In an earth-bending revelation, The European Space Agency (ESA) Euclid space mission has revealed its full-color images of the cosmos, which gives an unparalleled view of a distant universe. These are the pin-sharp astronomical visuals taken ever from the reality of such a huge piece of the sky, initiating the ambitious quest of Euclid to produce the biggest 3D map of the universe.
Now it will be Euclid’s turn in no less than an attempt, Herculean: to look into the mystery of the dark matter and dark energy that make up 95% of our cosmos. Euclid will dedicate the next six years to observing the shapes, distances, and motions of billions of galaxies, some located 10 billion light-years away. The mission is supposed to illuminate how these dark entities shaped the very universe as we know it.
“Dark matter pulls galaxies together and causes them to spin more rapidly than visible matter alone can account for; dark energy is driving the accelerated expansion of the Universe,” explained ESA Director of Science, Professor Carole Mundell. Euclid will provide the unique capability of gathering, in a single wide-area observation, extremely sharp visible and infrared images, in so doing to advance our knowledge of these cosmic phenomena to an unmatched degree.
The early images released on behalf of Euclid are simply amazing. They include a detailed view of the Perseus Cluster of galaxies that shows 1,000 galaxies residing in the cluster and over 100,000 more in the background. This image alone provides invaluable insights into how dark matter has influenced the formation of such massive structures.
Another one of the astonishing images is of the spiral galaxy IC 342, having another name, the galaxy Invisible naked IC 342. Euclid’s infrared capabilities have already revealed some of the crucial information relating to the stars of this galaxy, bearing a resemblance to our own Milky Way.
Euclid also pictured the irregular dwarf galaxy NGC 6822, a mere 1.6 million light-years away from Earth. This galaxy, like many of the others belonging to its type, is a building block of larger galaxies and provides a window of insight into the early universe.
At the same time, it shows the globular cluster of NGC 6397, which ranks second closest to Earth. This ability of Euclid to observe the whole of a globular cluster at one go, but at the same time isolating individual stars is crucial to finding data on the history of the Milky Way and the distribution of dark matter.
Another eye-catcher is the panoramic, detailed view of the Horsehead Nebula, a part of the Orion constellation, provided by Euclid. The treasured science is to be able to spot the very faint and partly invisible planets of Jupiter mass, young brown dwarfs, and baby stars obscured by the light of fully developed stars.
These first images not only boast an astonishing performance by Euclid but also open a great treasure of information for the scientific community. Over the next few months, those images will be analyzed by scientists in the Euclid Consortium one by one, who will present the results in a series of scientific papers, bringing to light the hidden secrets of the universe.
With the launching of Euclid on July 1, 2023, it is now in the final steps of testing and calibration before routine science observations can begin in early 2024. Throughout its six-year mission, Euclid will chart one-third of the sky with a level of precision and sensitivity that is unprecedented, making data releases scheduled annually.
It was an example of European excellence and global cooperation: contributions were made by NASA, among more than 2,000 scientists from 300 institutes in 13 countries. “The first images captured by Euclid are awe-inspiring and remind us of why it is essential that we go to space to learn more about the mysteries of the Universe.” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher.
The scientific community awaits with bated breath that discovery, which awaits full of the promise of reshaping our knowledge of the cosmos and its brought-to-light dark forces, in the EMU mission brought up by Euclid.