For over two decades, the COSMOS collaboration has worked together to understand the formation and evolution of galaxies and large-scale structure of the Universe — and at the same time, to provide the community with reference catalogues of the distant Universe.
The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope provided a unique opportunity to advance our knowledge of the distant Universe. An ambitious 255h program was accepted to cover the COSMOS field over a much larger area than any other JWST survey (about the area of three full moons). COSMOS-Web provides the largest view into the distant universe ever, with unprecedented details on galaxy shapes, capturing some of the rarest objects in the universe.
Today, the team announced the release of all the images taken by COSMOS-Web as well as the associated catalogues. These images and supporting data are now available for all scientists to delve in and make further discoveries. Three accompanying papers provide comprehensive explanations of the methods used for data reduction and catalogue creation (Franco et al., Shuntov et al., Harish et al.).
The catalogue contains approximately 750,000 galaxies. Each galaxy has been extensively analysed. We provide properties like the galaxy distance, morphology, or stellar mass, among many others. The building of such images and catalogues has only been possible by combining the expertise of our team members in many topics. In today’s climate, open, accessible science is more important than ever. Anyone can access the same catalogues and images used by the COSMOS team available through the team’s data release website, and navigate through such a beautiful Universe.
The French contingent of the COSMOS team, strongly supported by the CNES and the ANR, has played a central role in the COSMOS project since its inception. For this release, IAP and LAM provided precise photometry, redshift measurements and physical parameters.
Many new observations in COSMOS are ongoing. More James Webb observations are in progress, looking deeply into the central part of COSMOS. ESA’s Euclid mission has already covered the entire COSMOS field twice in both visible and near-infrared bands. These data will continue to enrich the COSMOS field and provide a rich seam of discoveries for many years to come.
More information:
- the press release: https://cosmos.astro.caltech.edu/news/87
- the papers: Franco et al., Shuntov et al., Harish et al.
- the viewer: https://cosmos2025.iap.fr/fitsmap/?ra=150.1203188&dec=2.1880050&zoom=3
- contact LAM : Olivier Ilbert
