the research team, dark matter plays a crucial role in shaping this network, along with the gas that fuels stars. Observing dark matter remains impossible, but researchers can capture the columns of gas accompanying it—the “stellar fuel.”

Hundreds of hours of observation. Even the most powerful telescopes require extensive observation time to overcome this challenge. Capturing this image took hundreds of hours with the VLT.

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The team relied on the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, an advanced spectrograph on the Chilean telescope. Their findings were published in Nature Astronomy.

The image shows the diffuse gas (yellow to purple) contained within the cosmic filament connecting two galaxies (yellow stars), extending across a vast distance of three million light-years.

Three million light-years. Using ultra-precise data from the telescope, the team created the sharpest image yet of one of the cosmic web’s filaments. The filament spans three million light-years, connecting two distant galaxies, each with its own supermassive black hole.

“By capturing the faint light emitted by this filament, which travelled for just under 12 billion years to reach Earth, we were able to precisely characterize its shape,” study co-author Davide Tornotti said.

The team also highlighted that the precision of the new data allowed them to “trace the boundary” between a galaxy’s gas and the matter associated with the cosmic web—all through direct measurements.

Validating the theory. The researchers used these direct observations to test theoretical cosmological models. The results aligned with predictions.

“When comparing to the novel high-definition image of the cosmic web, we find substantial agreement between current theory and observations,” Tornotti added.

However, the team emphasized that further study is needed. “One doesn’t count,” they noted, meaning a single image isn’t enough to draw general conclusions about these crucial but still mysterious structures that make up the cosmic web.

Images | Davide Tornotti (University of Milano-Bicocca, MPA)

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