The largest map of the universe has been released by the multinational scientific collaboration COSMOS, utilizing data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The COSMOS-Web field covers nearly all cosmic time, spanning 13.5 billion years and showcasing around 800,000 galaxies. This map significantly exceeds previous efforts, such as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which captured nearly 10,000 galaxies.
According to UC Santa Barbara physics professor Caitlin Casey, who co-leads the COSMOS collaboration, their goal was to create a deep field of space that far surpassed anything done before. The image reaches back about 13.5 billion years and spans approximately 98% of all cosmic time.
Casey’s team aimed not only to observe distant galaxies but also to gain insights into cosmic environments existing during the early universe, including the formation of stars, galaxies, and black holes. Their research showed that the cosmos is composed of dense regions and voids, with a broader context beyond finding isolated galaxies.
The COSMOS-Web image revealed unexpected findings, including an estimated 10 times more galaxies than predicted at those incredible distances. Additionally, they observed supermassive black holes not visible through Hubble’s telescope. These discoveries sparked new questions about the early universe and its evolution.
“We’re seeing a lot of unanswered questions,” Casey said. “Are these JWST datasets breaking the cosmological model? We just don’t know how to make that happen.” The researchers hope that this data will help further refine our understanding of the early universe’s population and evolution.
The COSMOS collaboration aimed to democratize science by making tools and data accessible to a broader community. By releasing the raw data, they encourage other astronomers to process and interpret it, potentially uncovering new mysteries such as dark matter and physics of the early universe.
Future research plans include further mapping the deep field using spectroscopy to verify the distance of identified galaxies and studying interstellar chemistry. The COSMOS-Web image is available for interactive browsing, accompanied by scientific papers submitted to the Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Source: https://news.ucsb.edu/2025/021905/mapping-space-largest-map-universe-announced