Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have unveiled the largest map of the early universe to date, a sweeping cosmic panorama that offers seasoned scientists and curious stargazers alike a front-row seat to the ancient cosmos.
The images come from COSMOS-Web, the largest observing program the James Webb Space Telescope undertook in its first year. It surveyed a patch of sky equivalent to the width of three full moons placed side-by-side, the telescope's widest observation area to date. The survey stitched together more than 10,000 exposures, revealing nearly 800,000 galaxies, many of which shine from the universe's earliest eras. Harnessing the abundance of data that came from this effort, on Thursday (June 5), the team released the largest contiguous image ever captured by the JWST, along with a free, interactive catalog detailing the properties of each galaxy — a cosmic record that's as vast as it is richly detailed.
