Alex McColgan

Despite existing on a small planet in a tiny corner of the cosmos, astronomers know exactly how much visible matter the entire universe should contain.

The problem is that for decades, 40% of it has been missing.

And I'm not just talking about the ever mysterious dark matter and dark energy.

Galaxy clusters don't seem to have as much visible mass as our models say should be there.

Entire galaxies seem to have lost huge reservoirs of the material they were born with.

Even the space between galaxies, enormous cosmic deserts, are emptier than our best theories predict.

This missing mass has to be out there.

That, or all our models of cosmology, are wrong.

But every time we've looked, we've found nothing.

And believe me, we've tried.

We've used our most powerful telescopes, deepest surveys, and most sensitive detectors in the search.

The missing mass just remains invisible, slipping past our instruments like a ghost.

That is...

until now.

For the first time in history, we may have finally found where the missing mass of all the universe has been hiding, and it's in plain sight.

Astronomers have captured images of vast gaseous filaments that stretch 23 million light years between galaxy clusters.

It may just be one filament, but finding it has huge ramifications.

Is this the very first detailed image of the cosmic web?

As scientists now hunt for more, this discovery has the power to determine whether our cosmological models are correct.

I'm Alex McColgan and you're watching Astrum.