The COSMOS-Web survey, the largest Cycle 1 JWST General Observer program, was proposed in 2021 (right) as a large-area survey overlapping the COSMOS field acquired with Hubble. The complete and complete COSMOS-Web field is shown on the left.. (Credit: COSMOS-Web Collaboration)
By deep imaging a large volume of space, COSMOS-Web provides JWST’s widest cosmic views. Its gravitational lenses reveal a big surprise.
The JWST era continues to show us the Universe like never before.
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This very unusual object was detected with JWST: a background spiral galaxy heavily distorted by the gravitational lensing effects of a foreground elliptical galaxy. These data were part of the Strong Lensing and Cluster Evolution (SLICE) study, which focuses on the evolution of galaxy clusters; an independent complement to the gravitational lensing found as part of the broader field COSMOS-Web study. (Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA and CSA, G. Mahler; Acknowledgment: MA McDonald)
This composite image shows the full field of a large galaxy cluster within the COSMOS-Web survey, using a combination of infrared data from JWST NIRCam and Hubble, with X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Telescope overlaid in purple. X-rays are evidence of heated gas produced when galaxy clusters merge or undergo major disruptive events. (Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA and CSA, G. Gozaliasl, A. Koekemoer, M. Franco and the COSMOS-Web team)
This portion of the full COSMOS-Web field highlights several giant elliptical galaxies, as well as many nearby massive spirals. JWST easily reveals their large, massive, extended but low surface brightness halos, allowing astronomers to better determine how the galaxies’ stellar mass evolves over time. Many candidate galaxy clusters and protoclusters can be seen in the background, along with several gravitational lenses. (Credit: COSMOS-Web Collaboration)
Massive objects, such as foreground galaxies, gravitationally distort any light traveling along their line of sight.
