The Euclid Space Telescope has revealed the “first page” of the cosmic atlas it is building. The section of the map of the universe that Euclid is building was released on Monday (October 15), and it includes tens of millions of stars within the Milky Way and about 14 million distant galaxies outside our own galaxy.
The vast cosmic mosaic was created from 260 Euclid observations collected between March 25 and April 8, 2024, and contains 208 gigapixels of data. The area depicted is about 500 times the width of the full moon in the sky above Earth.
Perhaps most surprising is that the mosaic represents just 1% of the total survey Euclid will conduct over the next six years, tracking the shapes, distances and movements of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away. Not only will this result in the largest 3D map of the universe ever created, but the vast scale of this map will help scientists investigate the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, sometimes known as the “dark universe.”
Valeria Petorino, Euclid project scientist at the European Space Agency, said in a report: “This stunning image is the first piece of a map that will reveal more than a third of the sky in six years.” statement. “This represents only 1% of the map, yet it is filled with a variety of sources that will help scientists discover new ways to describe the universe.”
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Launched in July 2023, Euclid began making scientific observations in February. This wide-angle space telescope with a 600-megapixel camera is capable of recording visible and near-infrared light using a spectrometer. This enables us to measure “redshift”, which is the changes in the wavelengths of light reaching us caused by galaxies moving away from the Milky Way.
By doing this for a wide range of galaxies, Euclid can measure the effect of dark energy, the mysterious force that drives the acceleration of the universe, by expanding the space between galaxies.
“Euclid is observing the universe in a completely new way, and will get a huge census of galaxies,” Luz Angela García Peñaloza, a cosmologist at ECCI University, told Space.com. “Any image that reveals information about the distribution of galaxies in the large-scale structure of the universe will provide a handful of information about the nature of the dark side of the universe.
“We still need to wait a little longer to recover a larger sample of galaxies to infer cosmological parameters and rule out some existing models.”
Although it represents only two weeks of observations, the Euclid spacecraft’s sensitive cameras captured a wide range of objects in great detail for this new version.
One feature that will capture scientists’ attention in this Euclid mosaic is the faint clouds that can be seen stretching between the stars within the Milky Way. These appear in wider images as light blue lines on the black space background.
These blue trails are a mixture of gas and dust, and are sometimes referred to as “galactic cirrus” because they look like cirrus clouds in Earth’s sky. Euclid’s ability to visualize these clouds comes from the fact that they reflect optical light from the Milky Way and shine brightly in far-infrared light.
By taking a broader look at the universe and then narrowing it down, the deep details facilitated by Euclid allow astronomers to zoom deep into the mosaic and see complex structures, such as the shape of spiral galaxy ESO 364-G036, located about 420 m. One million light years.
This first page of Euclid’s cosmic atlas and a small slice of the map of the universe he will eventually create is just a teaser of greater things to come from the mission.
About 12% of the planned data collection for Euclid has been completed, and 53 square degrees of the survey, including a preview of regions of Euclid’s deep field, are scheduled for release in March 2025. Cosmology data for the mission’s first year will be released to the scientific community in 2026
“This is just the beginning of what we will be able to see in the life of Euclid,” García Peñaloza concluded. “Certainly, the best is yet to come! I’m sure Euclid will shed light on our understanding of cosmic secrets.”
ESA Director General Joseph Aschbacher and ESA Director of Science Carol Mundell unveiled the Euclid Mosaic at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan, Italy.
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