Stunning "Cosmic Web" Images Reveal Maze Of Dwarf Galaxies. See Pics

Cosmological models have long predicted its existence, but until now the cosmic web had never been directly observed and captured in images.

Peering into the early Universe some 12 billion years ago, scientists in France have for the first time seen the incandescent filaments of hydrogen gas known as the "cosmic web," they said Thursday. Cosmological models have long predicted its existence, but until now the cosmic web had never been directly observed and captured in images. Eight months of observation with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and a year of data crunching revealed the filaments as they existed only one to two billion years after the Big Bang. But the biggest surprise, scientists said, was simulations showing that the light came from billions of previously invisible -- and unsuspected -- dwarf galaxies spawning trillions of stars.