Interactive map of the early universe is considered largest ever created
A team of astronomers have put together the largest, most detailed map of the universe ever created – and you can explore it now.
The interactive online map, created using data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, details some 800,000 galaxies across a vast cosmic distance – which in astronomy amounts to peering back in time. In fact, some of the galaxies are so far away, they appear as they existed not long after the Big Bang.
Depicting a section of the universe known as the COSMOS-Web field, the new map is far more expansive than even the iconic Hubble Ultra Deep Field, a view of 10,000 galaxies NASA released in 2004.
Spanning nearly all of cosmic time, the new map has the potential to challenge existing notions of the infant universe, the astronomers who created it claimed in a press release.
The best part? The interactive map is available for the public to use.
A team of international scientists who are part of the Cosmic Evolution Survey program (COSMOS) created and released the map of the universe Thursday, June 5.
Compiled from more than 10,000 images of COSMOS-Web – the largest observing program of James Webb Space Telescope's first year in orbit – the map covers about three times as much space as the moon takes up when viewed from Earth. That makes it the largest contiguous image available from Webb, according to the Rochester Institute of Technology, whose Jeyhan Kartaltepe is a lead researcher on the project.
An intricate astral tapestry, the map gives stargazers digital views of the ancient cosmos in unprecedented detail and breadth. Scrolling and zooming in can take users some 13.5 billion years back in time when the universe was in its infancy and stars, galaxies and black holes were still forming.
'If you had a printout of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field on a standard piece of paper, our image would be slightly larger than a 13-foot by 13-foot-wide mural, at the same depth," Caitlin Casey, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-lead for the COSMOS project, said in a statement. "It's really strikingly large.'
Explore the interactive map .
Using its powerful resolution and infrared capabilities, the James Webb Space Telescope observed a region of space known as the COSMOS-web field, which scientists have been surveying for years.
The raw data from the COSMOS field observations was made publicly available once it was collected by Webb, but that didn't mean it was easily accessible. That's why the COSMOS project spent two years creating the map from Webb's raw data to make it more digestible for amateur astronomers, researchers and even the general public.
"In releasing the data to the public, the hope is that other astronomers from all over the world will use it to, among other things, further refine our understanding of how the early universe was populated and how everything evolved to the present day," according to a statement from UC Santa Barbara.
The James Webb Space Telescope, which launched in 2021, far surpasses the abilities of the Hubble Space Telescope, launched 35 years ago in 1990.
Orbiting the sun rather than Earth, the Webb is outfitted with a gold-coated mirror and powerful infrared instruments to observe the cosmos like no instrument before. Since reaching the cosmos, Webb has not only facilitated countless scientific breakthroughs in astrophysics, but it also has produced gorgeous images of planets and other celestial objects, including star-forming regions.
In March, NASA also deployed into orbit its SPHEREx telescope to collect data on more than 450 million galaxies. Scientists say the SPHEREx observatory will be able to get a wider view of the galaxy – identifying objects of scientific interest that telescopes like Hubble and Webb can then study up close.
SPHEREx became operational in May, constantly snapping images of the cosmos.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Astronomers release largest interactive map of universe: Check it out
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