The first images from the Euclid Space Telescope would enable the creation of the most comprehensive 3D map of the universe

The ESA’s Euclid space mission today revealed the first color images of the cosmos. Never before has a telescope been able to take such sharp astronomical images over so much of the sky and see so far into the distant universe.

These first five images illustrate the full potential of the Euclid telescope ready to create the most comprehensive 3D map of the universe yet, to discover some of its hidden secrets.

The first images show a horse’s head nebula, never-before-seen distant galaxies and ‘indirect evidence’ of elusive dark matter.

Euclid was launched into space in July with the mission to reveal major scientific mysteries such as dark matter and dark energy.

After reaching one of the Lagrange points, where an object is in a stable orbit 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, Euclid began transmitting its first images, taken with cameras operating in visible light and near- infrared work.

3D space map

The telescope will map a third of the sky, which covers 2,000 million galaxies, with the aim of developing the most accurate three-dimensional map of the universe in history.

These images show a “range of objects from the galactic zoo in terms of diversity, colors and shapes,” says Jean-Charles Cuillandre, an astronomer at the Euclid consortium.

The director of the European Space Agency (ESA), Josef Aschbacher, said in a statement that the first five images of Euclid They are “breathtaking” and remind us why it is essential to “go into space to learn more about the mysteries of the universe.”

Scientist Rene Laureijs, who is part of this project, said the image that excited his team the most was the image Perseus Cluster, a group of very distant galaxies.

Behind these objects are another 100,000 galaxies, some of which are 10 billion light-years away and have never been captured before, according to ESA.

The ESA called Euclid a ‘detective of the dark universe’ whose mission is to investigate why 95% of the universe appears to be made up of dark matter and energy, about which we know little.

“Dark matter binds galaxies together and causes them to spin faster than visible matter alone can explain. Dark energy is driving the accelerated expansion of the universe,” said Carole Mundell, ESA Scientific Director.

Laureijs indicated that the first Euclid images already point to “indirect evidence” for the existence of dark matter.

An example, according to the scientist, is that the telescope did not capture any stars around the globular star cluster NGC 6397, which consists of thousands of objects.

“One of the theories is that there could be dark matter nearby,” which holds all the stars together, he said.

Look into the past

Scientists also believe that by capturing light that took ten billion years to reach Earth, Euclid could help better understand how dark energy has fueled the expansion of the universe since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

Once they have collected enough data, scientists want to create a 3D map, in which the third dimension will be time.

According to Laureijs, this map would allow us to “walk through a part of the sky and go back in time 10 billion years.”

But mapping the sky will require waiting to collect data from this mission, which has a planned duration of six years.

Working with Euclid has not been an easy road. When scientists began their observations, rays from the cosmos disrupted the telescope’s orientation sensor.

Laureijs explained that the application had an algorithm that was ‘deceived’ by cosmic radiation.

After correcting this problem, astronomers found that light from the sun was reflected, requiring the telescope to be rotated slightly. (JO)