Breathtaking! Euclid telescope reveals first images from massive 3D map of universe

The Euclid Space Telescope revealed the “first page” of the world’s largest 3D map of the universe on Tuesday(Oct 15). The first look of the cosmic atlas features tens of millions of stars within the Milky Way and around 14 million distant galaxies beyond our own.

The Euclid mission was launched in 2023 by the European Space Agency (ESA) with contributions from NASA. The American space agency sent the first snapshots ofthe mission in November 2023 and then in May 2024.

This mission aims to make a 3D cosmic atlas in the time and space of the universe, which will help in revealing the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, that together make up 95 per cent of the universe.

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The picture shared on Tuesdayaccounts for just oneper cent of the total survey Euclid will conduct over the next six years to complete this one-of-a-kind 3D map.

"This stunning image is the first piece of a map that in six years will reveal more than one-third of the sky," Valeria Pettorino, Euclid Project Scientist at the European Space Agency (ESA), said in a statement.

"This is just 1% of the map, and yet it is full of a variety of sources that will help scientists discover new ways to describe the universe."

A ‘dark universe detective’ in guise of cosmic atlas?

Launched in July 2023, Euclid began making scientific observations in February. This wide-angle space telescope has a 600-megapixel camera which is capable of recording visible light and near-infrared light using a spectrometer. This enables it to measure "redshift," the changes in which wavelengths of light reach us caused as galaxies race away from the Milky Way.

Now imagine, Euclid doing this for a vast number of galaxies. Euclid alsomeasures the effect of dark energy, the mysterious force driving the acceleration of the universe, by expanding the space between galaxies.

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"Euclid is observing the universe in a brand new way, and it's gonna get a gigantic census of the galaxies," Universidad ECCI cosmologist Luz Ángela García Peñaloza told Space.com.

"Any image that reveals information about the distribution of galaxies in the large-scale structure of the universe will provide handfuls of information on the nature of the dark side of the cosmos."

Recent images released by ESA highlight the area of the sky covered by the new mosaic, together with the mosaic itself and zoomed-in views within it.

(With inputs from agencies)