Computer simulations (left) show that galaxies live within a vast network of hidden strands that crisscross the universe -- the "cosmic web."
Now we can see the cosmic web for real! This filament (right) links two galaxies in the early universe.
https://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/1109034/news20250129 #science #space #astronomy #nature
This is the device (the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer on the Very Large Telescope) used to discover a 3-million-light-year long filament linking two distant galaxies.
Exploring the hidden universe ain't easy!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02463-w #science #nature #astrodon
And it's so compact as well! 
@simonzerafa @coreyspowell in five years every phone will have one built-in
@coreyspowell Oh, I saw one of these at the pawn shop and was wondering what it was. ;-)
@coreyspowell
Those medusa-like tubes are part of MUSE instrument's cryogenic system which provides cooling (163K) and vacuum for the 24 MUSE detectors.
MUSE is an Integral Field Spectrograph. It splits the field of view into 24 image segments which are further sliced into 48 mini slits. Each set of 48 mini slits is injected into one of the spectrographs (480-930 nm).
JWST NIRSpec uses IFU too but with a single detector array.
https://www.eso.org/public/images/muse7160/
Info on MUSE at https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/paranal/instruments/muse/inst.html
@AkaSci @coreyspowell is the length of the tubes important or could it be a bit neater?
@aburka @AkaSci @coreyspowell Those are photos of MUSE in the lab, before it got installed. Here's a photo of it on the telescope that I took last year. I think they tidied it up a bit at some point.
@aburka @AkaSci @coreyspowell There's quite a bit more to it than the mess of cryo/vacuum plumbing at the back, too.
You get a side view of it here, in this photo of the telescope that it's attached to. Everything on the platform on the left side of the photo is part of MUSE. In the centre of the photo is the telescope, with its 8.2 metre diameter primary mirror and four laser launch telescopes, and over on the right side is another platform with another instrument (HAWK-I).
@aburka @AkaSci @coreyspowell Service Loops, dude
@AkaSci @coreyspowell And here's a documentary with some more info on the instrument. At 6:06 you can follow the optical path and see how the observed field is sliced and redirected to the different spectrographs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fh2Y6Zyhwc&t=366s
@astro_jcm @coreyspowell
The webpage linked above also has some detailed graphics and descriptions of the components in MUSE's optical path.
@coreyspowell This looks like some kind of awesome steam punk pipe organ, and I would dearly love to hear it break into Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor." 
Edit: Hubby thinks it looks like an orgy of bicycles. Birth of tiny unicycles by Easter?
Thought it looked like a container full of push bikes dredged from a canal
@coreyspowell It may work, but whoever assembled it had no clue about cable and plumbing organization.
@coreyspowell looks like my “old cable” drawer!
@coreyspowell alternative alt-text reads - the photograph shows what happens when all the research centre’s vacuum cleaners stage a love-in at the astronomy laboratory.