All articles tagged with #cosmic web
Using JWST’s COSMOS-Web survey, astronomers mapped about 164,000 galaxies over a 255‑hour program to produce the largest, most detailed view of the cosmic web. The map shows how dense regions foster early galaxy growth and eventually quench star formation, revealing the large-scale structure of the universe up to redshift z~7 and refining our understanding of cosmic evolution since the universe’s infancy.
Astronomers using the VLT's MUSE instrument captured the clearest image yet of a cosmic filament—about 3 million light-years long—connecting two actively forming galaxies when the universe was ~2 billion years old. The direct detection of faint intergalactic gas, traveling roughly 12 billion years to Earth, aligns with simulations and offers new insight into how gas flows through the cosmic web to fuel galaxy growth and star formation.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, COSMOS-Web maps the universe’s cosmic web—the largest-scale structure—back to about 1 billion years after the Big Bang, delivering deeper, higher-resolution views than Hubble and enabling study of galaxy evolution in filaments and clusters across cosmic time.
Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope data from the COSMOS-Web survey—the telescope’s largest General Observer program—astronomers have created the most detailed map of the cosmic web to date, tracing the network of galaxies across 13.7 billion years of cosmic history back to when the universe was about 1 billion years old. The improvement comes from JWST’s deep infrared observations and precise galaxy distances, revealing filamentary structures that earlier maps smoothed over. The team is releasing the large-scale structure maps, a catalog of about 164,000 galaxies, and a video publicly for broader study of galaxy formation and cosmic evolution.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope’s COSMOS-Web survey, researchers produced the sharpest map yet of the universe’s cosmic web by charting about 164,000 galaxies, tracing large-scale structures back to when the universe was roughly 1 billion years old. The map reveals dense filaments and voids and will help study how galaxies evolve within this cosmic skeleton; the data are publicly released for wider use.
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) at Kitt Peak National Observatory has produced the largest 3D map of the universe, charting about 47 million galaxies and more than 20 million Milky Way stars over a five-year survey. The map uncovers the cosmic web of filaments and voids and enables researchers to track how dark energy has shaped the universe’s expansion over the last 11 billion years, with DESI continuing observations through 2028 to expand the dataset and first full results anticipated in 2027.
Researchers are building MOTHRA in Chile using 1,140 Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS lenses across 30 mounts to form a 4.7-meter-equivalent aperture. The project, expanding on the Dragonfly concept, pairs each lens with Apx26/60 cameras (Sony IMX571/IMX455 sensors) to image diffuse ionized gas that traces the cosmic web and dark matter. Construction is underway at El Sauce Observatory with completion targeted by year’s end, funded by Alex Gerko of XTX Markets. The goal is to directly image the unseen mass connecting galaxies, an ambitious step beyond traditional starlight observations.
Construction has begun on MOTHRA, the world’s largest all-lens telescope, which uses 1,140 Canon telephoto lenses as a distributed aperture to detect faint hydrogen gas linking galaxies and map the cosmic web, revealing the distribution of dark matter. Built at the El Sauce Observatory in Chile, it aims to begin scientific observations by the end of 2026, funded by Alex Gerko and Convergent Research as part of the Dragonfly FRO initiative.
Space researchers used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) to produce the largest 3D map of Lyman-alpha light from hydrogen dating to 9–11 billion years ago, exposing a vast “sea of light” between galaxies and outlining the cosmic web. By applying Line Intensity Mapping to thousands of spectra, the team mapped faint hydrogen gas beyond bright galaxies, shedding light on how gas accreted, galaxies formed, and the large-scale structure of the early universe.
A new Nature Astronomy study using constrained, Lambda-CDM–based simulations finds the Local Group’s unseen mass is arranged not in a spherical halo but in a flattened dark matter plane tens of millions of light-years across. This geometry better reproduces the observed motions of nearby galaxies and the local Hubble flow, reducing discrepancies seen in spherical models while remaining consistent with overall cosmology. The result highlights how the dark matter around us likely forms sheets and filaments in the cosmic web, though more data is needed to pin down the plane’s thickness and orientation.
Astronomers using the FAST radio telescope traced a nearly four-light-year-long, linear filament of galaxies in the Ursa Major Supergroup, providing direct observational evidence of a delicate cosmic web strand dominated by dark matter that guides gas flows and galaxy formation across the universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope has produced the sharpest-ever map of dark matter, revealing the universe's invisible scaffolding and how gravity links dark matter to the distribution of galaxies and the cosmic web. The Webb map covers a Sextans region about 2.5 full moons across, highlights about 800,000 galaxies (roughly 10x more than ground-based surveys and twice Hubble’s count), and shows dark and regular matter co-located in clusters and filaments. This strengthens the case that dark matter shaped the formation of galaxies—and plans exist to expand the map with the Roman Space Telescope.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has produced the sharpest-ever map of dark matter by analyzing how its gravity bends light from nearly 800,000 galaxies in the COSMOS region, showing that dark matter’s invisible scaffolding closely aligns with regular matter and has guided galaxy and star formation—and by extension the conditions for planets like Earth—with Webb revealing finer dark-matter clumps than previous maps and setting the stage for expanded surveys with the Roman Space Telescope.
Most of the universe's normal matter isn't in stars or galaxies but is distributed in the cosmic web between galaxies, with recent studies using fast radio bursts confirming that about 76% of normal matter resides in intergalactic space, supporting the Big Bang theory. Dark matter, which makes up most of the universe's mass, remains largely mysterious, but scientists are actively studying it through various methods including underground detectors and telescopes.
Astronomers have discovered one of the largest rotating structures in the universe, a cosmic filament about 140 million light years away, composed of a thin chain of hydrogen-rich galaxies that appear to rotate collectively, providing new insights into galaxy formation and the dynamics of the cosmic web.