Filaments in Cosmology

[Alfrez]

Hi,


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077693/ns/technology_and_science-space/

http://thefutureofthings.com/news/5497/dark-matter-filament-detected-near-the-milky-way.html [Broken]


What are these filaments in space? Are they made of pure plasma or is dark matter involved too? How could dark matter help form this filaments? Are filaments a mainstream idea in cosmology??

 

[zhermes]

Those filaments are primarily dark matter, but some 'normal' (baryonic) matter does follow it (especially at the clumps).

Those filaments are very well excepted (they are an observational fact), and are consistent with a particular type of dark matter called 'cold dark matter.' The observation of these filaments, and seeing them also in simulations helped establish what's called the Lambda-Cold Dark Matter (lambda-CDM) paradigm, which is in general well agreed upon.