Take a Splash Into the Cosmos
Sig14 023

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Observation • September 9th, 2014 • sig14-023

sig14-023

Millions of galaxies populate the patch of sky known as the COSMOS field, short for Cosmic Evolution Survey, a portion of which is shown here. Even the smallest dots in this image are galaxies, some up to 12 billion light-years away. The square region in the center of bright objects is where the telescope was blinded by bright light. However, even these brightest objects in the field are more than ten thousand times fainter than what you can see with the naked eye.

The picture is a combination of infrared data from Spitzer (red) and visible-light data (blue and green) from Japan's Subaru telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. These data were taken as part of the SPLASH (Spitzer large area survey with Hyper-Suprime-Cam) project.

About the Object

Name
COSMOS Field
Type
Cosmology > Morphology > Deep Field

Color Mapping

Band Wavelength Telescope
Infrared 4.5 µm Spitzer IRAC
Infrared 3.6 µm Spitzer IRAC
Optical 900 nm Subaru Suprime-Cam
Optical 440 nm Subaru Suprime-Cam

Astrometrics

Position (J2000)
RA =10h 1m 14.6s
Dec = 2° 12' 34.4"
Field of View
10.2 x 10.2 arcminutes
Orientation
North is up