Scientists from Chile, using MUSE, discover the first cosmic image of the highways that connect galaxies in the universe

The universe, we have observed, is built like a web – an enormous, interconnected network of filaments stretching across space. These filaments, mostly invisible – unlike the AI generated image above – guide the flow of matter and energy, shaping galaxies along their length. Scientists have long suspected their existence, but proving it has been another, ahem, matter entirely.

Now, thanks to the efforts of researchers using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) in Chile, we have the clearest image yet of one of these cosmic highways, following the recent publication of the research in Nature Astronomy.

The three-million-light-year filament

The discovery is not just about the image itself – it’s about what it tells us. This filament is a staggering three million light-years long, connecting two young galaxies that formed when the universe was just two billion years old. Even more intriguing, both galaxies contain actively feeding supermassive black holes.

If you’ve never seen a cosmic filament before, don’t worry – neither had anyone else. The problem is that these structures are mostly dark matter, which doesn’t interact with light. The gas flowing along them does, but only faintly. Hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, glows just enough to be detected, but even then, capturing an image requires hundreds of hours of telescope time.

This is where MUSE, an instrument on the appropriately named Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, comes in. By collecting light that has traveled for 12 billion years, scientists were able to map the filament’s precise shape. For the first time, researchers could measure the boundary between intergalactic gas and the cosmic web itself.

The level of detail is unprecedented. It’s the first direct confirmation that gas flows along these filaments, feeding galaxies in the process. And it might just help solve one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy: how galaxies grow and evolve.

Read more on this at the excellent Space.com.

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