JWST Maps the Cosmic Web in Unprecedented Detail

Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope data from the COSMOS-Web survey—the telescope’s largest General Observer program—astronomers have created the most detailed map of the cosmic web to date, tracing the network of galaxies across 13.7 billion years of cosmic history back to when the universe was about 1 billion years old. The improvement comes from JWST’s deep infrared observations and precise galaxy distances, revealing filamentary structures that earlier maps smoothed over. The team is releasing the large-scale structure maps, a catalog of about 164,000 galaxies, and a video publicly for broader study of galaxy formation and cosmic evolution.