Such images reveal valuable information about how galaxies form and evolve, and help track the location of elusive dark matter, which makes up about 80% of the mass of the universe.

Astronomers first imaged the cosmic web in 2014, based on radiation from a quasar that is billions of times the mass of our Sun and is considered one of the brightest objects in the universe. Another study in 2019 used data from young, forming stars to infer the cosmic web. Now astronomers have imaged its light directly from 10 to 12 billion light-years away from us.

According to cosmological models, more than 60% of the hydrogen formed after the Big Bang approximately 13.8 billion years ago collapsed to form spatial structures; These structures collapsed and formed the cosmic network of cosmic filaments that we see today, that is, the cosmic matter array. composed of dust and gas. These filaments connect galaxies together, allowing them to grow and form stars. Although this is just speculation, previous studies have also suggested that galaxies form where these filaments intersect.

To capture the latest image of the intersecting filaments, the team used data from the eponymous telescope. Keka at the Mauna Kea observatory in Hawaii. The device is configured to detect hydrogen radiation, the main component of the cosmic web. The resulting two-dimensional images were combined into a three-dimensional map based on the detected radiation from the cosmic web.

To detect these faint emissions, the team first had to deal with the problem of light pollution. The dim light of the cosmic web can easily be confused with the light of the Hawaiian sky, atmospheric glow, or even the light of the Milky Way.

Therefore, the team decided to take photographs of two different areas of the palate at different distances. The scientists then took the background light from one image and subtracted it from the other, and vice versa. As a result, only a web of cobweb filaments remained, as predicted by simulations in 2019.