NORTH-EAST scientists may have found the inter-galactic "missing link" that could explain the origin of the universe.

A team from Durham University has spent ten years mapping the an incredible 220,000 galaxies using Australia's largest optical telescope, the 3.9m (153in) Anglo-Australian Telescope and an instrument called 2dF to gather the information.

The 2dF detector allows astronomers to observe and analyse 400 objects at a time and, on a clear night, they can log the positions of more than 2,000 galaxies.

The sophisticated equipment has enabled scientists to detect so-called "cosmic ripples" radiation created by the heat generated by the Big Bang that created the universe.

Scientists say the information within the ripples contains a "genetic fingerprint" of the universe.

Professor Carlos Frenk, Director of Durham's Institute for Computational Cosmology, said: "These features establish a direct evolutionary link to the Big Bang. Finding them is a milestone in our understanding of how the cosmos was formed."

The information - known as baryon features - contain information about the contents of the universe, in particular about the amount of ordinary matter (baryons), which has condensed into stars and planets and of which we ourselves are made.

The new data has given scientists a yardstick which helps them to determine the rate at which the universe is expanding.

This, in turn, depends on both the amount of what scientists call "dark matter" and "dark energy" in the cosmos.

Dark matter, made from a material unknown to science, does not shine and is therefore invisible to telescopes. Its existence was only discovered because of the effect its gravity has on galaxies.

Even more mysterious dark energy is believed to emerge from the vacuum of empty space. It acts as an anti-gravity force that is driving galaxies apart from one another at an accelerating rate.

Ordinary ''baryonic'' matter, including all the galaxies, stars and planets, make up only 18 per cent of all the mass in the universe.

The research was funded in the UK by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council. A team from the UK has worked closely with experts from Australia to refine the information.

Dr Shaun Cole, of Durham University, who led the research, said: "At the moment of birth, the universe contained tiny irregularities. These irregularities have been amplified by gravity ever since and eventually gave rise to the galaxies we see today."