It has recently come to light that scientists for the first time saw the incandescent filaments of hydrogen gas known as the “cosmic web. Their findings have been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
As reported by AFP, researchers said that the biggest surprise for them was the simulations that showed that the light came from billions of previously invisible and unsuspected dwarf galaxies. NASA describes the cosmic web as the large-scale backbone of the cosmos that consists primarily of the mysterious substance known as dark matter. This dark matter cannot be seen but makes up the bulk of the universe’s material.
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The report notes that a total of eight months of observation with the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope and a year of data crunching revealed that these incandescent filaments existed only one to two billion years after the Big Bang.
In fact, the team trained the ESO’s Very Large Telescope which was equipped with a 3D spectrograph called MUSE at a single region of the sky for over 140 hours. These two instruments together are one of the most powerful observation systems across the globe.
Also, until now astronomers had only caught partial and indirect glimpses of the cosmic web via quasars, whose powerful radiation reveals gas clouds along the line of sight. However, these regions didnt represent the whole network of filaments where most galaxies were born.
These findings are fundamental,” commented Emanuele Daddi, a researcher at Atomic Energy Commission who did not take part in the study. “We have never seen a discharge of gases on this scale, which is essential for understanding how galaxies form.”
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Image Source: CNRS
