04/10/2023
According to cosmological simulations, over 60% of the hydrogen that was created by the Big Bang roughly 13.8 billion years ago collapsed to form a sheet, which then broke apart to make the web of cosmic filaments we see today. These filaments connect galaxies and feed them gas for growth and star formation. Although circumstantial, previous research has also suggested that galaxies form where these threads cross paths.
To capture the latest image of these crisscrossing filaments, Martin and his team used the Keck Cosmic Web Imager based at the Keck Observatory perched atop the Mauna Kea volcano peak in Hawaii. The instrument was tuned to hunt down emissions from hydrogen gas, which is the main component of the cosmic web. The two-dimensional images produced by the instrument were later stacked to form a three-dimensional map based on where the emissions were detected as they emanated from the cosmic web, according to the new study.
