A Journey Deep into The COSMOS Field | Vera C. Rubin Observatory

A Journey Deep into The COSMOS Field | Vera C. Rubin Observatory

This exceptionally deep image from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory reveals the renowned COSMOS field and its surroundings in the constellation Sextans. The view is crowded with galaxies and galaxy clusters spanning an immense range of distances and cosmic ages, while only a handful of foreground stars belong to our own Milky Way. It was created by combining multiple observations from Rubin’s LSST Camera into a deep coadded image and is being released to mark Early Data Preview 2, the first Rubin data preview based on LSST Camera observations.

Packed into this single image from Rubin Observatory are many kinds of galaxies: spirals with delicate arms, smooth elliptical galaxies, distorted merging galaxies, and faint red galaxies from the distant Universe. Only a relatively small number of bright stars from our own Milky Way appear in the foreground, leaving an unusually clear view of galaxies stretching far into the distance.

This image was captured with Rubin’s 3.2-gigapixel LSST Camera—the largest digital camera in the world, mounted on the 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope. It was created by stacking hundreds of individual observations and contains more than half a million galaxies and more than 50,000 stars.

The COSMOS field was selected more than two decades ago to provide astronomers with a relatively unobstructed window into the distant Universe. Located away from the crowded plane of the Milky Way, it contains comparatively few bright stars and little intervening dust, and it is accessible to major observatories on Earth and in space. Even in this exceptionally clear region, Rubin’s remarkable sensitivity reveals traces of faint, glowing galactic cirrus: wisps of interstellar dust within our own Milky Way superimposed on the much more distant cosmic landscape.

Early Data Preview 2 comes on the heels of the beginning of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). With its ability to observe the southern sky deeply, widely, and repeatedly, Rubin Observatory is poised to transform many areas of astronomy.

Learn more about the new Vera Rubin Observatory:

https://noirlab.edu/science/programs/vera-c-rubin-observatory

The LSST Camera (LSSTCam)

https://lsstcam.lsst.io/

An Introduction to Vera Rubin:

https://rubinobservatory.org/about/vera-rubin

Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA

Duration: 1 minute
Release Date: July 31, 2026

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