image copyright a. klypin j. primack s. cantalupo image caption an intense quasar can act as a natural " cosmic flashlight " .
cosmology theory predicts that galaxies are cocooned within gigantic , wispy filaments of gas .
in this case we were lucky that the flashlight is pointing toward the 300 shares share tweet google reddit linkedin mail sign up to receive our weekly newsletter of the most popular space stories : astronomers from the university of california – santa cruz have found a far - off quasar lighting up a very large nebula of spread out gas , showing for the first time part of the network of filaments believed to link galaxies in a cosmic web .
“ this is a very exceptional object : it ’s huge , at least twice as large as any nebula detected before , and it extends well beyond the galactic environment of the quasar , ” posited first author sebastiano cantalupo , a postdoctoral fellow computer 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 ) .
in observations spied through one of the most powerful telescopes in the world , the 33 - foot ( 10 - meter ) keck i telescope in hawaii , astronomers led by sebastiano cantalupo of the university of california , santa cruz , now report that they have detected a very large , luminous filament of gas extending about 2 million light - years
this “ cosmic web ” of gas - filled nebulas stretches between large , spacious voids that are tens of millions of light years wide .
utilizing the 10 - meter keck i telescope , the researchers spotted an extremely large , bright nebula of gas spreading approximately 2 million light - years across intergalactic space .
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 .
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 ) .