The Cosmic Web
Everything in our universe is connected by a network of filaments that has been dubbed, “the cosmic web”. These threads that stretched between our galaxies were once invisible to us. Using the radiation from a distant quasar as a sort of flashlight, a international team of scientists illuminated this interconnecting web.
“Galaxies, galaxy groups and clusters, superclusters, and galactic walls are arranged in twisting, threadlike structures called the cosmic web. The web forms as the gravitational attraction of the universe’s matter draws larger and larger objects together. This leads to concentrations of galaxies with voids of space in between, as if the galaxies were resting on empty bubbles. Where those concentrations intersect, they form larger structures like clusters and walls. The cosmic web forms a sort of scaffolding that cradles everything that exists within the universe.”
Image Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and the Advanced Visualization Laboratory at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
https://science.nasa.gov/universe/galaxies/large-scale-structures/
https://www.space.com/24431-dark-matter-cosmic-web-first-image.html