This single space photo contains over half a million galaxies: Here is how it looks

By
Ashish Singh
HIGHLIGHTS

Rubin Observatory stacked hundreds of exposures to create a 3.2-billion-pixel image of the COSMOS field.

The image features 500,000+ galaxies and over 50,000 stars, offering one of the deepest views of the universe.

The release marks Rubin's first major LSST Camera data preview, paving the way for its decade-long sky survey.

The astronomers have showcased one of the most detailed images of the universe every captured in history. The image revealed more than 500,000 galaxies and over 50,000 stars in a single frame. This image was captured at Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile using its 3.2-gigapixel LSST Camera, the largest digital camera ever built.

Rather than taking a single photo, the scientists have combined hundreds of exposures to create the final image. This image stacking technique makes faint and distant galaxies visible giving an unprecedented look at a region of space known as the COSMOS field.

For the unversed, the COSMOS field has been studied for over two decades starting with observations by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2003. It is located away from the crowded plane of the Milky Way and offers a relatively clear view of distant galaxies with minimal interference from nearby stars and dust.

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The latest image includes spiral galaxies, elliptical galaxies, systems undergoing collisions and extremely distant galaxies whose light has travelled for billions of years before reaching Earth.

This release is part of Rubin Observatory’s Early Data Preview 2 (EDP2) which is based on observations collected between April 2025 and January 2026. The data covers around 3,000 square degrees of the night sky, roughly one sixth of the visible southern hemisphere.

The image is an important step for the observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time, a 10-year project that will repeatedly scan the sky to build the most detailed time-lapse record of the universe ever created.

Rubin Observatory Director Bob Blum also stated that the COSMOS field are said to uncover thousands of short-lived cosmic events, including supernovae and also reveal even fainter galaxies and deeper insights into the early universe.

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Ashish Singh

Ashish Singh is the Chief Copy Editor at Digit. He's been wrangling tech jargon since 2020 (Times Internet, Jagran English '22). When not policing commas, he's likely fueling his gadget habit with coffee, strategising his next virtual race, or plotting a road trip to test the latest in-car tech. He speaks fluent Geek.

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By
Ashish Singh
03-Aug-2026