Astronomers 'see' strands of cosmic web

Astronomers say they have for the first time seen the gas strands theorised to hold the universe together in a "cosmic web". Cosmologists believe that matter between galaxies is distributed in a network of strands known as the cosmic web. The vast majority of atoms in the universe are thought to reside in this web as hydrogen left over from the Big Bang, and galaxies are believed to form at network nodes. Until now, this web had never been seen. Small sections of it had been detected by its absorption of light from bright background sources, but those results didn't reveal its overall structure.