Microcosmic Threads Weave Fabric of Our Universe Together

Our Milky Way galaxy appears to be connected via a vast filament to nearby galaxy clusters, which in turn are interconnected with the rest of the universe, according to new research from Australia.

Evidence for the existence of this invisible fabric comes from the arrangement of cosmic bodies in space.

“By examining the positions of ancient groupings of stars, called globular clusters, we found that the clusters form a narrow plane around the Milky Way rather than being scattered across the sky,” said astronomer Stefan Keller at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, in a press release.

“Furthermore, the Milky Way’s entourage of small satellites are seen to inhabit the same plane."

Galaxies grow by sucking in hydrogen and helium to fuel star formation. The Milky Way is thought to have reached its current size by consuming hundreds of much smaller galaxies.

“The filament of star clusters and small galaxies around the Milky Way is like the umbilical cord that fed our galaxy during its youth," Keller explained.

Our universe is believed to be composed primarily of two types of material—ordinary matter which forms stars, planets, and galaxies, and dark matter, which is driving the ever-accelerating expansion of the universe.

“A consequence of the big bang and the dominance of dark matter is that ordinary matter is driven, like foam on the crest of a wave, into vast interconnected sheets and filaments stretched over enormous cosmic voids—much like the structure of a kitchen sponge,” Keller said.

“Unlike a sponge, however, gravity draws the material over these interconnecting filaments towards the largest lumps of matter, and our findings show that the globular clusters and satellite galaxies of the Milky Way trace this cosmic filament."

The cosmos seems to have a structure comprising long filaments of galaxies interspersed with gigantic voids that reach millions of light-years across.

“Globular clusters are systems of hundreds of thousands of ancient stars tightly packed in a ball," Keller said. "In our picture, most of these star clusters are the central cores of small galaxies that have been drawn along the filament by gravity.

“Once these small galaxies got too close the Milky Way, the majority of stars were stripped away and added to our galaxy, leaving only their cores."

The study was published in the Astrophysical Journal.