Latest news with #CaitlinCasey
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Science
- Daily Mail
Scroll through the UNIVERSE: Incredible interactive map lets you explore nearly 800,000 galaxies - peering back as far as 13.5 billion years
Studying the depths of the universe usually involves billions of pounds of supercomputers, satellites, and telescopes. But a team of scientists has now made it possible for you to explore the cosmos from the comfort of your own home. Their incredible interactive map, dubbed COSMOS-Web, lets you scroll through almost 800,000 galaxies and peer back as far as 13.5 billion years. That means looking back through 98 per cent of cosmic time almost to the birth of the universe 13.8 billion years ago. Covering an area of sky about the same size as three full moons, this image combines more than 10,000 photographs from the James Webb Space Telescope. Professor Caitlin Casey, an astronomer at UC Santa Barbara who co-led the COSMOS collaboration, said: 'Our goal was to construct this deep field of space on a physical scale that far exceeded anything that had been done before. '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. 'So it's really strikingly large.' While the data for this map has existed for a while, it was previously in a raw form that needed expert analysis and a supercomputer to interpret. But over the last two years, an international team of scientists has worked to turn the data behind the largest map of the universe into something that anyone can use. In the stunning interactive map, at this link, you can zoom out to see hundreds of thousands of galaxies stretch across the sky or zoom in to reveal amazing details. Using the tools included in the map you can even dive deeper into the data by switching between different imaging tools. To learn even more, turn on catalogues using the tabs on the left-hand side and click on any galaxy to bring up a vast trove of data. The researchers have made this available to the public in the hopes that more people will be able to help dig into the data and unpick some of the universe's most puzzling questions. Professor Casey says: 'The best science is really done when everyone thinks about the same data set differently. 'It's not just for one group of people to figure out the mysteries.' Six galaxies hidden in the COSMOS-Web map as they were 3 billion, 4 billion, 8 billion, 9 billion and 10 billion years ago (from top left to bottom right). This period spans almost the entirety of cosmic history Nine galaxies in the map which span all of cosmic time, from upper left to lower right: the present day universe, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 billion years ago Already, this enormous set of data is helping scientists understand how galaxies formed at the beginning of time and challenging some basic assumptions in astronomy. Based on data from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers expected galaxies to be extremely rare in the first 500 million years. This is because it takes a long time for stars to form under gravity and get pulled together into larger structures. But when the researchers looked back at the most distant reaches of the universe, they found there were about 10 times more galaxies than they expected to find. Professor Casey says: 'Since the telescope turned on we've been wondering 'Are these JWST datasets breaking the cosmological model?' 'Because the universe was producing too much light too early; it had only about 400 million years to form something like a billion solar masses of stars. We just do not know how to make that happen.' The map is so much more detailed than earlier efforts because of the size of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). While Hubble's main light-collecting was 7ft 10 inches (2.4m) across, the JWST's is a staggering 21ft (6.5m) wide. You can use the filters on the map to reveal more information about the universe By clicking on any galaxy you can pull up a huge amount of data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope That allows the telescope to collect the faintest traces of light coming from the furthest reaches of the galaxy. Dr Jeyhan Kartaltepe, associate professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology who co-leads COSMOS-Web, says: 'The sensitivity of JWST lets us see much fainter and more distant galaxies than ever before, so we're able to find galaxies in the very early universe and study their properties in detail.' Going forward the team behind COSMOS-Web still has a lot more work to do in order to unpack all the data hidden in the map. They plan to use the JWST spectrographic tools to identify the oldest galaxies in the image and learn more about the chemistry of these early stars. The Big Bang Theory is a cosmological model, a theory used to describe the beginning and the evolution of our universe. It says that the universe was in a very hot and dense state before it started to expand 13,7 billion years ago. This theory is based on fundamental observations. In 1920, Hubble observed that the distance between galaxies was increasing everywhere in the universe. This means that galaxies had to be closer to each other in the past. In 1964, Wilson and Penzias discovered the cosmic background radiation, which is a like a fossil of radiation emitted during the beginning of the universe, when it was hot and dense. The cosmic background radiation is observable everywhere in the universe. The composition of the universe - that is, the the number of atoms of different elements - is consistent with the Big Bang Theory. So far, this theory is the only one that can explain why we observe an abundance of primordial elements in the universe.
NDTV
2 days ago
- Science
- NDTV
James Webb Telescope Unveils Largest-Ever Map Of The Universe, Reveals 800,000 Galaxies
Scientists have unveiled the largest map of the universe, featuring nearly 800,000 galaxies across 13.5 billion years of cosmic history. This groundbreaking map, created by the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) collaboration, covers a small region of the sky equivalent to about three times the size of the full moon. The map showcases galaxies from the early universe, some of which appear as they did 13.5 billion years ago, just 300 million years after the Big Bang. Spanning 98% of the universe's timeline, this comprehensive dataset was made possible by the James Webb Space Telescope's 255 hours of observation. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) spent 255 hours observing a region of space known as the COSMOS field to gather data for the map. This area of the sky was chosen for its minimal interference from stars, gas clouds, and other features, allowing scientists to survey it across various wavelengths of light. The JWST's observations have provided an exceptionally detailed view of the universe dating back 13.5 billion years. Due to the universe's expansion, light from distant sources is stretched into infrared wavelengths, which the JWST was specifically designed to detect. This has enabled scientists to observe faint signals from the universe's early stages, reshaping our understanding of its formation. "Our goal was to construct this deep field of space on a physical scale that far exceeded anything that had been done before. 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 mural, at the same depth. So it's really strikingly large," says physicist Caitlin Casey of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who co-led the COSMOS collaboration with Jeyhan Kartaltepe of the Rochester Institute of Technology. The COSMOS-Web composite image captures a vast expanse of cosmic history, dating back 13.5 billion years, which covers approximately 98% of the universe's total age of 13.8 billion years. By observing this extensive period, researchers aimed to gain insights not only into the earliest galaxies but also into the broader cosmic environments that existed during the formation of the first stars, galaxies, and black holes in the early universe. How to use the Interactive Map Viewer To explore the map, curious individuals can visit the project's map viewer by following a link and clicking the "check it out!" button. The map displays over 700,000 galaxies and other objects in a square-ish image. To navigate the map effectively, use the layers and filters in the top right corner. These include: Views: Options like NIRCam RGB and other views Tiles: Breaks down the image into segments, showing which instrument captured each part Objects of Interest: Outlines notable objects, providing catalogue IDs, raw images, and additional data points like light wavelength The top left tools allow for search and configuration, enabling adjustments to brightness and hue to enhance object visibility. Users can experiment with the controls to discover interesting features and reset settings by refreshing the browser window.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
The Universe's Largest Map Has Arrived, And You Can Stargaze Like Never Before
After many hours of staring unblinking at a small patch of sky, JWST has given us the most detailed map ever obtained of a corner of the Universe. It's called the COSMOS-Web field, and if that sounds familiar, it's probably because an incredible image of it dropped just a month ago. That, however, was just a little taste of what has now come to pass. The full, interactive map and all the data have just dropped, a map that vastly outstrips the famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field's 10,000 galaxies. The new map contains nearly 800,000 galaxies – hopefully heralding in a new era of discovery in the deepest recesses of the Universe. "Our goal was to construct this deep field of space on a physical scale that far exceeded anything that had been done before," says physicist Caitlin Casey of the University of California Santa Barbara, who co-leads the COSMOS collaboration with Jeyhan Kartaltepe of the Rochester Institute of Technology. "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. So it's really strikingly large." JWST is our best hope for understanding the Cosmic Dawn, the first billion or so years after the Big Bang, which took place around 13.8 billion years ago. This epoch of the Universe is extremely difficult to observe: it's very far away, and very faint. Because the Universe is expanding, the light that travels to us from greater distances is stretched into redder wavelengths. With its powerful resolution and infrared capabilities, JWST was designed for just these observations: finding the faint light from the dawn of time which informs us on the processes that gave rise to the Universe we see around us today. The COSMOS-Web image covers a patch of sky a little bigger than the area of 7.5 full Moons, and peers back as far as 13.5 billion years, right into the time when the opaque primordial fog that suffused the early Universe was beginning to clear. There, the researchers are looking not just for early galaxies, they're looking for an entire cosmic ecosystem – an interactive gravitational dance of objects bound by the cosmic web of dark matter that spans the entire Universe. JWST data collected to date indicates that even with Hubble data, we've barely scratched the surface of what lurks within the Cosmic Dawn. "The Big Bang happens and things take time to gravitationally collapse and form, and for stars to turn on. There's a timescale associated with that," Casey says. "And the big surprise is that with JWST, we see roughly ten times more galaxies than expected at these incredible distances. We're also seeing supermassive black holes that are not even visible with Hubble." This profusion of well-formed galaxies hasn't just surprised astronomers – it's given them a whopping great puzzle to solve. According to our current understanding of galaxy evolution, not enough time had elapsed since the Big Bang for them to have formed. Even one is a bit of a head-scratcher – but the numbers in which JWST is finding them just boggle the mind. With access to datasets free and available to everyone who wants to take a crack, however, we may get a few answers. "A big part of this project is the democratization of science and making tools and data from the best telescopes accessible to the broader community," Casey says. "The best science is really done when everyone thinks about the same data set differently. It's not just for one group of people to figure out the mysteries." Papers on the data have been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy & Astrophysics. Meanwhile, you can head over to the COSMOS-Web interactive website and muck about zooming through the Universe nearly all the way back to the beginning of time. Giant Jets Bigger Than The Milky Way Seen Shooting From Black Hole Humanity Has Just Glimpsed Part of The Sun We've Never Seen Before 'City-Killer' Asteroid Even More Likely to Hit The Moon in 2032
