Thanks to the constant development of technology, astronomers are finding more and more diverse objects in the universe. The title of "the largest object in the universe" passes from one structure to another almost every year. Here are examples of the largest objects that have been discovered so far.

1. Supervoid

In 2004, astronomers discovered the largest void (the so-called void) in known universe. It is located at a distance of 3 billion light years from Earth in the southern part of the constellation Eridani. Despite the name "void", the 1.8 billion light-year void is not actually a completely empty region in space. Its difference from other parts of the Universe lies in the fact that the density of matter in it is 30 percent less (in other words, in the void less stars and accumulations).

Also, the Eridani Supervoid is notable for the fact that in this region of the Universe the temperature of microwave radiation is 70 microkelvins less than in the surrounding space (where it is approximately 2.7 kelvins).

2. Space blob

In 2006, a team of astronomers from the University of Toulouse found a mysterious green blob in space that became the largest structure in the universe at the time. This blob, dubbed the "Lyman-Alpha Blob", is a gigantic mass of gas, dust and galaxies that has "spread out" 200 million light-years across (that's 7 times the size of our galaxy, the Milky Way). Its light takes 11.5 billion years to reach Earth. Given that the age of the universe is most often estimated at 13.7 billion years, the giant green blob is considered one of the most ancient structures in the universe.

3. Shapley supercluster

Scientists have long known that our galaxy is moving towards the constellation Centaurus at a speed of 2.2 million kilometers per hour, but the reason for the movement remained a mystery. About 30 years ago, a theory appeared that the Milky Way attracts the "Great Attractor" - an object whose gravity is strong enough to attract our galaxy at a great distance. As a result, it was discovered that our Milky Way and the entire Local Group of galaxies are attracted to the so-called Shapley Supercluster, consisting of more than 8,000 galaxies with a total mass of 10,000 times the Milky Way.

4. Great Wall CfA2

Like many of the structures on this list, the CfA2 Great Wall was recognized as the largest known object in the universe when discovered. The object is about 200 million light-years from Earth, and its approximate dimensions are 500 million light-years long, 300 million wide and 15 million light-years thick. It is impossible to determine the exact dimensions, since clouds of dust and gas from the Milky Way block part of the Great Wall from us.

5. Laniakea

Galaxies are usually grouped into clusters. Those regions where clusters are located more densely packed and connected to each other by gravitational forces are called superclusters. It was once thought that Milky Way along with the Local Group of galaxies, it is part of the Virgo supercluster (110 million light-years across), but new research has shown that our region is just an arm of a much larger supercluster called Laniakea, which measures 520 million light-years.

6. The Great Wall of Sloan

The Great Wall of Sloan was first discovered in 2003. A giant group of galaxies spanning 1.4 billion light-years held the title of the largest structure in the universe until 2013. It is located approximately 1.2 billion light-years from Earth.

7. Huge-LQG

Quasars are the nuclei of active galaxies, in the center of which (as modern scientists assume) there is a supermassive black hole, which throws out part of the captured matter in the form of a bright jet of matter, which leads to super-powerful radiation. Currently, the third largest structure in the Universe is Huge-LQG - a cluster of 73 quasars (and, accordingly, galaxies), 8.73 billion light-years away from Earth. Huge-LQG measures 4 billion light years.

8. Giant ring of gamma-ray bursts

Hungarian astronomers have discovered at a distance of 7 billion light years from Earth one of the largest structures in the universe - a giant ring formed by flashes of gamma rays. Gamma-ray bursts are the brightest objects in the universe, releasing as much energy in just a few seconds as the Sun releases in 10 billion years. The diameter of the discovered ring is 5 billion light years.

9. Great Wall Hercules - North Crown

At present, the largest structure in the universe is a superstructure of galaxies called the "Great Wall of Hercules-Northern Corona". Its dimensions are 10 billion, or 10 percent of the diameter of the observable universe. The structure was discovered thanks to observations of gamma-ray bursts in the region of the constellations Hercules and the Northern Corona, in a region 10 billion light-years away from Earth.

10. Cosmic web

Scientists believe that the distribution of matter in the universe is not random. It has been suggested that galaxies are organized into a huge universal structure in the form of filamentous filaments or clusters of "barriers" between huge voids. Geometrically, the structure of the universe most closely resembles a bubbly mass or honeycomb. Inside the honeycombs, which are approximately 100 million light-years across, there are practically no stars or any matter. Such a structure was called the "Space Web".

It may seem incredible, but space discoveries directly affect everyday life of people. Confirmation of this.

The Boomerang Nebula is located in the constellation Centaurus at a distance of 5000 light years from Earth. The temperature of the nebula is −272°C, making it the coldest known place in the universe.

The flow of gas coming from the central star of the Boomerang Nebula is moving at a speed of 164 km/s and is constantly expanding. Because of this rapid expansion in the nebula, such low temperature. The Boomerang Nebula is colder than even the CMB from the Big Bang.

Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrot named the object the Boomerang Nebula in 1980 after observing it from the Anglo-Australian Telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory. The sensitivity of the device made it possible to fix only a slight asymmetry in the lobes of the nebula, which gave rise to the assumption of a curved, like a boomerang, shape.

The Boomerang Nebula was photographed in detail by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1998, after which it became clear that the nebula has the shape of a bow tie, but this name was already taken.

R136a1 lies 165,000 light-years from Earth in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This blue hypergiant is the most massive star known to science. The star is also one of the brightest, emitting light up to 10 million times more than the Sun.

The mass of the star is 265 solar masses, and the mass at formation is more than 320. R136a1 was discovered by a team of astronomers from the University of Sheffield led by Paul Crowther on June 21, 2010.

The question of the origin of such supermassive stars: whether they were formed with such a mass initially, or whether they were formed from several smaller stars.

In the image from left to right: a red dwarf, the Sun, a blue giant, and R136a1:

This could be a galactic wall billions of light-years from Earth.

A supercluster of 830 galaxies located at a distance of 4.5-6.4 billion light-years from solar system, was discovered by an international group of scientists, which included representatives from the UK, Spain, the USA and Estonia. Astrophysicists suggest that the galactic wall they discovered is the largest object in the universe known to date.

The Milky Way is part of a supercluster of galaxies called Laniakea, whose center of gravity is located in a gravitational anomaly called the Great Attractor. Until now, only a group of galaxies called the Great Wall of Sloan could compete with it in size. However, a new object discovered using the BOSS (Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey) database claims to be an absolute record. It is estimated that its mass is about 10 thousand times greater than that of the Milky Way, reports New Scientist.

As some researchers note, today the question of what exactly can be considered a “space object” and how to determine its boundaries, if we are talking about a collection of galaxies, remains largely debatable. The criterion could be considered the simultaneous movement of all galaxies included in the supercluster, in outer space, however, it is not possible to check this from such a huge distance at the current level of technology development.

It is also noted that the BOSS galactic wall, which claims to be the largest object in the universe, has potential competitors. Some researchers pay attention to clusters of quasars, looking as if the quasars in them represent a certain system. However, if a connection between them really exists, it is impossible to explain such a structure from the point of view of modern cosmological theories, so the BOSS galactic wall is a more “realistic” candidate, experts say.

The distant ancestors of the modern inhabitants of the planet Earth believed that it was the largest object in the universe, and the small Sun and Moon revolve around it in the sky day after day. The smallest formations in space seemed to them the stars, which were compared with tiny luminous dots attached to the firmament. Centuries have passed, and man's views on the structure of the universe have changed dramatically. So what will modern scientists now answer the question, what is the largest space object?

Age and structure of the universe

According to the latest data of science, our Universe has existed for about 14 billion years, it is during this period that its age is calculated. Having begun its existence at the point of cosmic singularity, where the density of matter was incredibly high, it, constantly expanding, reached its present state. To date, it is believed that the Universe is built from ordinary and familiar to us matter, of which all astronomical objects visible and perceived by instruments are composed, by only 4.9%.

Before, exploring space and movement celestial bodies, ancient astronomers were able to rely only on their own observations, using only simple measuring instruments. Modern scientists, in order to understand the structure and size of various formations in the Universe, have artificial satellites, observatories, lasers and radio telescopes, the most sophisticated sensors. At first glance, it seems that with the help of the achievements of science, answering the question of what is the largest space object is not at all difficult. However, it is not at all as easy as it seems.

Where is there a lot of water?

By what parameters to judge: by size, mass or quantity? For example, the largest cloud of water in space was found at a distance from us that light travels in 12 billion years. The total amount of this substance in the form of vapor in this region of the Universe exceeds all the reserves of the earth's oceans by 140 trillion times. There is 4,000 times more water vapor than is contained in our entire galaxy, called the Milky Way. Scientists believe that this is the oldest cluster, formed long before the time when our Earth as a planet appeared to the world from the solar nebula. This object, rightfully attributed to the giants of the Universe, appeared almost immediately after its birth, just after some billion years, or maybe a little more.

Where is the largest mass concentrated?

Water is supposed to be the oldest and most abundant element not only on planet Earth, but also in the depths of space. It turns out, what is the largest space object? Where is the most water and other matter? But it is not so. Said cloud of vapor exists only because it is concentrated around a black hole endowed with a huge mass and is held by its force of attraction. The gravitational field next to such bodies turns out to be so strong that no objects are able to leave their limits, even if they move at the speed of light. Such "holes" in the Universe are called black precisely because the light quanta are not able to overcome the hypothetical line called the event horizon. Therefore, they cannot be seen, but a huge mass of these formations constantly makes itself felt. The dimensions of black holes, purely theoretically, may not be very large due to their fantastic density. At the same time, an incredible mass is concentrated in a small point in space, hence, according to the laws of physics, gravity also arises.

Black holes closest to us

Our native Milky Way belongs to scientists to spiral galaxies. Even the ancient Romans called it the "milk road", since from our planet it has the corresponding appearance of a white nebula, spread out in the sky in the blackness of the night. And the Greeks came up with a whole legend about the appearance of this cluster of stars, where it represents milk splashed from the breasts of the goddess Hera.

Like many other galaxies, existing in the center of the Milky Way black hole is a supermassive formation. They call it "Sagittarius A-star". This is a real monster that literally devours its own gravitational field everything around itself, accumulating within its limits huge masses of matter, the amount of which is constantly increasing. However, the nearby area, precisely because of the existence of the indicated retracting funnel in it, turns out to be a very good place for the appearance of new stellar formations.

The local group, along with ours, also includes the Andromeda galaxy, which is the closest to the Milky Way. It also belongs to the spiral, but several times larger and includes about a trillion stars. For the first time in the written sources of ancient astronomers, it was mentioned in the writings of the Persian scientist As-Sufi, who lived more than a millennium ago. This huge formation appeared to the mentioned astronomer as a small cloud. It is for its view from Earth that the galaxy is also often referred to as the Andromeda Nebula.

Even much later, scientists could not imagine the scale and magnitude of this cluster of stars. They endowed this cosmic formation with a relatively small size for a long time. The distance to the Andromeda galaxy was also significantly reduced, although in fact the distance to it is, according to the data modern science, the distance that even light travels over a period of more than two thousand years.

Supergalaxies and clusters of galaxies

The largest object in space could be considered a hypothetical supergalaxy. Theories have been put forward about its existence, but the physical cosmology of modern times considers the formation of such an astronomical cluster improbable due to the impossibility of gravitational and other forces to keep it as a whole. However, superclusters of galaxies exist, and today such objects are considered quite real.

A bright point in the sky, but not a star

Continuing the search for remarkable things in space, let us now ask the question in a different way: what is the most big star in the sky? And again, we will not immediately find a suitable answer. There are many conspicuous objects that can be distinguished with the naked eye on a beautiful fine night. One of them is Venus. This point in the sky is perhaps the brightest of all the others. In terms of the intensity of the glow, it is several times greater than the planets Mars and Jupiter close to us. It is second in brightness only to the Moon.

However, Venus is not a star at all. But it was very difficult for the ancients to notice such a difference. With the naked eye, it is difficult to distinguish between the stars burning on their own and the planets glowing with reflected rays. But even in ancient times, for example, Greek astronomers understood the difference between these objects. They called the planets "wandering stars", as they moved over time along loop-like trajectories, unlike most nightly celestial beauties.

It is not surprising that Venus stands out among other objects, because it is the second planet from the Sun, and the closest to Earth. Now scientists have found that the sky of Venus itself is completely covered with thick clouds and has an aggressive atmosphere. All this perfectly reflects the sun's rays, which explains the brightness of this object.

star giant

The largest luminary discovered to date by astronomers is 2100 times larger than the Sun. It emits a crimson glow and is located in This object is located from us to four thousand light years. Experts call it VY Canis Major.

But a large star is only in size. Studies show that its density is actually negligible, and its mass is only 17 times the weight of our luminary. But the properties of this object cause fierce debate in scientific circles. It is assumed that the star is expanding, but eventually loses its brightness. Many of the experts also express the opinion that the huge size of the object in fact, in some way, only seems to be so. The optical illusion is due to the nebula that envelops the true shapes of the star.

Mysterious objects of space

What is a quasar in space? Such astronomical objects turned out to be a big puzzle for scientists of the last century. These are very bright sources of light and radio emission with relatively small angular dimensions. But, despite this, with their glow they outshine entire galaxies. But what is the reason? It is assumed that these objects contain supermassive black holes surrounded by grandiose gas clouds. Giant funnels absorb matter from outer space, due to which they constantly increase their mass. Such retraction leads to a powerful glow and, as a result, to a huge brightness resulting from deceleration and subsequent heating of the gas cloud. It is believed that the mass of such objects exceeds the solar mass by billions of times.

There are many hypotheses about these amazing objects. Some believe that these are the nuclei of young galaxies. But the most intriguing seems to be the assumption that quasars no longer exist in the universe. The fact is that the glow that earthly astronomers can observe today reached our planet for too long a period. It is believed that the nearest quasar to us is located at a distance that light had to overcome in a thousand million years. And this means that on Earth it is possible to see only the "ghosts" of those objects that existed in deep space in incredibly distant times. And then our universe was much younger.

Dark matter

But this is not all of the secrets that the vast cosmos keeps. Even more mysterious is the "dark" side of it. As already mentioned, there is very little ordinary matter, called baryonic matter, in the Universe. Much of its mass is now thought to be dark energy. And 26.8% is occupied by dark matter. Such particles are not subject to physical laws, so it is too difficult to detect them.

This hypothesis has not yet been fully confirmed by rigorous scientific data, but arose in an attempt to explain extremely strange astronomical phenomena associated with stellar gravity and the evolution of the Universe. All this remains to be seen in the future.

Thanks to rapid development technologies, astronomers are making ever more interesting and incredible discoveries in the Universe. For example, the title of "the largest object in the universe" passes from one find to another almost every year. Some open objects are so huge that they baffle even the best scientists of our planet with their existence. Let's talk about the ten largest of them.

Relatively recently, scientists discovered the largest cold spot in the universe. It is located in the southern part of the constellation Eridanus. With its length of 1.8 billion light years, this spot has baffled scientists. They had no idea that objects of this size could exist.

Despite the presence of the word “void” in the title (from the English “void” means “emptiness”), the space here is not completely empty. This region of space contains about 30 percent fewer galaxy clusters than its surroundings. According to scientists, voids make up to 50 percent of the volume of the universe, and this percentage, in their opinion, will continue to grow due to super-strong gravity, which attracts all the matter around them.

superblob

In 2006, the title of the largest object in the universe was given to the discovered mysterious cosmic “bubble” (or blob, as scientists usually call them). True, he retained this title for a short time. This 200-million-light-year-long bubble is a gigantic collection of gas, dust, and galaxies. With some caveats, this object looks like a giant green jellyfish. The object was discovered by Japanese astronomers when they were studying one of the regions of space known for the presence of a huge volume of cosmic gas.

Each of the three "tentacles" of this bubble contains galaxies that are four times denser than usual in the universe. The clusters of galaxies and balls of gas inside this bubble are called the Lyman-Alpha bubbles. It is believed that these objects began to appear about 2 billion years after the Big Bang and are real relics. ancient universe. Scientists suggest that the bubble in question formed when massive stars that existed back in early times space, suddenly became supernovae and threw huge volumes of gas into space. The object is so massive that scientists believe that it is, by and large, one of the first cosmic objects to form in the universe. According to theories, over time, more and more new galaxies will form from the accumulated gas here.

Shapley Supercluster

For many years, scientists believe that our galaxy at a speed of 2.2 million kilometers per hour is attracted through the Universe somewhere in the direction of the constellation Centaurus. Astronomers suggest that the reason for this is the Great Attractor (Great Attractor), an object with such a force of gravity, which is already enough to attract entire galaxies to itself. True, scientists could not find out what kind of object it was for a long time. Presumably this object is located behind the so-called "zone of avoidance" (ZOA), an area in the sky, covered by the Milky Way galaxy.

However, over time, X-ray astronomy came to the rescue. Its development made it possible to look beyond the ZOA region and find out what exactly is the cause of such a strong gravitational attraction. True, what the scientists saw put them even more in a dead end. It turned out that beyond the ZOA region there is an ordinary cluster of galaxies. The size of this cluster did not correlate with the force exerted on our galaxy by gravitational attraction. But as soon as scientists decided to look deeper into space, they soon discovered that our galaxy is being pulled towards an even larger object. It turned out to be the Shapley Supercluster, the most massive supercluster of galaxies in the observable Universe.

The supercluster consists of over 8,000 galaxies. Its mass is about 10,000 more than the mass of the Milky Way.

Great Wall CfA2

Like most of the objects on this list, the Great Wall (also known as the CfA2 Great Wall) once also boasted the title of the largest known space object in the universe. It was discovered by American astrophysicist Margaret Joan Geller and John Peter Hunra while studying the redshift effect for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. According to scientists, it is 500 million light-years long, 300 million light-years wide, and 15 million light-years thick.

The exact dimensions of the Great Wall are still a mystery to scientists. It could be much larger than thought, spanning 750 million light-years. The problem in determining the exact dimensions lies in the location of this gigantic structure. As with the Shapley Supercluster, the Great Wall is partially covered by the "zone of avoidance".

In general, this “zone of avoidance” does not allow us to see about 20 percent of the observable (reachable for current telescopes) Universe. It lies inside the Milky Way and is dense clumps of gas and dust (as well as a high concentration of stars) that greatly distort observations. In order to look through the "zone of avoidance", astronomers have to use, for example, infrared telescopes, which can penetrate another 10 percent of the "zone of avoidance". Through which infrared waves cannot penetrate, radio waves, as well as near-infrared waves and X-rays, break through. Nevertheless, the actual inability to view such a large region of space somewhat upsets scientists. The "Zone of Avoidance" may contain information that can fill gaps in our knowledge of space.

Supercluster Laniakea

Galaxies are usually grouped together. These groups are called clusters. The regions of space where these clusters are more closely spaced are called superclusters. Previously, astronomers mapped these objects by determining their physical location in the universe, but recently a new way of mapping local space has been invented. This made it possible to shed light on information that was previously inaccessible.

The new principle of mapping the local space and the galaxies located in it is based not on the calculation of the location of objects, but on observations of the indicators of the gravitational influence exerted by objects. Thanks to the new method, the location of galaxies is determined and, on the basis of this, a map of the distribution of gravity in the Universe is compiled. Compared to the old ones, the new method is more advanced because it allows astronomers not only to mark new objects in the universe we see, but also to find new objects in places where it was not possible to look before.

The first results of the study of a local cluster of galaxies using a new method made it possible to detect a new supercluster. The importance of this study lies in the fact that it will allow us to better understand where our place in the universe is. Previously, the Milky Way was thought to be inside the Virgo Supercluster, but a new method of research shows that this region is only part of the even larger Laniakea Supercluster, one of the largest objects in the universe. It stretches for 520 million light years, and somewhere inside it we are.

Great Wall of Sloan

Sloan's Great Wall was first discovered in 2003 as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a scientific mapping of hundreds of millions of galaxies to identify the largest objects in the universe. The Great Wall of Sloan is a giant galactic filament made up of several superclusters. They, like the tentacles of a giant octopus, are distributed in all directions of the universe. At 1.4 billion light-years long, the "wall" was once thought to be the largest object in the universe.

The Great Wall of Sloan itself is not as well understood as the superclusters that lie within it. Some of these superclusters are interesting in their own right and deserve special mention. One, for example, has a core of galaxies that together look like giant tendrils from the side. Inside another supercluster, there is a high gravitational interaction between galaxies - many of them are now undergoing a period of merger.

The presence of the "wall" and any other larger objects creates new questions about the mysteries of the universe. Their existence is contrary to the cosmological principle, which theoretically limits how large objects in the universe can be. According to this principle, the laws of the universe do not allow the existence of objects larger than 1.2 billion light years. However, objects like the Great Wall of Sloan completely contradict this opinion.

Group of quasars Huge-LQG7

Quasars are high-energy astronomical objects located at the center of galaxies. It is believed that the center of quasars are supermassive black holes, which attract the surrounding matter. This results in a huge burst of radiation, the power of which is 1000 times greater than the energy generated by all the stars within the galaxy. Currently, the Huge-LQG group of quasars, consisting of 73 quasars scattered over 4 billion light-years, is in third place among the largest structural objects in the Universe. Scientists believe that such a massive group of quasars, as well as similar ones, are one of the reasons for the appearance of the largest structural ones in the Universe, such as, for example, the Great Wall of Sloan.

The Huge-LQG group of quasars was discovered after analyzing the same data that discovered the Great Wall of Sloan. Scientists determined its presence after mapping one of the regions of space using a special algorithm that measures the density of quasars in a certain area.

It should be noted that the very existence of Huge-LQG is still a matter of controversy. Some scientists believe that this region of space really represents a single group of quasars, while others believe that quasars within this region of space are located randomly and are not part of one group.

Giant gamma ring

Stretching over 5 billion light years, the Giant GRB Ring is the second largest large object in the Universe. In addition to its incredible size, this object attracts attention due to its unusual shape. Astronomers studying bursts of gamma rays (huge bursts of energy that are formed as a result of the death of massive stars), found a series of nine bursts, the sources of which were at the same distance from the Earth. These bursts formed a ring in the sky, 70 times the diameter full moon. Considering that gamma-ray bursts themselves are quite a rare occurrence, the chance that they will form a similar shape in the sky is 1 in 20,000. This led scientists to assume that they are witnessing one of the largest structural objects in the universe.

By itself, "ring" is just a term to describe the visual representation of this phenomenon as seen from Earth. According to one of the assumptions, the giant gamma ring may be a projection of a certain sphere, around which all gamma radiation emissions occurred in a relatively short period of time, about 250 million years. True, here the question arises as to what kind of source could create such a sphere. One explanation is related to the assumption that galaxies can gather in groups around a huge concentration of dark matter. However, this is just a theory. Scientists still don't know how these structures form.

Great Wall of Hercules - North Corona

The largest structural object in the universe was also discovered by astronomers as part of their observation of gamma rays. This object, dubbed the Great Wall of Hercules - the Northern Corona, spans 10 billion light-years, making it twice the size of the Giant Galactic Gamma Ring. Since the brightest bursts of gamma rays produce more big stars, usually located in areas of space where there is more matter, astronomers each time metaphorically consider each such burst as a needle prick into something larger. When scientists discovered that there were too many gamma ray bursts in the region of space towards the constellations Hercules and the Northern Corona, they determined that there was an astronomical object here, most likely a dense concentration of galaxy clusters and other matter.

An interesting fact: the name "The Great Wall of Hercules - Northern Crown" was coined by a Filipino teenager who wrote it down on Wikipedia (anyone who does not know can edit this electronic encyclopedia). Shortly after the news that astronomers had discovered a huge structure in the cosmic sky, a corresponding article appeared on the pages of Wikipedia. Despite the fact that the invented name does not quite accurately describe this object (the wall covers several constellations at once, and not just two), the world Internet quickly got used to it. Perhaps this is the first time that Wikipedia has given a name to a discovered and interesting scientific point vision of the object.

Since the very existence of this “wall” also contradicts the cosmological principle, scientists have to reconsider some of their theories about how the universe actually formed.

space web

Scientists believe that the expansion of the universe is not random. There are theories according to which all the galaxies of space are organized into one structure of incredible size, reminiscent of filamentous connections that unite dense regions. These filaments are scattered between less dense voids. Scientists call this structure the Cosmic Web.

According to scientists, the web formed at a very early stage in the history of the universe. At first, the formation of the web was unstable and heterogeneous, which subsequently helped the formation of everything that is now in the Universe. It is believed that the "threads" of this web played a big role in the evolution of the universe - they accelerated it. It is noted that the galaxies that are inside these filaments have a significantly higher rate of star formation. In addition, these threads are a kind of bridge for gravitational interaction between galaxies. Once formed within these filaments, galaxies travel to galaxy clusters where they eventually die.

Only recently have scientists begun to understand what this Cosmic Web really is. Studying one of the distant quasars, the researchers noted that their radiation affects one of the threads of the Cosmic Web. The light of the quasar went straight to one of the filaments, which heated up the gases in it and made them glow. Based on these observations, scientists were able to imagine the distribution of threads between other galaxies, thereby compiling a picture of the "skeleton of the cosmos."