JWST Maps 164,000 Galaxies in Largest Cosmic Web Survey Across 13 Billion Years
Updated
Updated · Livescience.com · May 18
JWST Maps 164,000 Galaxies in Largest Cosmic Web Survey Across 13 Billion Years
2 articles · Updated · Livescience.com · May 18
A 255-hour COSMOS-Web program used James Webb data to reconstruct the universe’s large-scale “skeleton,” tracing galaxy growth and clustering back to when the cosmos was only a few hundred million years old.
The map links galaxy evolution to environment across cosmic time: dense regions fueled rapid growth early on, but later became associated with galaxies shutting down star formation.
Researchers found massive galaxies in crowded regions are more likely to be quiescent, with star formation suppressed first by mass-related processes up to about 7 billion years ago and more recently by environmental effects.
Compared with the 2021 COSMOS2020 map, the new survey delivers sharper redshift measurements and captures fainter, lower-mass and more distant galaxies, correcting distortions in especially dense and sparse regions.
The publicly released 164,000-galaxy catalog, published May 6 in The Astrophysical Journal, offers one of the clearest views yet of how the cosmic web shaped the universe’s structure.
With our universe’s first detailed map, what undiscovered cosmic anomalies will astronomers find hiding in plain sight?
Is the James Webb telescope revealing that the universe is actually twice as old as we have always believed?
How did ancient 'super quasar' winds, powerful enough to sterilize galaxies, shape the universe we see today?
JWST COSMOS-Web Survey Releases Largest-Ever Map of the Cosmic Web: 164,000 Galaxies and 800,000 Objects Unveiled
Overview
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has ushered in a new era of cosmic exploration by delivering the most detailed and comprehensive map of the cosmic web ever created. Through the COSMOS-Web survey, JWST uses its advanced observational capabilities to provide wide and deep views, allowing scientists to peer back nearly 14 billion years into cosmic history. This survey captures galaxies from the universe’s earliest stages to the present day, offering extensive temporal coverage. As a result, our understanding of the universe’s structure and evolution has been fundamentally transformed, revealing intricate details of the cosmic web that were previously unseen.