Giant filaments crisscross the universe, connecting galaxy clusters like superhighways between cities. ... Known appropriately as the cosmic web, it is the largest pattern found in nature.

Scientists first began to think that on the largest scales, the universe is ordered in a web-like pattern with filaments that cross vast voids in space and pull galaxies into clusters in the 1960s.

Giant filaments crisscross the universe, connecting galaxy clusters like superhighways between cities. ... If you change any one of those components, you get a new pattern in the cosmic web.