The European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope took colorful pictures of the universe. The telescope captured images of a horse-shaped nebula, new galaxies, and hints about dark stuff. These pictures reveal that the telescope can aid in uncovering mysteries about unknown subjects.
The Horsehead Nebula is a big, dark cloud in Orion, far from Earth. Scientists can use this picture to find new stars and planets.
The first batch includes 5 images
Agence France-Presse launched Euclid on July 1. It shows an accurate picture of the universe.It maps one-third of the sky and has 2 billion galaxies. The map is in 3D.
Euclid met with NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope. It’s now sending back initial observations. The meeting occurred 1.5 million km away from our planet.
Schematic diagram of the Euclid Space Telescope.
In a statement, Joseph Aschbach, the head of European Space Agency said that Euclid’s first five images are “amazing”. He also said they remind us why we must explore space to learn more about the universe’s mysteries.
The paragraph is about pictures. It has five images that include the Horsehead Nebula, a part of Orion, spiral galaxies, and irregular galaxies.
The IC342 galaxy is in this image. It’s a spiral galaxy. It’s far from Earth, 10.7 million light-years away. If the Milky Way’s gas and dust didn’t cover it, it would be one of the brightest things in the sky.
The picture has NGC 6397 star cluster and many stars. They are together because of gravity. We find them in the Milky Way, 7,800 light-years away.
The galaxy NGC 6822 is in the image. It’s 1.6 million light-years away from Earth. It looks like a mist and has pink stars that seem to float in space. Euclid saw it first and it is an irregular galaxy.
Euclid project scientist Rene Laureys announced that the team was most excited about the image of the Perseus galaxy cluster. It is a large and distant group of over 1,000 galaxies.
The Perseus galaxy cluster has many hidden galaxies – over 100,000. European Space Agency found them. A few of these galaxies are 10 billion light-years away and have not been observed before.
In the constellation of Perseus, an image displays over 1,000 shiny galaxies. The cluster has thousands of galaxies with hot gas around them and is considered a huge structure in the universe. This picture comes from about 240 million light-years away from Earth.
“Dark Space Detective”
According to Jean-Charles Quérandel, Euclid is unique because it has a super-wide field of view. This feature has never been seen before in space telescopes. In contrast, the Webb telescope has a narrow view like that of an eye of a needle.
The Euclid Telescope can capture many images quickly due to its wide view. It recently released five images in about eight hours, and 16 more will come out in January.
The European Space Agency named Euclid the “Dark Universe Detective.” Its goal is to examine why 95% of the universe comprises dark energy and matter. These are things that people do not know much about.
According to Carol Mundell, ESA’s science director, galaxies spin faster because of dark matter. Dark energy is responsible for the universe’s accelerating expansion.
Laureys said Euclid’s early images already pointed to “indirect evidence” of dark matter.
Euclid can help us understand how dark energy expanded the universe since the Big Bang. When Euclid gathers enough data, scientists will create a 3D map of the universe. We need to wait for more data from the six-year mission for this to happen.
