First images with, as a result, discoveries. Europe’s Euclid space telescope released its first images on Tuesday, revealing a dazzling horse’s head nebula, never-before-seen distant galaxies and even “indirect evidence” of the existence of elusive dark matter.
Euclid had blasted off in July on the world’s first mission to study the cosmic mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. It accomplishes its task by mapping a third of the sky to create what has been billed as the most accurate 3D map of the Universe.
“Stunning and inspiring” images
After joining another space telescope, the James Webb, at an observation point some 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, the European probe began sending its first observations, revealed Tuesday from the European Operations Center space in Darmstadt, Germany. “Stunning and inspiring images that remind us why it is essential to go to space to learn more about the mysteries of the Universe,” said Josef Aschbacher, head of the European Space Agency (ESA), in a statement.
Euclid’s particularity is to have a wide field of vision “never before seen in the history of astronomy”, where James Webb “looks at the sky through the eye of a needle” in particular to explore the early ages of the Universe, explained to AFP Jean-Charles Cuillandre, astronomer and physicist at the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), member of the Euclid consortium.
It is thanks to this broad view that the telescope, equipped with two devices (optical and near infrared), is able to capture such vast, high-resolution images. All extremely quickly: the first five images only took about eight hours. The next images will be published in January. The European mission must last until at least 2029.