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    First-ever direct image of the cosmic web reveals the Universe’s hidden highways

    May 20, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image of the sky in the direction of the MUDF observations (MUSE Ultra Deep Field, the region targeted by MUSE). The cosmic filament is shown in purple; the galaxies visible in front and behind are shown in colour. The two galaxies at the edge of the structure, surrounded by clouds of gas, host supermassive black holes at their centres, visible in blue.
    © Joseph DePasquale/Space Telescope Science Institute

    Astronomers have revealed the sharpest image ever captured of a filament in the cosmic web — the enormous hidden structure connecting galaxies across the Universe. The glowing strand stretches 3 million light-years and links two galaxies from nearly 12 billion years ago...

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    Webb data suggest many Early Galaxies were Long and Thin, not Disk-like or Spherical

    January 18, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Sample shapes of distant galaxies identified by the James Webb Space Telescope’s Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey.
    Sample shapes of distant galaxies identified by the James Webb Space Telescope’s Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey. [(Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (UT Austin)]

    Columbia researchers analyzing images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found that galaxies in the early universe are often flat and elongated, like breadsticks—and are rarely round, like balls of pizza dough.

    “Roughly 50 to 80% of the galaxies we studied appear to be flattened in two dimensions,” explained Viraj Pandya, a NASA Hubble Fellow at Columbia University and the lead author of a new paper slated to appear in The Astrophysical Journal that outlines the findings...

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