Astronomers detect breakthrough cosmic dark matter filament

"Actually observing the structure of the cosmic dark matter web would be a stunning confirmation of our current understanding of dark matter and dark energy over the history of the Universe, and could open the door to much deeper understanding going forward," researchers said.

Any observation of the web has evaded astronomers, until now. This observation is confirmation that a filament of dark matter exists between two massive galaxy clusters.

In the past 15 years, a remarkable consensus has emerged that the Universe is completely dominated by unseen dark matter and dark energy.

Linear filaments of dark matter stretch across the enormous distances between galaxy clusters, and where the filaments intersect mass is concentrated and galaxy clusters form and grow from ordinary matter.