This single 3200-megapixel photo contains more than half a million galaxies and 50,000+ stars. Vera Rubin scientists say this is just the beginning

This exceptionally deep image from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory reveals the renowned COSMOS field and its surroundings in the constellation Sextans. The view is crowded with galaxies and galaxy clusters spanning an immense range of distances and cosmic ages, while only a handful of foreground stars belong to our own Milky Way. It was created by combining multiple observations from Rubin’s LSST Camera into a deep coadded image and is being released to mark Early Data Preview 2, the first Rubin data preview based on LSST Camera observations. The COSMOS field was selected more than two decades ago to provide astronomers with a relatively unobstructed window into the distant Universe. Located away from the crowded plane of the Milky Way, it contains comparatively few bright stars and little intervening dust, and it is accessible to major observatories on Earth and in space. Even in this exceptionally clear region, Rubin’s remarkable sensitivity reveals traces of faint, glowing galactic cirrus: wisps of interstellar dust within our own Milky Way superimposed on the much more distant cosmic landscape. Early Data Preview 2 comes on the heels of the beginning of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). With its ability to observe the southern sky deeply, widely, and repeatedly, Rubin Observatory is poised to transform many areas of astronomy.

3200MP, 500,000+ galaxies and 50,000+ stars: These are the numbers from the latest image coming from the world’s largest camera at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. And yet, researchers say the latest image from the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) is just the beginning of what the record-breaking night sky camera could achieve.

The National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, or NOIRLab, has released a new image of the COSMOS Field, one of the most observed sections of the sky, thanks to its relatively little interference from the light and dust of the Milky Way.