Astronomers for the first time have been successful in spotting a protogalactic disk, which is a gigantic whirling cloud of gas that gives birth to a galaxy. Astronomers associated with the finding believe that the discovery can help them get some clues about formation of the galaxies.

As per researchers, the galaxies are tied together in filaments that are separated by immense voids. These filaments are linked in a gargantuan tangle known as the cosmic web.

Researchers so far are unaware of how galaxies form, but they said that a key player in this is a kind of current known as a cold accretion flow.

This filament is about one-third as bright as the Milky Way, which makes it three billion times more luminous than the sun and more than 10 times brighter than what is expected for a filament, said researchers.

As per researchers these giant rivers of gas can get as hot as 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit (10,000 degrees Celsius). To learn more about the galaxies researchers analyzed the first filament that was discovered in 2010 using the Cosmic Web Imager at Palomar Observatory in California.

They discovered that the brightest spot in the filament is a spinning protogalactic disk of hydrogen. Study lead author Christopher Martin, an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said, "It is rare and surprising to discover a completely new kind of object".

The researchers found that the protogalactic disk is more than 407,000 light-years wide, weighs about 100 billion suns, and is surrounded by a 'halo' of invisible dark matter weighing as much as 10 trillion suns.

Martin said the study findings reveal how cold accretion flows might help to build protogalaxies.