Cosmic web
The filamentary large-scale structure of galaxies, clusters and voids grown from primordial density fluctuations.
At a glance
Key signals
33% cross fields · reaches 1 more
- Cosmology
- Explanation
- Examples
- Misconception
- Sourced relations
- Attribution
Dependencies
What this concept builds on and what it makes possible — derived from the atlas’s dependency, causal and structural relations, not from every related edge.
Foundations · builds on
Cosmic webemerges fromDark matterEstablished
The web is scaffolded by dark matter.
Mechanism: Dark-matter gravity pulls gas and galaxies into the filaments and voids of the cosmic web.
System context
Galaxy clusteris part ofCosmic webEstablished
Clusters sit at web nodes.
Mechanism: Galaxy clusters are the massive nodes where filaments of the cosmic web intersect.
Structural role & consequence
Interpreted from the current atlas graph — what the connections mean, not just how many there are.
Currently dark in the atlas: no key date stored · 3 of 3 of its relations lack claim-level evidence.
atlas representation · Describes the current Thinking OS representation, not the state of the world.
Builds on 1 foundation (requires / depends-on / derived-from / emerges-from).
structural · Structural graph analysis — not a claim of importance, causation or history.
Structural neighbourhood: 3 → 11 → 21 concepts reachable within 3 hops.
structural · Structural reach — being reachable is not the same as being understood.
cross-field
2 within-field, 1 cross-field
Strengths & constraints
Constraints
- Evidence coverage currently thin in the atlas — few of its relationships carry claim-level evidence. atlas representation
- No dated history stored — the atlas records no key date for this concept. atlas representation
Conditions
- Its dependency reading rests on 1 foundation relation. structural
- Read structurally — most of its relationships carry no external evidence yet, so claims here are graph-derived. structural
Dependency radial
What this concept builds on (left) and what it makes possible (right) — derived from dependency and causal relations.
Seen through each discipline
How this concept sits in each of its fields — derived from its real connections in the graph, not asserted.
Through this lens it connects to Galaxy cluster and Cosmological principle.
Related ideas to explore
Concepts that look related but are not yet connected here — candidates for a connection to reason about, not established links.
This idea also appears in…
The same structure shows up in other disciplines. These are real recurrences drawn from the graph — a starting point for asking “what carries over, and what changes?”
Concepts
- Dark matterAstronomy
crosses a discipline boundary
- Connects 3 other ideas across 1 discipline.
- Most of its connections are of the “Kind & structure” kind.
Derived from the graph’s real structure — observations, not a score.
Sources
- The cosmic web (2013) verified
- Evolution of the Cosmic Web (2024) verified