The recently de-iced Euclid Space Telescope has shown us what it can do with its crystal clear optics. The European Space Agency (ESA) hopes to use Euclid to gain a better understanding of dark matter and dark energy, which together make up 95% of the universe. After last year's debut, the team has just released the second set of images from the telescope and the first batch of mission data for scientists. The ESA also promises a whopping 10 scientific papers pending publication based on Euclid's early work.
Euclid has a 600-megapixel camera and a sizable 1.2-meter mirror. It's no James Webb Space Telescope, but Euclid has a very specific goal. Over the coming years, the team will use Euclid to chart two billion galaxies, covering about one-third of the sky. This will allow scientists to examine the connection between distance and redshift, which is critical to understanding the expansion of the galaxy and how it's affected by dark matter and dark energy.
Throughout this process, Euclid will take some stunning images of celestial objects, and the ESA has been so good as to release a new batch along with its first major data drop.
Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA
The new shot of Messier 78 (above) is the most visually interesting of the latest images. This is a star-forming region about 1,350 light-years away in the constellation Orion. Euclid's infrared instruments identified 300,000 new objects in this field of view, some of them just a few times larger than the planet Jupiter. This data set is being used to study the ratio of stellar and sub-stellar objects in the molecular cloud.
Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA
This image of the Abell 2390 cluster reveals more than 50,000 galaxies. Toward the center, Euclid also spotted examples of gravitational lensing, where the light from more distant objects is warped by gravity into long arc-like structures. This phenomenon will be a key factor in Euclid's study of dark matter in galaxy clusters.
Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA
Next up is another galaxy cluster known as Abell 2764. It's in the far upper right of this image. The cluster is surrounded by a halo of dark matter. Scientists hope to use Euclid's extremely wide field of view to determine the radius of the cluster and find its borders with other galaxies still in the frame.
Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA
Astronomers are also taking a close look at NGC 6744, thanks to Euclid. This image shows the spiral galaxy within a single frame with numerous foreground and background objects visible. Euclid resolved details in the fine dust lanes that weave through this galaxy. The team is using this data to map the locations of different star types and track how dust and gas contribute to star formation.
Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA
Finally, we have the Dorado Group, a collection of evolving and merging galaxies showing complex interactions. This image shows off Euclid's wide field and sensitivity. The galaxies in this image range from super-bright to so dim they would not be visible to most telescopes. This data will help the team understand how galaxies form within halos of dark matter.
Euclid is at the beginning of a six-year mission. The team analyzing this telescope's data includes more than 2,000 scientists from around the globe. The mission's public data release and high-resolution versions of the new images can be accessed on the Euclid Consortium website.
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2024-05-24 11:00:00Z
CBMiYGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmV4dHJlbWV0ZWNoLmNvbS9zY2llbmNlL2VzYS1yZWxlYXNlcy1zdHVubmluZy1uZXctaW1hZ2VzLWZyb20tZXVjbGlkLXNwYWNlLXRlbGVzY29wZdIBAA
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