Origin concept
The original COSMOS concept was created to address a practical research gap: cosmology artifacts can be visually complex, but the review trail behind a human observation is often too thin for public participation, later audit, or reproducible comparison. A person may notice an unusual tile sector, residual pattern, edge effect, or sidecar signal, yet the project still needs to know exactly what was shown, where the observation was made, what note explained it, and what evidence traveled with it.
For what
COSMOS-CQA was meant to become a research-only quality assurance lane for cosmology image artifacts: map tiles, synthetic examples, residual-like visual patterns, sidecar signals, and candidate zones that may deserve structured follow-up. It is not meant to turn a public click into a scientific conclusion.
For who
The concept serves three groups at once: researchers who need cleaner triage and provenance, citizen contributors who need a clear and responsible way to participate, and project stewards who need public evidence workflows before any selective-access researcher application is built.
Why
The purpose was to make human review more useful without overstating it. Human pattern recognition can help surface possible artifacts or review targets, but only if the observation is tied to a stable tile, coordinate, label state, note, source hash, and claim boundary.
Problem
Public visual review can lose essential context. A screenshot or simple label rarely preserves the source artifact, the tile sector, the hidden truth-label policy, the reviewer note, the provenance hash, the exported report, or the limitations that keep the work in the research lane.
Solution
The solution was a local-first workbench that turns observation into auditable evidence: pin a tile location, require a note before submission, keep public truth labels hidden, record provenance, export validation reports and evidence bundles, and make deterministic replay possible for later review.
Rework into a public research product
The current COSMOS-CQA public project converts the original browser prototype into maintainable research infrastructure: modular source, schema contracts, deterministic replay tests, Core Pack intake, evidence bundles, validation reports, SBOM references, and a public portal at the canonical domain.
The product stance is intentionally bounded. COSMOS-CQA is not a production decision system, not a scientific-claim engine, and not an OSI open-source release. It is a research-source workbench for artifact QA, provenance, reproducibility, and review.
Public science and data references
The concept is shaped by public cosmology data cultures around CMB maps, lensing products, survey catalogs, reproducible releases, and citizen science. COSMOS-CQA does not redistribute restricted third-party datasets; it uses synthetic examples, manifests, citations, and documented boundaries unless rights clearly permit more.
- ESA Planck Legacy Archive, public access point for Planck mission products used as a conceptual reference for CMB map and artifact-review workflows.
- Planck Collaboration, Planck 2018 results I, overview and cosmological legacy paper for the Planck 2018 release context.
- NASA LAMBDA WMAP data products, public WMAP mission data reference for CMB map-release and reproducibility expectations.
- NASA LAMBDA ACT products, public Atacama Cosmology Telescope data reference for modern CMB survey products and derived map workflows.
- Dark Energy Survey Data Release 2, public survey release reference relevant to catalog, imaging, and weak-lensing review cultures.
- Galaxy Zoo / Zooniverse, public citizen-science reference point for large-scale human review, classification, and research participation.
These references explain the public science context behind the workbench concept. They do not imply endorsement, data redistribution permission, scientific validation, or production fitness for COSMOS-CQA.
Current public research product
The current public product is a static, citable research portal plus browser workbench. It is designed to make the evidence trail visible: synthetic Core Pack fixture loading, tile passports, labels, bookmarks, validation reports, evidence bundles, provenance hashes, and deterministic reload behavior.