Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the researchers detected a very large, luminous nebula of gas extending about 2 million light-years across intergalactic space. Using the 10-meter Keck I Telescope at the W. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, led the study, published January 19 in Nature. The intense radiation from a quasar can, like a flashlight, illuminate part of the surrounding cosmic web (highlighted in the image) and make a filament of gas glow, as was observed in the case of quasar UM287.Īstronomers have discovered a distant quasar illuminating a vast nebula of diffuse gas, revealing for the first time part of the network of filaments thought to connect galaxies in a cosmic web. The inset is a zoomed-in, high-resolution image of a smaller part of the cosmic web, 10 million light-years across, from a simulation that includes gas as well as dark matter (credit: S. Cantalupo, UCSC)Ĭomputer simulations suggest that matter in the universe is distributed in a 'cosmic web' of filaments, as seen in the image above from a large-scale dark-matter simulation (Bolshoi simulation, by Anatoly Klypin and Joel Primack).

The energetic radiation of the quasar makes the surrounding intergalactic gas glow, revealing the morphology and physical properties of a cosmic web filament.

This deep image shows the nebula (cyan) extending across 2 million light-years that was discovered around the bright quasar UM287 (at the center of the image).

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