Francisco Villaescusa-Navarro

In the first moments after the Big Bang, the universe expanded faster than light could cross it. This expansion left a subtle ripple in the distribution of matter, like the rings on water from a thrown stone. Traces of that ripple are visible today in how galaxies cluster into groups and filaments.

The Universe is vast, and figuring out how galaxies and dark matter are distributed within it is no easy task. Usually, scientists run computer simulations that "play out" the evolution of entire regions of space billions of light-years across. But such calculations demand colossal resources and time.