In the name of open science, the multinational scientific collaboration COSMOS on Thursday released the data behind the largest map of the universe.
‘Lots of unanswered questions’ While the COSMOS-Web images and catalog answer many questions astronomers have had about the early universe, they also spark more questions.
The dataset may also provide clues to other outstanding mysteries of the cosmos, such as dark matter and physics of the early universe that may be different from what we know today.
The COSMOS collaboration has worked tirelessly for the past two years to convert raw data into broadly usable images and catalogs.
For the COSMOS collaboration, the exploration continues.
COSMOS, a global scientific collaboration, released the data behind the universe’s largest map on Thursday in the interest of open science. The project, which was constructed using data gathered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is known as the COSMOS-Web field. It includes a catalog of almost 800,000 galaxies and all imaging data for almost all of cosmic time. Furthermore, it has been questioning preconceived ideas about the young universe.
Jeyhan Kartaltepe of the Rochester Institute of Technology and Caitlin Casey, a physics professor at UC Santa Barbara, co-lead the COSMOS-Web collaboration. “Our goal was to construct this deep field of space on a physical scale that far exceeded anything that had been done before,” Casey said.
Referring to the famous image of almost 10,000 galaxies published by NASA in 2004, she stated, “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.”. It is therefore remarkably large. “..”.
The universe is roughly 13.8 billion years old, give or take a hundred million years, according to NASA, and the COSMOS-Web composite image dates back roughly 13.5 billion years. About 98 percent of cosmic time is covered by that.
The researchers wanted to see a broader picture of the cosmic environments that existed in the early universe, when the first stars, galaxies, and black holes formed, in addition to some of the most intriguing galaxies from the beginning of time.
“The cosmos is organized in dense regions and voids,” Casey clarified. And we wanted to understand the larger context of where they lived, not just locate the galaxies that were the furthest away. “..”.
a “big surprise.”.
And it proved to be a cosmic neighborhood. Because of JWST’s 6.5 meter (21 foot) diameter light-collecting primary mirror, which is roughly six times larger than Hubble’s 2.4 meter (7 foot, 10 in) diameter mirror, Casey and other astronomers anticipated how many more galaxies the space telescope would be able to see before it turned on. Galaxies within the first 500 million years would be extremely rare, according to the best measurements from Hubble, she said.
It makes sense because stars turn on and things take time to form and gravitationally collapse after the Big Bang. “There is a timeline linked to that,” Casey clarified.
We see about ten times as many galaxies with JWST than we would have anticipated at these amazing distances, which is the main surprise. Additionally, we’re observing supermassive black holes that Hubble cannot even detect. “And they’re not just seeing more,” she continued, “they’re seeing different kinds of black holes and galaxies.
“Many unresolved questions.”.
Astronomers have many questions about the early universe, which the COSMOS-Web images and catalog help to answer, but they also raise new ones.
Since the telescope’s activation, we have been wondering if the JWST datasets are contradicting the cosmological model because the universe had only 400 million years to form a billion solar masses of stars and was producing too much light too soon. Casey stated, “We simply don’t know how to make that happen.”. There are a lot of details to consider and questions that remain. “..”.
It is hoped that by making the data publicly available, other astronomers from around the world will use it to further refine our understanding of how the early universe was populated and how everything evolved to the present day. The dataset might also offer hints about other unsolved cosmic mysteries, like dark matter and early universe physics that differ from what we currently understand.
“Democratizing science and making tools and data from the best telescopes accessible to the broader community is a big part of this project,” Casey stated.
Nearly immediately after it was collected, the data was released to the public, but only in its unprocessed form, making it only accessible to those with the specialized technical know-how and access to supercomputers to process and analyze it. For the past two years, the COSMOS collaboration has been working nonstop to transform raw data into images and catalogs that are widely usable. By developing these products and making them available, the researchers hope that even astronomers at the undergraduate level will be able to learn something new from the material.
“Because the best science is really done when everyone thinks about the same data set differently,” Casey stated. Deciphering the mysteries is not limited to a single group of people. “,”.
The exploration is ongoing for the COSMOS collaboration. For additional mapping and research, they are returning to the deep field.
She stated, “We have more data collection coming up.”. “We need to confirm our suspicion that we have located the image’s earliest galaxies. “..”.
To verify the distance of these sources—the farther away, the older—they will employ spectroscopy, which splits light from galaxies into a prism.
Tracing nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen will help us comprehend the interstellar chemistry in these systems as a byproduct, Casey continued. We’re only just getting started, and there’s still a lot to learn. “.”.
