The distribution of matter within the Universe is defined by a complex multi-scale interconnected network of filaments known as the cosmic web, with extremely dense regions called galaxy clusters residing at its nodes and hosting hundreds of galaxies. During the cosmic noon (about 10 billion years ago), these clusters were still being assembled ("protoclusters") and they were dominated by gas and dust-rich galaxies forming hundreds to thousands of stars per year. Thus, protoclusters were the dominant contribution to star formation in the universe for a brief period of time. However, dust (a byproduct of star formation) obscures and hinders the observations of these objects in the visible range of light even with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and prevents us from obtaining an unequivocal view of the growth and evolution of these galaxies in protoclusters.

The JADES project will overcome these obstacles by obtaining deep and high-resolution observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the ALMA interferometric array in the "Spiderweb" protocluster, one of the best-studied at the cosmic noon. JADES will directly observe both the star formation and the amount of dust surrounding it in these objects, thus revealing their true nature and establishing for the first time a complete census of both obscured and unobscured star formation activities in a protocluster. Moreover, thanks to the combined power of JWST and ALMA, we will be able to map the distribution of dust both inside each of the galaxies and in the structure of the protocluster and the filaments that connect it to the cosmic web, thus investigating the evolutionary and mass growth processes experienced by both galaxies and the large-scale structures they are part of.

In summary, JADES will transform the Spiderweb protocluster into the benchmark for evolutionary studies in protoclusters and will become the cornerstone of present and future numerical simulations investigating the formation of structure and the mass build-up of galaxies during this cosmic epoch.