1.5TB of stunning space data from the James Webb Space Telescope

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This week we’re quoting…

Bill Diamond (President and CEO at the SETI Institute)

What Diamond said: 

“Space exploration and space and Earth science are not only important for what they contribute to our understanding of the natural world and our place in the cosmos. They engage human curiosity and invoke a sense of wonder.” 

This stuck with us

These words are from our interview with Diamond for the LEAP blog. They stuck with us – and this month, his wisdom jumped to the front of our minds when the James Webb Space Telescope dumped 1.5TB of data on the internet. 

Actually no, dumped is the wrong word. Because this data is absolutely, definitely a gift. 

Data about…what?

On June 5 2025, COSMOS-Web (a NASA-backed project supported by scientists at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of California, Santa Barbara) released “the largest look ever into the deep universe.” 

By released, we mean they’ve made it publicly available, and they’ve even made it easily searchable to non-space experts. This means we – the global public – now have access to the most incredible view into the universe. 

The data comes from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). And it includes an interactive map viewer which you can use to sit and stare in complete awe at stunning space imagery from around 800,000 galaxies. 

We’re finding it hard to look away. 

This data is making people feel small – in a good way

We wanted to find out how this gift from the JWST is making people feel. So we took to Reddit, and came across this thread. 

One Reddit user said, “I feel incredibly small, but filled with wonder.” 

Another said, “This is wild. I’m a speck of dust.” 

And someone else wrote, “I’m very overwhelmed by how small we are sometimes. This is one of those times.” 

We feel it too. 

So we’ll be more succinct than usual in today’s newsletter, and leave you here – because we know you’ve already clicked that link and you’re disappearing into the interactive map viewer anyway. 

See you next week.

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Catch you next week,
The LEAP Team