The newly unveiled COSMOS-Net is the biggest, most detailed map of the universe ever created. The map plots almost 800,000 galaxies, and nearly spans all the 13.8-billion-year historical past of the cosmos.
The map is the results of a multinational collaboration led by astrophysicists at UC Santa Barbara and the Rochester Institute of Know-how – utilizing information collected by the James Webb Area Telescope. The telescope’s highly effective infrared capabilities allowed researchers to look deeper into house – and additional again in time – than ever earlier than, capturing galaxies from just some hundred million years after the Large Bang.
The interactive COSMOS-Net viewer affords a groundbreaking option to discover information from the James Webb Area Telescope firsthand. Customers can pan and zoom throughout deep house, tracing the construction of the universe and inspecting particular person galaxies. Whereas the map solutions some long-standing questions, it additionally raises profound new ones, difficult present fashions of cosmic evolution and opening the door to discoveries about darkish matter, galaxy formation, and the very origins of sunshine. By making this monumental dataset publicly accessible, the COSMOS crew goals to empower astronomers world wide – from seasoned researchers to college students – to analyze the early universe in new methods.
It’s also possible to discover the universe interactively utilizing:
- ESA Star Mapper – an interactive map visualizing 59,921 stars from the Hipparcos Catalogue
- Hubble Skymap – NASA’s interactive Hubble-eye view of observable galaxies, stars, and nebulae
