Do "Skeleton" Filaments Give Structure to the Universe?

This 3D illustration shows the position of the galaxies and reveals the extent of this gigantic structure. The galaxies located in the newly discovered structure are shown in red. Galaxies that are either in front or behind the structure are shown in blue. Credit: ESO

Are there "skeletons" out in the Universe –structures that form the framework of how galaxies are distributed? Astronomers have tracked down a gigantic, previously unknown assembly of galaxies located almost seven billion light-years away from us, which seems to point to a prominent galaxy structure in the distant Universe, providing further insight into the cosmic web and how it formed. “Matter is not distributed uniformly in the Universe,” says Masayuki Tanaka from ESO, who led the new study. “In our cosmic vicinity, stars form in galaxies and galaxies usually form groups and clusters of galaxies. The most widely accepted cosmological theories predict that matter also clumps on a larger scale in the so-called ‘cosmic web’, in which galaxies, embedded in filaments stretching between voids, create a gigantic wispy structure.”
(...)
Read the rest of Do "Skeleton" Filaments Give Structure to the Universe? (409 words)