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The COSMOS Hubble ACS Field

A white square with irregular, jagged edges falls just within the dimensions of the image. Within it is a grayscale field that shows hundreds of bright white points in a range of sizes.

This sea of galaxies is the complete, original COSMOS field from the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The full mosaic is a composite of 575 separate ACS images, where each ACS image is about one-tenth the diameter of the full Moon. The jagged edges of the outline are due to the separate images that make up the survey field.

About the Object

  • R.A. Position
    R.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
    10h 00m 28.6s
  • Dec. Position
    Dec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
    02° 12' 21.0"
  • Constellation
    ConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.
    Sextans
  • Dimensions
    DimensionsThe physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky.
    The full COSMOS survey field covers about 2 square degrees.

About the Data

  • Data Description
    Data DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
    Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.

    This is the full Hubble mosaic of the entire COSMOS field, and it was constructed by A. Koekemoer (STScI) using the Hubble data from proposals 9822 and 10092 (N. Scoville).

  • Instrument
    InstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.
    HST>ACS/WFC
  • Exposure Dates
    Exposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
    15 Oct. 2003 - 24 Nov. 2005
  • Filters
    FiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.
    F814W
  • Object Name
    Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
    Cosmological Evolution Survey Field, COSMOS Field
  • Object Description
    Object DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.
    Astronomical Survey
  • Release Date
    August 18, 2021
  • Science Release
    Mapping the Universe’s Earliest Structures with COSMOS-Webb
    Read the release
  • Credit
    NASA, ESA, Anton Koekemoer (STScI), Nick Scoville (Caltech)

Downloads

  • Full Res (For Print), 1536 × 1536
    tif (2.14 MB)
  • Full Res (For Display), 1536 × 1536
    png (2.15 MB)

Related Images & Videos

Comparison between the COSMOS field of view from Hubble's ACS and the COSMOS field of view from Webb. In the bottom left corner is an image of the Moon for scale.

The COSMOS-Webb Field Compared with the Hubble ACS Field

The COSMOS-Webb survey will map 0.6 square degrees of the sky—about the area of three full Moons—using the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument, while simultaneously mapping a smaller 0.2 square degrees with the Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI)....

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Details

Last Updated
Aug 28, 2025
Contact
Media

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Science Credit

NASA, ESA, Anton Koekemoer (STScI), Nick Scoville (Caltech)

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