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Shedding Light on the Cosmic Skeleton
http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2009/pr-41-09.html
Galactic Clusters - http://www.eso.org/gallery/v/ESOPIA/GalaxyClusters
http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2009/pr-41-09.html
Does this imply a continuous network, web or skeleton of the universe? What are the cosmological implications of this discovery?ESO said:Astronomers have tracked down a gigantic, previously unknown assembly of galaxies located almost seven billion light-years away from us. The discovery, made possible by combining two of the most powerful ground-based telescopes in the world, is the first observation of such 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.”
These filaments are millions of light years long and constitute the skeleton of the Universe: galaxies gather around them, and immense galaxy clusters form at their intersections, lurking like giant spiders waiting for more matter to digest. Scientists are struggling to determine how they swirl into existence. Although massive filamentary structures have been often observed at relatively small distances from us, solid proof of their existence in the more distant Universe has been lacking until now.
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Galactic Clusters - http://www.eso.org/gallery/v/ESOPIA/GalaxyClusters
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