Astronomers see 'skeleton' of the universeAstronomers in Chile and Japan have for the first time seen part of the "cosmic web" of galaxies that permeates the known universe in a gigantic assembly some seven billion light-years from Earth. Viewed through the world's most powerful telescopes, the discovery "is the first observation of such a prominent galaxy structure in the distant universe, providing further insight into the cosmic web and how it formed," the European Southern Observatory European Southern Observatory (ESO), an intergovernmental organization for astronomical research with headquarters in Garching, near Munich, Germany. The ESO began in 1962 as a consortium among Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. (ESO ESO European Southern Observatory ESO Educación Secundaria Obligatoria (Spain: compulsory secondary education) ESO European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere ESO Edmonton Symphony Orchestra ) said Tuesday in a statement. The assembly of galaxies form filaments "millions of light years long and constitute the skeleton of the universe," it said. "Galaxies gather around them, and immense galaxy clusters This page lists some of the more interesting galaxy clusters and groups. Defining the limits of galaxy clusters is imprecise as many clusters are still forming. In particular, clusters close to the Milky Way tend to be classified as galaxy clusters even when they are much smaller form at their intersections, lurking like giant spiders waiting for more matter to digest," it added. The filaments are located about 6.7 billion light-years away and extend over at least 60 million light-years, the scientists said, adding the structure very likely stretches beyond the area they probed, warranting further observations. "This is the first time that we have observed such a rich and prominent structure in the distant universe," said ESO's Masayuki Tanaka Masayuki Tanaka (田中雅之 Tanaka Masayuki , who led the study. "We can now move from demography to sociology and study how the properties of galaxies depend on their environment, at a time when the Universe was only two thirds of its present age," Tanaka added. Scientists have long theorized that galaxy clusters are not evenly distributed throughout the universe. "The most widely accepted cosmological theories predict that matter also clumps on a larger scale in the so-called ?cosmic web?, in which galaxies, embedded in filaments stretching between voids, create a gigantic wispy wisp n. 1. A small bunch or bundle, as of straw, hair, or grass. 2. a. One that is thin, frail, or slight. b. A thin or faint streak or fragment, as of smoke or clouds. 3. structure," Tanaka said. ESO said the discovery was "made possible by combining two of the most powerful ground-based telescopes in the world:" the Very Large Telescope The Very Large Telescope Project (VLT) is a system of four separate optical telescopes (the Antu telescope, the Kueyen telescope, the Melipal telescope, and the Yepun telescope) organized in an array formation. Each telescope has an 8.2 m aperture. at Chile's Paranal Observatory Paranal Observatory is an astronomical observatory located on Cerro Paranal (120 km south of Antofagasta, Chile) and operated by the European Southern Observatory. The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is the largest telescope on Paranal, actually composed of four separate 8. , and the National Astronomical Observatory's Subaru Telescope, in Japan. 
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